Orientation-preparatory stage

At this stage the teacher introduces new phonetic material. Students perform initial language or speech operations after a given pattern either with or without the teacher’s explanation or a rule. An orientation basis is created as the ground for the further formation of the habit. The character of the orientation basis may be practical and conscious-theoretical.

· With practical orientation basis, speech action is performed as imitation; students perceive the new material subconsciously, through their intuition.

· With conscious-theoretical orientation basis, a rule or an explanation is given along with the teacher’s performance. If there is any difference either in the form or the function of the corresponding language items in the target language and the mother tongue, the phonetic items are frequently contrasted to each other.

The sound character defines the choice of the way of introducing a new sound. Sounds of the target language are subdivided into three groups according to the degree of similarity to those of the students’ mother tongue: 1) approximately identical; 2) seemingly identical and 3) alien sounds.

1) Approximately identical sounds. The phonemes having similar articulation and acoustic characteristics with those of the mother tongue ([p, b, _ò, s, z, m] and others) should be introduced in a speech pattern and taught through imitation. The articulation basis of the Russian language is considered sufficient for them according to the approximation principle. Certain exaggeration is possible while demonstrating new sounds (strengthening aspiration, increasing vowel length, etc.) in order to attract the students’ attention to these sound characteristics. The peculiarities of their pronunciation (explosive nature of consonants, greater force of some of them, etc.) are assimilated through imitating teacher speech without any conscious manipulation of students’ speech organs. In other words, the transfer of articulation habit from the mother tongue takes place.

2) Seemingly identical sounds are the phonemes which have similar characteristics with the mother tongue sounds but differ from them in their essential properties: [e, æ, i, i:, ¶:, a:, Ù, כ, כ:, כi, l, t_ò, d, ai] and others. The mother tongue interference is especially strong in perceiving and reproducing these sounds. To neutralise this interference, it is necessary to break auditive-articulation stereotypeof the mother tongue, to partly reconstruct the articulation basis, to impart new characteristics insignificant for L1 (e.g. vowel length) to L2 sounds. Thus, seemingly identical phonemes are taught through explanation and imitation. They are the main aim of teaching pronunciation in school, together with alien sounds.

3) Alien sounds. Alien to the Russian speaker are the English phonemes [r, h, ð, ŋ, θ, ¶, w] and others. To enable students to perceive and reproduce these sounds it is necessary to create a new articulation basis lacking in L1. The sounds of this group have various degrees of their assimilation difficulty. The sounds, the articulation of which can be easily demonstrated [ð, θ, w] are considered much easier to teach than those, whose articulation basis is practically impossible to demonstrate [r, h, ŋ, ¶]. In this case, exercises in differentiation are needed. Undeveloped phonemic hearing leads to frequent erroneous associations of the target language sounds with the mother tongue sounds having rather distant similarity. Thus, the English sound [ð] is often associated with the Russian sounds [з]/ [дз] or the English [v].

Yet, reproduction exercises seem more important for the sounds of this group. Such exercises help acquisition of alien articulation habits and new speech organs manipulation. Thus, alien phonemes are taught through explanation and imitation.

The ways of introducing seemingly identical and alien phonemes are as follows:

i) demonstration;

ii) description of articulation;

iii) exercises in differentiation;

iv) reproduction (imitation);

v) using a positional variant of a mother tongue phoneme as initial approximation of a target sound (он [v¶:l] собаку на поводке).

All the components of introducing sounds of this group are obligatory, while their sequence depends on the sound nature.

i) Demonstration of a sound. A sound is pronounced distinctly in a sound context (a speech pattern, a word) and in isolation. Introducing new phonetic language material may follow one of the two schemes:

a) from a phrase ® to a word ® up to a sound; b) from a sound ® to a word ®

up to a phrase.

For the majority of sounds the 2^nd scheme is more preferable for: 1) it elicits adequate aural perception of a new sound in a sound context; 2) it allows for advertising its most specific peculiarities which may get obscured or smothered in the flow of words. Yet some sounds (neutral [ ¶ ], long vowels) can either lose their quality ([ ¶ ]) or be less easily pronounced when isolated. In this case, the first scheme is more appropriate.

Some phonetic phenomena are position-dependent (e.g. absence of devoiced consonants at the end of words - [be d ]). They can only be taught within a word or a phrase. Assimilation is achieved through imitation.

ii) Description of articulation. Explanation of articulation peculiarities should be only given when teaching sounds the articulation of which differs significantly from that of the native sounds. For junior children explanation is hardly necessary due to their psycho-physiological peculiarities. Their articulation basis is still rather flexible, that is why it is no difficulty for them to imitate teacher pronunciation. Consolidated mother tongue articulation habits of older children are a graver impediment to mastering the target language pronunciation, thus the learners should be helped by a teacher’s explanation to consciously break from the native articulation basis.

The explanatory rules facilitate self-control and self-correction while imitating. These rules should be brief, laconic, practice-oriented and represent easily followed instructions.

iii) Exercises in differentiation. Of special significance are the exercises in differentiating seemingly identical and approximately identical mother tongue and target language sounds. Without having heard the difference one wouldn’t be able to pronounce the target sound. Exercises in differentiation help to find out distinctive peculiarities of a new sound. For this purpose a teacher pronounces the sounds of the target and native languages which may be mixed up with the sound under consideration. Thus, the set of sounds [æ - ¶- æ – э – e – æ] might be given while practising the sound [æ], or [w – v – w – в – v – w] for [w].

iv) Reproduction of the sound brings presentation to a close. It is the initial step of the next stage – the stage of training, or practice. Reproduction is preceded by a teacher’s a) mentioning sound peculiarities; b) checking the position of speech organs if possible; c) pronouncing a sound several times.