Pronouncingalanguageisaskill.Everynormalpersonisexperti...

问题详情：

Pronouncing a language is a skill. Every normal person is expert in the skill of pronouncing his own language; But few people are even good at pronouncing foreign languages. Now there are many reasons for this, some obvious, some perhaps not so obvious. But I suggest that the main reason why people in general do not speak foreign languages very much better than they do is that they fail to recognize the importance of learning to pronounce, and as a result never set about trying it in the right way. Far too many people fail to realize that pronouncing a foreign language is a skill -- one that needs careful training of a special kind, and one that cannot be acquired by just leaving it to take care of itself. I think even teachers of language, while recognizing the importance of a good accent, tend to neglect, in their practical teaching, the study about speaking the language. So the first point I want to make is that English pronunciation must be taught; the teacher should be prepared to devote some of the lesson time to this, and should get the students to feel that here is a matter worthy of receiving his close attention. So, there should be times when other aspects of English, such as grammar or spelling, are allowed for the moment to take second place.

Besides this question of the time given to pronunciation, there are two other requirements for the teacher: the first, knowledge; the second, technique.

It is important that the teacher should have the necessary information. This can generally be obtained from books. It is possible to get from books some idea of the basic structure of speech, and of what we call general phonetic theory. It is also possible in this way to get a clear mental picture of the relationship between the sounds of different languages, between the speech habits of English people and those, say, of your students. Unless the teacher has such a picture, any comments he may make on his students' pronunciation are unlikely to be of much use, and lesson time spent on pronunciation may well be time wasted.

(Note: Answer the questions or complete the statements in NO MORE THAN TEN WORDS.)

78.   People generally don't speak foreign languages quite well mainly because of ____________.

79.   Although language teachers consider accent important, they __________ in their teaching.

80.   What should a teacher do to make his students feel they should pay attention to pronunciation?

81.   What may be the result(s) if the teacher himself can't figure out the differences in sounds of different languages?

【回答】

78.    failing / their failure to recognize the importance of learning to pronounce

79.       tend to neglect the study about speaking the language

80.       Devoting some of the lesson time to teaching pronunciation.

81.   His comments are useless /of little use and his lesson time is wasted.

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