Evaluating the Importance of Phonetic Pattern in Teaching Foreign Language and Learning: Potential Advantages

Second language (L2) learners are often concerned about the ‘foreign’ quality of their accent, and many express a desire to sound more like a ‘native speaker’ of the L2. This review paper focuses on the importance of phonetic pattern in teaching foreign language and learning; the aim of the paper is twofold: first, reviewing the importance of phonetics in learning French as a foreign language; the importance of written over oral, phonetics in the teaching of a foreign language, the precedence of oral overwriting at the start of the 20th century, the effect of mother tongue on second or foreign language acquisition, and phonetic correction and pedagogy, and secondly, the paper reports on potential advantages of phonetic notation in pronunciation instruction, which include systematicity, awareness-raising, visualness and visual support in teaching/learning, and autonomous learning. The amount of phonetic knowledge appropriate is age-dependent. School-age learners need guiding (virtually no theory but lots of carefully structured, phonetically-informed practice); older learners need guiding and informing (facilitating self-help, including use of interactive websites). However, Teachers must be well informed about articulatory phonetics and the phonetics of the mother tongue(s) and target language learners; target languages cannot be addressed in isolation. At the tertiary level, I recommend beginning any language programme with a short induction course in articulatory phonetics, covering the ground outlined above. Then (ideally in parallel with ongoing general phonetic ear-training and production practice), phonetic knowledge and skills can fully benefit spoken language instruction.

Second language (L2) learners are often concerned about the ‘foreign’ quality of their accent, and many express a desire to sound more like a ‘native speaker’ of the L2. This review paper focuses on the importance of phonetic pattern in teaching foreign language and learning; the aim of the paper is twofold: first, reviewing the importance of phonetics in learning French as a foreign language; the importance of written over oral, phonetics in the teaching of a foreign language, the precedence of oral overwriting at the start of the 20th century, the effect of mother tongue on second or foreign language acquisition, and phonetic correction and pedagogy, and secondly, the paper reports on potential advantages of phonetic notation in pronunciation instruction, which include systematicity, awareness-raising, visualness and visual support in teaching/learning, and autonomous learning. The amount of phonetic knowledge appropriate is age-dependent. School-age learners need guiding (virtually no theory but lots of carefully structured, phonetically-informed practice); older learners need guiding and informing (facilitating self-help, including use of interactive websites). However, Teachers must be well informed about articulatory phonetics and the phonetics of the mother tongue(s) and target language learners; target languages cannot be addressed in isolation. At the tertiary level, I recommend beginning any language programme with a short induction course in articulatory phonetics, covering the ground outlined above. Then (ideally in parallel with ongoing general phonetic ear-training and production practice), phonetic knowledge and skills can fully benefit spoken language instruction.