Recovering English vowel and consonant rules to teach Mexican ESL Teachers & Students how to read them
One of the historical issues when talking about teaching or even learning English as a foreign language is related to the way it is taught. Most of the teachers simply ask their own students to repeat drillings every time they teach, regardless of checking if those students have or not a good memory at least to keep every pronunciation inside their word inventory.
Most of the regular texts used to teach ESL even show at their first pages the way both vowels and consonants have to be pronounced, or they use their own method to let the students to pronounce the closest to the original voice.
In order to teach the students how to read, we the teachers have to teach ourselves how to read, applying vowel rules including, obviously, the consonant role. In the following lines we will demonstrate that through the vowels use we can get advantage because we will be able to read not just the common vocabulary but even “new” words we have never been exposed to.
So, the first part of this technique is teaching the students that English vowels change their pronunciation. For example, A is pronounced /æ/ when it appears between consonants, regardless the size of the word, this is called short pronunciation. In other words what we want to establish here is that teachers have to apply Phonetics and Phonology in a practical way, so students can develop strategies to learn how to read new vocabulary, or they even can refine and review their pronunciation of their current vocabulary.
How good are you about reading? Well, most of the English I’ve particularly learnt is just a good exercise of memorizing and repetition. Every teacher I know are able to ask their students to repeat after them a series of drillings. Definitively this technique is also valuable. But what about when reading a “new” word has not been practiced by the teacher before?
Phonetics & Phonology
Even Phonetics and Phonology are two closely related linguistic disciplines that differ in their object of study, they can be proved as one of the best tools any teacher can have in their classrooms. Within phonetics they can be established the next areas, articulatory, acoustic, auditory. As learners of English as a foreign language, the area of phonetics that interests us most is the so-called articulatory phonetics, which studies the articulatory organs and their activity in the production of speech sounds.
Phonology studies the phonemes of a language and the distinctive features of those phonemes. Each language has a limited number of phonemes; thus, in most Spanish there are 5 vowel phonemes, while in English there are approximately 12.
According to Gimson, Alfred C., phonemes are the smallest contrastive linguistic segments or units with the capacity to produce a change of meaning. This implies that if we switch one phoneme for another there is a change in meaning: e.g. /kʌt/ vs /kæt/.
A distinctive feature is any articulatory feature of a phoneme that allows it to differentiate itself from the rest of the phonemes. Thus, for example, / p / only differs from / t / at its point of articulation (bilabial vs. alveolar). This feature is therefore distinctive, since it allows us to differentiate the word TAPE from the word MATE.
However, the possible realizations or allophones in a language are almost innumerable. On the one hand, no two people perform a phoneme in exactly the same way. On the other hand, variations in the realization of a phoneme are sometimes due to the phonetic context, that is, to the different distribution of phonemes within the sentence or word (at the beginning or end of a sentence, proximity to another phoneme, etc.) The different allophonic realizations do not produce any change of meaning and are the object of study of Phonetics.
Broad and Narrow transcription
The transcription of a word necessarily differs depending on whether we try to reflect the exact characteristics of a sound (allophonic transcription) or the contrastive elements of a language (phonological transcription).
The allophonic or narrow transcription (Narrow transcription) includes abundant information on the articulatory and auditory features and to reflect this information the International Phonetic Alphabet (API) is used, which contains a large number of symbols and diacritical marks.
The broad or phonological transcription (Broad transcription) makes use of only 44 symbols, which are equivalent to as many phonemes (24 consonants, 12 vowels and 8 diphthongs), that is, there is a symbol to represent each phoneme. Phonological symbols do not reflect the articulatory quality of the phoneme and are chosen by convention, leading to some variation between authors. We report in this paper the use of the modern version of the Gimson alphabet (Cruttenden 2001).
Phonological transcription indicates the distinctive features of each phoneme and is an important pedagogical tool for at least two reasons. What is in your opinion the pedagogical value of phonological transcription?
It is a good way to visualize the sounds that we perceive and that we cannot represent through writing. In this way, it allows to reinforce auditory memory (pronunciation) through visual memory (Alcaraz and Moody, p. 30). Basically, this issue can be charged to the Roman Empire when they conquered some parts of the British Islands, an alphabet designed to reflect Latin having just 10 vowels with 5 or 6 graphs, but it really meant to be a challenge for the British users because they have to manage around 14 vowels with just 5 graphs.
Many learners of English as a second language are unaware that there are many varieties of the English language and that these present notable discrepancies in the pronunciation of words. These varieties are called accents and are related to the geographical, social and educational background of each speaker. In linguistics we call them dialects.
The most prestigious and accepted worldwide accent or pronunciation standard is called English R.P (Received Pronunciation). This variety became known through British radio and television, which is why it is also commonly known as BBC English, and was associated for years with the universities of Cambridge and Oxford and with people of high social class.
The English R.P.[1] and the General American[2] (G.A.) variety are the most studied worldwide. This can be supported because most manuals and dictionaries of British English take it as their model. Also, this is the variety that has traditionally been taught to English learners as L2 and is still used as a model in the rest of the world.
It is necessary to note that when teaching, despite the importance of English R.P, only a small fraction of native English speakers use this accent. On the other hand, in recent years it has evolved considerably and has come to include some traits that were once considered not acceptable or typical of regional varieties.
Articulatory organs
The sounds that a human being can produce are determined by the physiological characteristics of his speech apparatus. So, we must first be able to recognize the different speech and articulatory organs.
The larynx is a triangular tube that connects the trachea to the pharynx. It is especially relevant from the articulatory point of view since in its middle zone is the glottis, which is the empty space between the folds or vocal cords. In the glottic zone we produce the sound, due to the vibration that is produced in the vocal cords as the air expelled by our lungs passes through.
When it leaves the larynx, the air reaches the pharynx and meets the soft palate. The soft palate is responsible for the air coming out through the nose or through the mouth. It rises to obstruct the nasal cavity (in the production of oral sounds) and descends to obstruct the oral cavity, allowing the production of nasal consonants. In addition, the soft palate comes into contact with the back of the tongue to produce the velar consonants.
Inside the oral cavity, and always from the inside out, different areas can be established that act as articulatory organs and that give names to the different types of consonants. The hard palate constitutes the “roof” of the mouth; its surface is curved and smooth and is easy to identify with the tip of the tongue. Between it and the teeth we find the alveolar area, whose surface is more cavernous and that we can see if we place a mirror under the mouth.
The teeth (upper and lower) are used in the articulation of many consonants, but only give their name to those consonants in which the upper incisors (dental and labiodental) are used.
The lips are fundamental in the production of both vowels and consonants. They can be brought together while retaining air (bilabial), rounded or come into contact with the upper incisors (labiodental).
We cannot forget the language, which is involved in the articulation of almost all sounds and is capable of adopting a great variety of positions that we will learn throughout the course. Although it is not essential to know them, their parts are the apex (tip), the pre-back, back and post-back and the crown or outer edge (blade).
Differences between vowels and consonants production
As we have already pointed out, the aforementioned articulatory organs are those that determine our ability to produce sounds endowed with distinctive features (phonemes). These distinctive features allow us distinguishing a phoneme from other phonemes. In the English phonological system, these characteristics are:
· The vibration of the vocal cords.
· The position of the soft palate
· The position of the different articulatory organs at the time of producing a phoneme.
However, knowledge of the role of the speech and articulatory organs is not sufficient to describe and classify the English phonemes. It is necessary to consider other aspects and mechanisms that take place in the articulation (and reception) of each phoneme and color them its distinctive character. These aspects will be analyzed next section.
Difference between vowels and consonants
Traditionally, vowels have been differentiated from consonants based on the criterion that vowels are sounds in which air passes through the oral cavity without encountering any obstruction.
Read aloud the following vowels and consonants and decide whether or not there is an obstruction:
1. /e/
2. /i:/
3. /b/
4. /s/
5. /l/
6. /w/
As you can see, in English there are sounds in which the air is expelled almost with no interference and yet they are not considered vowels; these consonants are called approximants, or semi-vowels. Therefore, it seems the traditional criterion for identifying vowels is not entirely precise in the case of the English phonological system. Another criterion for defining vowels is that of their distribution within a syllable. In both English and Spanish vowel is the center or nucleus of a syllable and has a characteristic distribution within it (central position), although in English there are some consonants that can act as the nucleus of a syllable.
Practice the pronunciation of the following words, and try to find out how many syllables are there inside each one.
1. BRIDGE /brɪdʒ/
2.LYING /laɪɪŋ/
3. LITTLE /lɪtl/
4. BITTEN /bɪtn/
Although it is sometimes difficult to define what is a consonant and what is a vowel, in practice this does not pose a problem for their description and classification.
Classification of English consonants
As we can see in the consonant table (see appendix), their distinctive features are determined by the action of the speech and articulatory organs and by the process in which their articulation occurs.
Action of the vocal cords: if they vibrate we will articulate a voiced consonant, otherwise, a voiceless consonant. Position of the soft palate: if it rises, it allows air to escape through the mouth (oral phonemes). If the soft palate descends, air escapes through the nose (nasal phonemes).
Articulation point:
As you can see, the different articulatory organs used in the articulation of a phoneme give it one of its distinctive features: the point of articulation. In English there are the following types of consonants:
Velares: the back of the tongue rests on the soft palate, obstructing the air outlet. In English there are 3 phonemes with velar articulation, do you know what they are?
Palatals: In English only the phoneme /j/ (yod) is articulated in palatal position and its articulation is similar to that of the vowel /ɪ/
Palato-alveolars: As its name indicates, its point of articulation is between the palate in the alveolar area. There are two pairs of palato-alveolar phonemes with different forms of articulation. As it does not exist in Spanish, we must pay special attention to them.
Post-alveolar: /r/ It articulates just behind the alveolar area. Different from the Spanish /r/.
Alveolar: There are 6 alveolar consonants that are articulated in 4 different ways. It is therefore a very productive position.
Dental: The tip of the tongue lightly contacts the upper incisors. The two dental consonants differ only in terms of their loudness.
Lip-dental: The upper incisors are placed on the lower lip.
Can you see the difference between the two lip-dental consonants?
Bilabiales: The lips come together completely obstructing the air outlet.
Articulation mode
Consonant phonemes also acquire their distinctive value due to the way or manner in which they are articulated and can be classified according to this criterion in the following way:
Plosives: the articulation of a stop takes place in three phases. In the first phase, the articulatory organs approach until they obstruct the air outlet. In the second phase the air blown by the lungs is compressed behind the occlusion (compression). Eventually, the organs separate (distention) and the air abruptly escapes.
Fricatives (fricatives): in the articulation of a fricative consonant two organs come close enough that the air at their exit produces a sound turbulence (“a hissing sound”, Roach, p. 47)[3]. There is therefore no interruption in the air outlet (continual). In addition to /h/, there are four pairs of fricative consonants that contrast for their loudness or lack of loudness.
Affricates. These consonants begin as a stop (phase 1 and 2), but instead of a rapid distension and explosion, they end as a fricative (the language takes an identical position to that described for the fricative /ʃ/). Despite being composed of a stop and a fricative, /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ are considered as two independent phonemes.
Laterals. At the /l/ joint, the tip of the tongue maintains contact with the alveolar area (and with the upper molars) obstructing the center of the mouth. Air escapes from one side without interruption (continual).
Approximants. As we already mentioned, these consonants are similar to vowels, since they do not obstruct the air outlet, for that reason they are also called semivowels. In the absence of contact, it is relatively difficult to perceive the point of articulation (although the /w/ shows a rounding of the lips). They are also about problematic phonemes for the Spanish-speaker and to which we must pay special attention. The three approximant consonants are /w/, /j/, and /r/.
Classification of English vowels
In order to describe the vowels not always they can use purely articulatory criteria, given the difficulty of observing the articulatory movements, so we also have to check an auditory point of view.
English vowels, unlike Spanish, can be divided into two groups regardless of the context in which they appear: long and short vowels. The length or vowel quantity is one of the distinctive features of vowels and therefore long vowels are represented phonemically followed by a colon (:)
In addition to this quantitative distinction between the vowels, there is also a qualitative difference between all of them depending on the position adopted by the articulatory organs.
To articulate the twelve vowels the language adopts a variety of positions and forms. To distinguish them, we normally have to attend to two aspects: the vertical distance from the tongue to the palate (degree of opening) and the part of the tongue that adopts a higher position (position on the anterior-posterior axis).
For supporting this analysis of vowel phonemes, we can use the vowel diagram:
The vowels can be classified according to their degree of opening into closed, semi-closed (half-closed), semi-open (half-open) and open.
On the other hand, we can divide the positions on the longitudinal axis into: anterior (Front), central and posterior (back), in addition to two intermediate positions, namely that of the phonemes /ʊ/ and /ɪ/.
Finally, we have to realize that the position adopted by the lips when articulating a vowel.
As you can see, in addition to their length, we can classify vowels according to their degree of opening into closed (closed), semi-closed (half-closed), semi-open (half-open) and open (open).
On the other hand, we can divide the positions on the longitudinal axis into: anterior (front), central and posterior (back), in addition to two intermediate positions, which we could define as between central and front and between central and rear.
In addition, we also have to identify the shape taken by the lips when producing a vowel. In the image 4, the lips adopt basically three different positions: rounded or flared, extended and neutral. The rounding of the lips is a distinctive articulatory feature. In English the phonemes /u:/, /ɔː/ and /ʊ/ are articulated rounding the lips remarkably; this also happens in the articulation of the vowel /ɒ/ although it is not so apparent.
Besides to the twelve vowel phonemes considered pure (pure vowels), there are 8 vowel phonemes with a change in the quality of the vowel. In these phonemes, known as diphthongs, a displacement of the tongue occurs from the initial position to the final position, e.g. /aɪ/.
Although at first glance the English diphthongs may seem similar to the Spanish ones, there is no equivalence between both, so we should avoid transferring our articulation patterns from Spanish to the English language. It is also convenient to remember that each of the two symbols used to represent a phoneme represents the relative position of the language at the moment of articulation, so it is not correct to use another symbol other than the one proposed, e.g. /ɑɪ/ (incorrect) in instead of /aɪ/.
Stress applied in a sentence
In the same way that certain syllables are more prominent than others within a polysyllabic word, certain words within the sentence stand out from the rest of the words in their environment.
There are certain words that, due to their function within a language, usually contain a stressed syllable. These words are called content or lexical words (lexical words) and their grammatical function is usually corresponding to main verb, noun, adjective or demonstrative pronoun. Other categories such as auxiliary verb, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, relative pronouns and determiners usually lack an accented syllable and are called functional words, since they are empty of any lexical content and only provide grammatical meaning (time, number, subject, etc.)
Within the sentence, the lexical words have a certain prominence, so they usually have the same quality and length as when they are articulated in isolation. On the contrary, many functional (or grammatical) words show a reduction in the length of their phonemes (which can even be elided) and their vowels are darken approaching one of these three vowels: /ɪ/, /ʊ/ and /ə/.
The stress patterns in the sentence are however much looser than in a word, since they can vary according to the meaning of the sentence within the context. Thus, for example, within a conversation any functional word can be made prominent (even above the rest of the lexical words) to give emphasis or to create contrast with the previous speech.
Vowel Production
Firstly, we have to recover the vowels to understand that in English they are approximately 12 different vowels, as they are showed in this chart.
Lines above we learned that one of the distinguishing features of vowels is their length. English vowel (pure) phonemes, unlike Spanish, can be divided into short and long. This difference is easily perceptible if we compare the articulation of the vowel /ɪ/ with the vowel /ʊ/.
One of the biggest problems we find when learning English as a foreign language is the fact that there is no stable relationship between English spelling and pronunciation. In the case of vowels, this problem is even more obvious, since in English there are 12 pure vowel phonemes, plus 8 diphthongs that can only be represented by combining 5 letters (A, E, I, O, U).
For a non-native speaker the spelling of English seems chaotic and irregular and as a consequence it is very difficult to predict how a word is pronounced when we read it for the first time. Despite this, a series of basic pronunciation rules can be established that are very helpful for both the foreign learner and the young native speaker (website This is why English is so hard).
In order to clarify the relationship between spelling and pronunciation, a popular terminology is often used that establishes at least two possible pronunciations for each of the 5 written vowels: a long pronunciation and a short pronunciation.
As can be seen from the table above, the popularly known “short” pronunciation of A is /æ/, and the “long” one is /eɪ/. According to this principle in England children are taught that: Cons + A + Cons is pronounced are taught that: Cons + A + Cons is pronounced /æ/, Cons + E + Cons is pronounced /e/ and so on.
Vowel Rules
The vowel classification we just did is not a scientific classification, but it is a great help in matching the pronunciation of a word with its spelling. Using these criteria, we can propose the following basic rules of pronunciation of vowels in stressed syllables:
· Rule number 1: When we find a single vowel followed by a consonant in a stressed final syllable, the pronunciation of that vowel will be kept short, which we can summarize as follows: (Cons + 1 Voc + Cons). For example, the E for bet or re’gret will be pronounced short /e/ and the I for sick or com’mit will be short /ɪ/, etc.
/æ/ cat, sat, mat, pad, paddle, sad, mad, caterpillar, placemat, man, fan,
bad, apple, salmon, aunt, laugh
/e/ pen, ten, get, set, veterinary, met, then, germ, attended, wanted, bird,
fern, purse, nurse, further
/ ɪ/ six, mix, it, England, women, here, busy, marriage, typical, pier, weird
/ɑ/ sock, clock, car, heart, on, sergeant, guard
/Ʌ / run, sun, cut, umbrella, country, love, flood, other
· Rule number 2: When in the final stressed syllable, we find a single vowel followed by a single consonant and an E (Cons + 1 Voc +1 Cons + E), the vowel will be pronounced “long”, the E in complete is /i:/, while the I in bite is /ai/.
/eɪ/ plane, train, made, stay, they, steak, eight, straight
/i:/ peace, compete, three, tree, eat, receive, believe, key, me, people
/aɪ/ nine, wine, night, my, pie, buy, eyes, height
/oʊ/ rose, nose, home, know, toe, road, though
/ju:/ uniform, unique, usual, cure, cute, mule, fuel, duty, sure, pressure
· Rule number 3: Unlike the previous two, this rule applies to the penultimate syllables. The pronunciation of a vowel in a penultimate and stressed syllable will be “long” if it is followed by a single consonant (e. g. /ai/ in writer), while it will be “short” if several consonants follow it (e. g. /ɪ/ in written).
/eɪ/ phaser, amazing, crazy, lateness, taking, phrase
/ai/ rising, uprising, society, likely, private, financial, environment, finally
/i:/ agreement, easy, recently, legal, treatment
/oʊ/ course, always, although, water, already, authority
/ju:/ uniform, unique, usual, yourself, unit, useless
It should also recognize that the letter L in the ending -LE is considered vowel because it functions as the nucleus of the syllable.
One of the implications of this rule is that to maintain the pronunciation of the vowel in words like run or swim, when adding a suffix we have to double the final consonant; in this way, they become, for example, a runner or swimmer, something that you already learned to do years ago without knowing that it was due to a pronunciation rule.
The first three rules that we have just seen explain how a single vowel is pronounced in a stressed syllable. Rules 4 and 5 below may instead help you pronounce two-vowel sequences (vowel digraphs):
Rule number 4. A sequence of two vowels (vowel digraph) in a stressed syllable will normally adopt a “long” pronunciation. This pronunciation usually matches the “long” pronunciation (the “name”) of the first vowel (e. g. receive, deep, load, Spain). In order to learn this rule, English children have to memorize the following rhyme: “When two vowels go out walking, the first one does the talking”, which we could interpret it as: “the first one says its name”.
teacher peace feasible meat meet
feet poem road feat grown
beam seem reach rye pies
Rule number 5. There is a group of words containing a sequence of two vowels but do not exactly follow rule 4, since in these words both vowels are pronounced: the pronunciation of the first vowel usually coincides with the “name” of the vowel (“long” pronunciation) while the pronunciation of the second is usually that of a weak vowel. In this way, the resulting pronunciation is sometimes considered a tripthong.
our hour flour sour
fire dire inspire Ireland
pyre choir
There are not many words that follow this pronunciation; among the most common are: chaos, neon, dial, dialect, diamond (and other words with dia-), giant, psychiatry, client, science, society, variety, violent, violin, heroic, poem, boa, cruel, dual, fluent, ruin, suicide, continuity.
Conclusions.
Particularly I have asked my students at B. in ESL to apply a poll to other ESL teachers & students containing questions such as “Do you know the vowel rules?”, “Do you apply the Vowel Rules in your classes?”, “Can you apply in these words the rule ‘When two vowels go out walking, the first one does the talking’”? Eventually, none of those teachers or students interviewed were able to apply the vowels, some of them alleging some alibies, other recognizing (students) that they have never being taught these rules.
Other clue we have to teach is concerning to silent consonants, because even teachers cannot manage it. For example, if we apply silent “b” to the following words we (Spanish speakers) can recognize their meaning.
plumb plumber plumbing
bomb bomber bombing
climb climber climbing
dumb jumbo thumb
Obviously what teachers are doing at high school and undergraduate levels is practicing memorizing; so, if students are good at memorizing, they can be good English speakers. Nowadays being good at this effective technique is just exclusive for non-recognized genius.
We have to teach teachers firstly, then they will teach students how to read any sentence according to the vowel & consonant rules, in order to have real autonomous ESL users; so, the national objectives set by SEP might be reached through this methodology left behind years ago.
[1] English Received Pronunciation. The accent traditionally regarded as standard for British English. For over a century, there has been argument over such questions as the definition of RP, whether it is geographically neutral, how many speakers there are, whether sub-varieties exist, how appropriate a choice it is as a standard and how the accent has changed over time.
[2] Spoken by a majority of Americans and widely perceived, among Americans, as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or socioeconomic characteristics
[3] That means fricatives are speech sounds which are produced by allowing the airstream to escape with friction from the lungs. This is caused by bringing two articulators (the upper teeth and lower lip) close together but not so close enough to stop the airstream completely
References
Cruttenden, Alan. (2001). Gimson’s Pronunciation of English.
Diphthongs. (August 13, 2022). In Spelling City. https://www.spellingcity.com/diphthongs.html#:~:text=A%20diphthong%20is%20a%20sound,cloud%E2%80%9D%20or%20%E2%80%9Ccow%E2%80%9D.
General American English. (August 12, 2022). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American_English
Received Pronunciation. (August 12, 2022). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation
Roach, Peter. (2009). English Phonetic and Phonology. A practical course. Fourth Edition. Cambridge University Press.
This is Why English is so hard. August 14, 2022. https://www.eurocentres.com/blog/english-pronunciation-hard
Triphtongs. (August 13, 2022). The Free Dictionary. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Triphthongs.htm#:~:text=Very%20rarely%2C%20the%20nucleus%20of,%2Doo%2Duh%E2%80%9D).
Images
Types of Vowels with Examples in English Phonetics. (August 14th, 2022) Taken from https://www.englishbix.com/types-of-vowels-in-english/
Vowel diagram. (August 14, 2022). Wikipedia. Taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_diagram