It’s kind of sad to look back on my early career and realize that I spent more than my fair share of years mispronouncing all sorts of common words without ever being corrected. I’m not talking about oddities such as quay (ki) or gauge (ei). It’s really the everyday subtleties (baSic or baZic?) that I wish people had drawn my attention to when I was starting out.
I can still remember, for example, my otherwise great COTE feedback sessions in the early 90s and how I would yearn for that piece of language feedback that never came. For quite a long time, all I wanted was for a more capable peer (in the Vygotskian sense of the word – Natalia, thanks for the heads up!) to break the news, for instance, that the stress in admirable fell in the first syllable or that the s in increase sounded like /s/ rather than /z/.
Well, years went by and, luckily, I found alternative ways to get the sort of language improvement that I still needed to bolster my budding career. This morning, in the shower, it hit me that some of my readers might feel the same way.
So here’s my first (and possibly last – I need to gauge people’s reaction) test your English post. And today’s question is:
Which of the words below would you normally pronounce as /s/ rather than /z/?
INCREASE (noun)
INCREASE (verb)
USE (verb)
USE (noun)
CLOSE (verb)
CLOSE (adjective)
EXCUSE (verb)
EXCUSE (noun)
BASIC / BASICALLY
PARADISE
RESOURCE
RESORT (verb)
RESORT (noun)
MISUNDERSTANDING
DISSOLVE
LOSE
LOOSE
Ready for the answers?
/S/
INCREASE (noun) / INCREASE (verb) / USE (noun) / CLOSE (adjective) / EXCUSE (noun) / BASIC / BASICALLY / PARADISE (though for many years I could’ve sworn Barry Manilow’s 1984 foray into Jazz was called ParadiZe Café) / RESOURCE (American English – the Brits say Z) / LOOSE / MISUNDERSTANDING
/Z/
USE (verb) / CLOSE (verb) / EXCUSE (verb) / RESORT (verb) / RESORT (noun) / LOSE / DISSOLVE
Thanks for reading.
Hi Luiz!
I learned about your blog a few weeks ago (it was my dear teacher Karina Fernandes who told me about it), and I have to say it's been a wonderful source of inspiration. =D
I've been reading it religiously every day and, as a fellow English teacher, I can relate to all of the questions you've raised so far.
This one in particular is so relevant to our daily routines and to our constant wishes to excel ourselves.
Thank you for sharing these great insights! =D
it's true that language feedback would be impt, but most ppl feel offended when sb does give it. besides, it'd be put extra pressure on newbies, feeling they're being watched for tiny bits of language on top of it all. but i'm generally in favor of this kind of feedback, and i try to build a kind of relationship w/ my peers so that they'd feel comfortable to correct me and allow me to correct them. it's still a minefield, though.
now, if i may, why did you credit "more capable peer" to krashen? in what aspects would his sense of the word be different from vygotsky's? in short, please give me some theoretical feedback. i yearn for it as well! 😉
Carla, Thank you for your kind words. I hope to be able to keep you interested in the blog.
Natália, I'm not sure most teachers would feel offended. I think they'd be grateful. It all depends on how it's done, of course. Feedback of any sort has to be constructive, objective, tactful and "internalizable". But I believe the teacher's English is one of her most important professional tools and, as such, it shouldn't be overlooked by whoever is in charge of helping her grow.
And of course you're right – it's Vygotsky!!! I was having breakfast a while ago when it dawned on me that Krashen never used this terminoloogy and I was about to fix it when I saw your post. After all, uma coisa é uma coisa, outra coisa é outra coisa. I don't think Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development can be compared with Krashen's i+1 in the same terms, not least because the former can describe any sort of learning, whereas the latter is circumscribed to language acquisition.
Anway, you were one of my very first posters and I'm delighted to see that after all this time you're still reading the site. Thank you so much, Natália!!! 🙂
I thought the /s/ or /z/ thing was quite difficult. You know what would help me? If there were sample sentences for me to compare use /z/ and use /s/. Can you add sound to the blog?
On a side note, I feel I'm open to be corrected by other people. Last year Bruce (do you know him?) corrected my pronunciation of words like "company" and "colour". Further, I can still remember my first mentor at Cultura Rio correcting my pronunciation of "mustn't". You live and learn, right?
ricardo, you can listen to the words on http://www.howjsay.com and hear them as well as see the transcription on http://dictionary.cambridge.org . unfortunately, i don't know where you can get them in sentences, which is what you asked for. and i too was shocked when i learned the pronunciation of "color". you know who taught me? a monitor from cultura rio, when i was a teacher there. he then became a great friend of mine. unfortunately, not everybody welcomed those corrections, so we started keeping to ourselves and only correcting each other.
thanks for the quick reply, luiz otávio. didn't know i was one of the 1st commentors here. i'm honored! 😉 rest assured i always read and enjoy your posts, even when i don't drop by.
Thanks for the tips and for your kind words, Natália.
Ricardo, I haven't met Bruce, but we did exchange a few e-mails when the new MAC PLUS course was implemented. I can't add sound to the blog (not to the best of my knowledge anyway), but Natália's tips are useful.
Hun, I guess the great majority of teachers are either a) unaware of or unable to perceive these subtle differences, or in the case of native speakers, b) so relieved that their studens can communicate they don't really pay attention to such "minor" details. After all, you can still infer the meaning, even if someone says "Ele esta jogando boula", can't you?
I thought about the first one when Jim was trying to correct me because (in his opinion) I was mispronouncing a word, and much as he kept repeating it over and over, I couldn't hear the difference – in my opinion I was pronouncing it exactly the way he was! That's when it dawned on me: there were sounds I knew were supposed to be different by convention, but in my world they weren't. It was as though I was sound blind. Maybe I couldn't hear it, or maybe I wasn't taught to hear it.
In retrospect, I (Miss Fussy) didn't draw my students attention to such subtleties because I was unable to. So I may have given them the theory, not stopping too long to practice because, if the difference didn't exist to me then it couldn't be important, right?
Well, wrong. It does matter. It does change meaning. And native speakers do notice, to my annoyance and Jim's frustration. So good on you for raising the issue – wasn't it Freeman that said awareness is an essential element of learning?
Beijos
Hi, Ricardo!
When I read your comment about wanting to hear the words in sentences, it reminded me of this site: http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php
It's a text-to-speech tool, where you can type the sentence you want to hear. As a bonus, you can also choose the accent.
Have fun! : )
Eli, I agree. Accuracy does matter and if you're a teacher, it matters even more. If you want to teach higher levels, be considered for promotion and a whole bunch of other things, your standard of English is an important criterion. It may not be the most important one, but it can't be overlooked.
Chris, thanks for the link. I'm gonna check it out and perhaps create a post to advertise it.