Mastering any language presupposes the formation of students’ listening, speaking, reading, and writing competencies. The competencies require the development of specific skills and abilities from the students. Acquiring some competence appears to be less difficult for the learner, acquiring another competence is much more complicated. The current paper is concerned with the exploration of the specific character of the process of acquiring phonology which distinguishes it from other branches of linguistics. Celce-Murcia once suggested that “acquiring phonology is qualitatively different from acquiring syntax and lexicon.” (Celce-Murcia, 1996 25) We are inclined to think that this statement of hers is rather justified and we are going to prove its validity below.
Phonology is defined as a “study of the sound systems of languages” (Phonology 12346). The distinguished Czech scholar and teacher Johann Amos Comenius stressed the main principles in teaching phonology:
- Use imitation instead of rules;
- Have your students repeat after you (Celce-Murcia, 2001 4).
These principles if followed appropriately by the teacher make the process of teaching and acquiring phonology different from the ones of syntax and lexicon. Though imitation is applicable for teaching each of the competencies mentioned above, acquiring phonology does not seem possible without it. Different imitation techniques that the teacher uses to teach the students the phonological system of the foreign language cannot be used in the teaching peculiarities of syntax and lexicon of the foreign language. In the case of the latter branches of linguistic science imitation is useful in the primary stages of learning the language, whereas in phonology, imitation does not lose its significance throughout the whole course of study.
Repetition also becomes a useful tool in acquiring phonological knowledge. The teacher’s task is to provide the students with samples of foreign speech that they are expected to repeat according to the phonological norms of the language studied, which is not the case with teaching syntax and lexicon.
Phonology acquisition also differs from acquiring syntax and lexicon because this sphere is most of all subjected to the influence of the native language of the learners. Though students are apt to transfer their knowledge from the native language to all levels of the newly acquired one, the phonological layer is at the highest risk to be understood through the perspective of the native language. Thus, the teacher’s task is to prevent possible intrusions of the elements of the phonological system of the native language into the language studied, at the same time using affectively the students’ knowledge that can turn helpful in learning the basics and peculiarities of the foreign language.
Another peculiar feature that distinguishes acquiring phonology is that the sound system of any language is constantly changing and the students need to adjust to the changes that the language undergoes. If compared to phonology, syntax, and lexicon are more stable systems though each layer changes at the course of language development. The teacher of foreign language needs to be aware of the changes the language undergoes and inform his or her students about them. Actually, the changes in the three layers are interdependent; therefore, need to be introduced by the teacher in their complex interaction. But adjusting to changes in the phonological level might present more difficulty for the students due to the complex nature of the biological processes that are responsible for learning foreign phonology.
Also, we would like to touch upon such a peculiarity of teaching phonology as predicting the mistakes that the students can make. The teacher is aware of the most common mistakes that the learners make while mastering phonology and effectively uses this knowledge. But if compared to the prediction of mistakes while acquiring syntax and lexicon the set of problems the student faces is rather flexible, thus the teacher has fewer chances to know where the student will fail in to prevent the repetition of his or her mistake. As far as phonology is concerned, no one knows for sure whether each student’s errors will definitely share the set of mistakes elaborated in the course of the teacher’s experience.
As well as in other layers of the language system, the student’s success in mastering phonology much depends on the extent to which socio-psychological factors are considered by the teacher. The latter has to take into account socio-psychological perspectives of phonology learning, to consider how the students feel about learning phonology, how they react to the strategies the teacher implements in teaching phonology. The teacher sometimes fails to foster in students the burning desire to learn phonology and all his or her attempts to teach them are doomed to failure because of the lack of students’ understanding of the importance and the necessity of what they study.
Thus, we conclude that both teaching and acquiring phonology are rather challenging processes that require many efforts on the teacher’s and the student’s part. Taking into consideration the specific features of these processes described above both parties will get the results they expect.
Works Cited
“Phonology.” The Columbia Encyclopedia. 6th ed. 2007.
Celce-Murcia, Marianne. Teaching Pronunciation: A Course for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Celce-Murcia, Marianne.Teaching English As a Second or Foreign Language. Heinle & Heinle, 2001.