Simple solutions to pronunciation problems by Elyanora Menglieva

Abstract

2025-03-12 15:41:41 UTC

Students who are learning English as a foreign language often face challenges in pronunciation. When I taught grade 8 students in my teaching practicum, I noticed that they struggled to pronounce words correctly, so I decided to explore this issue. To gain insights about how to teach pronunciation, I reflected on my teaching practices, conducted a survey among fellow students and recorded my lessons for analysis. Based on my exploratory findings, I found out that implementing Flash Card game and ‘Initial Sounds’ activity in my lessons have a potential to improve students’ pronunciation. This exploratory action research helped me notice my improvements in teaching pronunciation. In this presentation, I will share these insights about how a novice teacher can teach pronunciation effectively.

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1. My own written reflections and notes (zine notes).

2. Responses to a questionnaire.

3. Lesson recording.

Questions to guide my reflections (zine)

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1. Am I able to explain pronunciation rules to the students?

2. What kind of difficulties am I facing during the lesson?

3. Am I giving enough information to the students?

My survey questions

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1. What methods have you found useful when teaching pronunciation to students?

2. Do the methods I use not cause difficulties for students?

3. Are the materials enough for the students which I use during the lesson?

Lesson recording

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1. How well do the students participate in pronunciation activities?

2. Which pronunciation exercises do my students find the most difficult?

3. Do the students not feel uncomfortable while doing an activity?

My reflections in the zine

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During the lesson, I felt a little nervous, but I took a deep breath and started to explain the lesson. There were no problems in teaching pronunciation. I was able to explain the pronunciation correctly. There were some difficulties in grabbing the children's attention, but I did not lose my temper and continued to conduct the lesson. Later, the children became interested in the lesson and turned their attention to the theme. They understood the topic, even though some pieces of information were left out.

Findings from the questionnaire

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When I received a questionnaire from my colleagues, they wrote about the difficulties and problems I encountered during the lesson while observing the lesson. The students had difficulty in placing the omitted words because I did not give an explanation of the words and there were several other mistakes. But my pronunciation tasks and explanation of the theme were useful for pupils.

Lesson recording.

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In the first exercise called flash card gaming the students felt uncomfortable in finding words. In the remaining activities, they were all active. Almost all the students paid attention to the lesson.

In sum, this first exploratory action research was a little difficult for me. In the next lessons, I will try to improve myself and make it more interesting without repeating old mistakes

About me

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My name: Shokhsanam Juraboeva

My university: Namangan State Insitute of Foreign Languages

Level: 3rd year

Group number: XTA-22-DU

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Question 1: What was difficult for me in teaching pronunciation? (My own perceptions)

Question 2: How do my colleagues think I should teach pronunciation? (Others' perceptions)

Question 3: What do my students do when I use pronunciation activities? (Others' behaviour)

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Why this topic?

elyamenglieva — 2025-03-25 17:48:09 UTC

My research topic is Simple solutions to pronunciation problems.

Last February, I completed my practicum at school 3, where I taught 8th graders. I used pronunciation books provided by the different authors, which helped students improve their pronunciation skills. However, I still had some questions about how to teach pronunciation to students. So I decided to explore how to teach pronunciation based on my experience of teaching 8th-grade students.

My teaching context

elyamenglieva — 2025-03-25 17:51:15 UTC

I had my practicum in secondary school 3 in Namangan region.
There were 14 students in my class (grade 8), with mixed language levels.
I taught the pronunciation of words and sentences.

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In my practicum, the successful activity was the flash card game for practicing the correct pronunciation of letters. In addition, working in groups helped students improve their pronunciation more effectively. In my practicum next month, I will use even more engaging activities to involve students more in the lesson and enhance their knowledge.

I will use the following activities in my lessons:

1. I will teach students the correct pronunciation of letters and reinforce their knowledge using the Flash Card Game.

2. I will make the lessons more advanced by forming words from letters and practicing their correct pronunciation using the Memory Activity.

3. I will teach students how to form sentences from words, place them correctly, and pronounce them accurately using the Puzzle Game.

2025-03-26 17:59:48 UTC

In conclusion, I learned how to capture students' attention and experimented with new teaching methods. Although my initial sound activity was not very engaging, students were still able to learn the correct pronunciation of many letters.

During my first practical experience, I faced a lot of stress and uncomfortable situations while conducting research. I was unable to choose the right activities due to a lack of experience. However, I have since worked hard on improving myself and have learned many new methods. I have become familiar with effective teaching techniques, and I am confident that I will not encounter similar issues in my future research.

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