Practical English Phonetics through the Lens of Cambridge Exams: A Preliminary Study
Михаил Эдуардович Зверев
Докладчик
студент 4 курса
Ивановский государственный университет
Ивановский государственный университет
157
2024-04-26
17:45 -
18:00
Ключевые слова, аннотация
The
main objective of the study is to delve into a phonetic aspect of the speaking
paper of Cambridge exams, namely FCE, CAE and CPE. In order to contemplate what
areas of practical English phonetics ought to be focused on, a survey was
carried out in December 2023 at the Polina Kordik School of English. The findings
indicate that B2, C1 and C2 non-native speakers of English lack skills in both
segmental (e. g., vowel contrasts) and suprasegmental (e. g., tone usage,
containing more than one intonational group) features of the spoken language.
Тезисы
Keywords: practical phonetics; advanced
learners of English; FCE; CAE; CPE
The present work is concerned with a phonetic facet of the speaking paper of Cambridge high-level qualifications, such as FCE (the First Certificate in English), CAE (the Certificate in Advanced English) and CPE (the Certificate of Proficiency in English). The phonetic skills that are assessed in these examinations are comprehensibility and intelligibility of speech, the appropriate articulation of individual vowels and consonants, word stress, sentence stress and prosody, that is, main intonational patterns, for instance, falling and non-falling tones, sequence of tones in complex sentences, the usage of tones, depending on the speaker’s attitude and communicative patterns of a sentence [C2 Proficiency…: 68—69]. The key objective of the research is, therefore, to look into the phonetics areas in which advanced learners of English may well demonstrate a lack of knowledge. With this in mind, a survey was conducted in December 2023 at the Polina Kordik School of English. The survey in question encompassed three excerpts that the participants of the study (n=51) had to read out, and using one of the following voice recording services (https://vocaroo.com/ or https://www.speakpipe.com/voice-recorder), had to record their answers and insert three links to the Google form.
The main preliminary results of the survey reveal that B2, C1 and C2 learners of English lack skills both on segmental and suprasegmental levels of the spoken language. By way of illustration, most participants did not have a good command of vowel contrasts (e. g., TRAP — DRESS; FOOT — GOOSE). They additionally did not take serious heed of individual consonants, such as h and ŋ, as well as p, t, k and their aspirated / non-aspirated allophones. On the level of suprasegmentals, the participants of the survey disregarded such phenomena as tone usage in sentences consisting of more than one intonational group, and the impact of speech rhythm on word stress (e.g., the word interactive has primary and secondary stresses ɪntərˈæktɪv, yet in the word combination an interactive programme, the stress is shifted). Moreover, most research subjects failed to pay attention to commas; however, these punctuation marks are deemed to be of help in reading passages and texts, with providing a clue when making a pause or about choosing an appropriate tone. Other findings and features of English speech employed by the research subjects will be explored at length during the presentation of our report.
To conclude, while it is of immense importance to develop vocabulary and grammar skills, we ought to keep in mind the phonetic aspect of English sound speech, as L. V. Bondarko [Bondarko, 1981: 4] once stated that «any linguistic system (and any of its levels) cannot be delineated (and taught, it seems — M. Zverev) without looking into substantial characteristics of the phonetic units belonging to the linguistic code». Furthermore, paying attention to the phonetic facet of oral discourse will lead to better results in any Cambridge exams under consideration.
Literature:
Bondarko L. V. Phonetic Description of Language and Phonological Description of Speech. Leningrad, 1981.
C2 Proficiency: Handbook for Teachers for Exams from 2023. Cambridge University Press and Assessment, 2023. URL: https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/Images/168194-c2-proficiency-teachers-handbook.pdf (accessed: 25.02.2024).
The present work is concerned with a phonetic facet of the speaking paper of Cambridge high-level qualifications, such as FCE (the First Certificate in English), CAE (the Certificate in Advanced English) and CPE (the Certificate of Proficiency in English). The phonetic skills that are assessed in these examinations are comprehensibility and intelligibility of speech, the appropriate articulation of individual vowels and consonants, word stress, sentence stress and prosody, that is, main intonational patterns, for instance, falling and non-falling tones, sequence of tones in complex sentences, the usage of tones, depending on the speaker’s attitude and communicative patterns of a sentence [C2 Proficiency…: 68—69]. The key objective of the research is, therefore, to look into the phonetics areas in which advanced learners of English may well demonstrate a lack of knowledge. With this in mind, a survey was conducted in December 2023 at the Polina Kordik School of English. The survey in question encompassed three excerpts that the participants of the study (n=51) had to read out, and using one of the following voice recording services (https://vocaroo.com/ or https://www.speakpipe.com/voice-recorder), had to record their answers and insert three links to the Google form.
The main preliminary results of the survey reveal that B2, C1 and C2 learners of English lack skills both on segmental and suprasegmental levels of the spoken language. By way of illustration, most participants did not have a good command of vowel contrasts (e. g., TRAP — DRESS; FOOT — GOOSE). They additionally did not take serious heed of individual consonants, such as h and ŋ, as well as p, t, k and their aspirated / non-aspirated allophones. On the level of suprasegmentals, the participants of the survey disregarded such phenomena as tone usage in sentences consisting of more than one intonational group, and the impact of speech rhythm on word stress (e.g., the word interactive has primary and secondary stresses ɪntərˈæktɪv, yet in the word combination an interactive programme, the stress is shifted). Moreover, most research subjects failed to pay attention to commas; however, these punctuation marks are deemed to be of help in reading passages and texts, with providing a clue when making a pause or about choosing an appropriate tone. Other findings and features of English speech employed by the research subjects will be explored at length during the presentation of our report.
To conclude, while it is of immense importance to develop vocabulary and grammar skills, we ought to keep in mind the phonetic aspect of English sound speech, as L. V. Bondarko [Bondarko, 1981: 4] once stated that «any linguistic system (and any of its levels) cannot be delineated (and taught, it seems — M. Zverev) without looking into substantial characteristics of the phonetic units belonging to the linguistic code». Furthermore, paying attention to the phonetic facet of oral discourse will lead to better results in any Cambridge exams under consideration.
Literature:
Bondarko L. V. Phonetic Description of Language and Phonological Description of Speech. Leningrad, 1981.
C2 Proficiency: Handbook for Teachers for Exams from 2023. Cambridge University Press and Assessment, 2023. URL: https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/Images/168194-c2-proficiency-teachers-handbook.pdf (accessed: 25.02.2024).