Awareness of voicing between /f/ and /v/ phonemes

Phonetics

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Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez

Phonetics Final Project

Awareness of voicing between /f/ and /v/ phonemes

Yamel Carolina Ronquillo Cervantes

119990

May, 2016

Miss. Deida Perea Irigoyen

The aim of this paper is to a analyze and describe the characteristics of the labio-dental fricative sounds; specifically, /v/ and /f/ phonemes. In addition, an in-deep teaching analysis, recommendations, and a lesson plan developed in order to provide guidelines for English teachers. Phonological awareness is considered a requirement for a wider perspective of the target language sounds, which indeed, has an impact in teaching practice.

Nowadays, phonological awareness is something that in fact should be considered in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a second language (ESL) classes. As an objective, it is intended to create awareness on the pronunciation of the labio-dental fricative voiced phoneme /v/ and the labio-dental fricative voiceless phoneme /f/. It is considered important to execute this paper considering the fact that many research studies have been done and prove that phonological training is necessary to improve the receptive skills of students.

Since phonological awareness is the aim of this paper, it is considered important to have the clear meaning of it. Anthony and Francis (2005) state that phonological awareness refers to the ability to notice, segregate, and manage the sounds in a language, regardless of the features of the word unit that is the target.

Related to the project’s objective, Clinton et al. (2011) argue that Phonological awareness evidently plays a crucial role in reading English. Considering that this project is developed in a context with Spanish as a first language; Merino (as cited in Clinton, 2011, p. 265) mentions that Spanish has 18 consonants and 5 vowels, in contrast to English, which uses 24 consonants and 12 to 14 vowels. With this said, it is visible that students might have difficulties distinguishing and acquiring English sounds. These authors also reported a study realized in 1995 by Jiménez and Haro, in which they noticed that English speakers with Latin nationality had found harder to produce words with stop consonants (/p/, /b/, /g/, /d/) in initial position; whereas, in words with consonants (/s/, /m/, /f/, /r/) in initial position were a lot easier for them. This is considered important because it suggests that labio-dental fricative voiceless /f/ is not very different in both languages (English and Spanish), which means it is easier to make Spanish-speakers students aware of it. In addition, Quiroga et al. (as cited in Clinton, 2011, p. 267) concluded in their study that phonological awareness is similar to learning to read English when Spanish is the mother tongue and reading instruction is in the L2 (English).

In relation to the previous study, Hayes-Harb (as cited in Perea, et al., 2012, p. 184) concluded in her study that participants were more accurate in the discrimination of sounds distinction when they were exposed to minimal pairs. This study supports this project in the sense that minimal pairs activity is going to be taken into consideration for this paper’s objective. Statistical training was part of the previously mentioned study, and also was considered positive for students’ perceptive skills acquisition. Perea, et al. (2012) also makes emphasis on the fact that thanks to the mentioned study, there is evidence that when presenting single sounds in input, students might recognize sounds easier. This author also cited a research done by Escudero (2006), who considers L2 phonology an elemental part to improve students’ speech and fluency in the target language.

In order for the previous theoretical statements to be proved, it is necessary to connect them to the real practice in an English learning class. According to the citation of various authors of Perea, et al. (2013), it is stated that as a result of diverse studies in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) area, there is the acknowledge of L2 phonological acquisition when applying different training techniques in the L2 classroom. To exemplify the precedent comment and to reinforce what it was previously said, minimal pairs is a favorable technique to start with. As Perea, et al (2013) mentions, minimal pairs is a technique that consists on a pair of words that have precisely the same collocation of sounds, but differentiate on one feature of a phoneme in the same position on both words. (e.g. ‘’chip’’ /čɪp/ and ‘’ship’’ /šɪp/). The authors also mention that this technique has been extensively used and it is also sustained by SLA research studies. As the authors state, the usage intention of the technique is to make students aware of that specific sound that differs in both words and which makes them semantically different.

Further, there is also the articulation technique, which according to Perea, et al (2013), it is helpful for students to identify the features and produce specific English sounds. Likewise, the authors express the fact that students know the place of articulation will be provided with a wonderful tool, which will help them to internalize the sounds. In addition, having visual aids in the classroom might be helpful for the teacher to show the exact place of articulation. Nevertheless, it is vital that the teacher really has the knowledge to give a correct instruction of the features of each sound. Lastly, it is considered important to mention the repetition exercise technique. This technique is based on students listening to an example and then repeating the complete example, word or target phoneme (Perea, et al., 2013). This technique is considered very important because it helps students understand better each sound. As the authors mentioned, these techniques are useful and easy to apply in a class; as well, it is important that teachers take care of students’ production of isolated phonemes.

In addition to the previous, many research studies have demonstrated that interaction with oral language plays a relevant role in developing phonological awareness (Anthony & Francis, 2005).

Anthony & Francis

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