VOA慢速英语：如何改善你的英语发音？
Improve Your Pronunciation By 'Shadowing' Others
Many English learners can improve their pronunciation by listening carefully to native English speakers and trying to match the up-and-down movement of their ntences.
That is the opinion of Marla Yoshida, an English as a Foreign Language teacher at the University of California, Irvine.
Yoshida wants English learners to look for details that are important to native speakers. The details are not only sounds, she notes. Native speakers also communicate by using paus, and by saying some words more forcefully than others.
含笑的成语
As a result, native speakers might not understand an English learner even if the learner pronounces sounds correctly.
The problem with 'listening and repeating'
Yoshida says that English learners often study pronunciation by listening and repeating something from a recording.
Yoshida says that English learners need to do more than listen and repeat in order to improve their pronunciation:
“I've gradually gotten really interested in pronunciation becau it's something that students have trouble with, but they don't always get a lot of really good instruction in it. They just have someone say 'Listen to this recording and repeat … and now, aren't you better?' No! You're not necessarily better. It takes more than that.”
The problem with listen and repeat, says Yoshida, is that when people repeat, they are often not trying to sound like the other person.
“You think that when students are repeating after the teacher, or whatever, they're trying to sound exactly like that person, but they're not.
The sounds that you hear go into your brain … and your brain interprets them or清除缓存快捷键 filters t
hem through the sound system of your own language, and what your brain ends up understanding is not everything – it's not what the speaker intended…
You have to try to get past that filter and hear all of the details that are important to someone el.
So you have to try to duplicate what the person is saying.'
What details should you try to copy when you listen to an English speaker? Among others, the important details include paus or breaths, which words to emphasize -- or give special attention to, and intonation – the up and down movement of your voice as you speak.
English speakers, in particular, u a broad range of up and down movements in their voices. The movements can be difficult for English learners to recognize and understand.
疣猪
Native English speakers might have difficulty understanding English learners when learne
人之初古诗
rs u a narrow range of their voice. In other words, native speakers have fewer vocal restrictions when they are speaking. English learners also may u intonation patterns that are different from tho in Standard English.
Studying how native speakers u intonation will help English learners better understand what native speakers do with their voices.科学家的发明
Practical tips:
If English learners want to start improving their pronunciation, Yoshida suggests that they do an activity called shadowing.
“Shadowing means finding a short audio or video clip that you like… that's maybe 30 conds long, one minute long, at most two minutes long, and listen to it. Listen to it a couple of times to get the meaning, and to hear where the speaker paus, and what they emphasize … and what the intonation sounds like – becau tho are really important things too – not just the sounds. Pronunciation is much more than saying each
sound correctly becau you can say each sound correctly and still sound really hard to understand…
So, find a short clip, listen to it, mark things that you notice, then listen a few more times just to sort of let tho sounds become a part of your brain, and then start imitating. And imitate trying to sound exactly like that person.”
What does shadowing look like?
Here is a short example of what a shadowing activity could look like.
The example comes from Martha Kolln's book Rhetorical Grammar:
内在美作文'One of the most important aspects of your experti with ntences is your n of rhythm.'
Listen to the ntence veral times.
Then try to mark the intonation of the voice. Listen for emphasized words.
In the ntence, you can hear that some syllables are emphasized, while others are not. Overall, the voice falls after important syllables, notably at the end of the ntence.
果树盆景
振荡反应English ntences often emphasize words at the end of a ntence – the place where you usually find new information. The next time you are reading and listening to a story, try to mark the patterns of intonation that you hear.
Remember, all our stories have audio, so you can print the story and do a shadowing exerci while listening to the story. Give shadowing a try, and let us know how it works for you!
