Introduction
Each language background brings with it some particular challenges when it comes to English pronunciation. These include certain phonemes, intonation characteristics or stress patterns. One feature of English pronunciation that my Japanese learners have special difficulty with is consonant clusters, and their speaking can often be augmented with copious superfluous syllables.
It’s not an over generalisation to say that consonant clusters simply don’t occur in Japanese, which for the most part is built out of paired consonant-vowel units, such as ‘ka’, ‘shi’, ‘mu’ and ‘ta’. Thus, a one-syllable English word such as ‘bridge’ will often be ‘expanded’ into such units and be rendered as three distinct sounds: ‘bu’, ‘ri’ and ‘ji’: ‘buriji’, turning a one-syllable word into a three-syllable word.
To help my students with consonant clusters, I came up with a task that I’d not seen done before. The students for whom I designed this activity are at university majoring in English, with a CEFR of around A2–B1. The objective of this activity is for students to produce and submit a recording of themselves reading four sentences in a unique and very obviously unnatural way which provides a chance for them to notice and practise consonant clusters.
The activity
After having spent some time learning about the phonemic chart and giving students a clear understanding of the distinction between vowels, diphthongs and consonants, I introduce the concept of consonant clusters as a challenge that they need to be aware of, practise and master.
The activity is based on a four-sentence passage actually on the topic of consonant clusters, carefully composed in such a way as to balance the proportion of words that feature consonant clusters with those that don’t. The passage goes as follows:
Vowels are really important in finding the rhythm of English.
Some words, like ‘next’ and ‘spring’, have lots of consonants but only one vowel.
For good pronunciation you have to squash consonants together.
Don’t pronounce English like katakana!
(katakana is the alphabet and syllabary used in Japanese to denote and pronounce loan words from other languages, albeit in the consonant-vowel pairings that characterise Japanese).
Having made sure that students understood the meaning of the short passage (even discussing this interesting point of difference between Japanese and English pronunciation), I bring their attention to a transcription of the passage in phonemic script. However, I have visually separated each syllable from its neighbours, such that it appears like this:
1: v aʊəlz | ɑː | r ɪə | li ː | ɪm | p ɔː | t ənt | ɪn | fa ɪn | d ɪŋ | ð ə | r ɪ | ð əm | ɒv | ɪŋ | ɡlɪʃ
2: s ʌm | w ɜːdz | la ɪk | n ɛkst | ænd | spr ɪŋ | hæv | l ɒts | ɒv | k ɒn | s ən | ənts | b ʌt | əʊn | li ː | w ʌn | va ʊəl
3: f ɔː | ɡʊd | pr ə | n ʌn | si ː | e ɪ | ʃən | ju ː | hæv | t ə | skw ɒʃ | k ɒn | s ən | ənts | t ə | ɡɛ | ð ə
4: d əʊnt | pr ə | na ʊns | ɪŋ | ɡlɪʃ | la ɪk | k ʌ | t ʌ | k ʌ | n ʌ
I try to elicit from the students why I might have arranged the phonemic transcription in such a way, hoping that someone will have noticed that each separation contains one vowel or diphthong (or triphthong, in the case of /va ʊəl/). In my experience, however, students can’t make sense of the separations until the reason is given. Having been conditioned by their L1 to think of the rhythm or ‘beat’ of a spoken language as being based upon consonant-vowel pairs, it is indeed a paradigm shift to be asked to conceive of such rhythm as being centred upon vowels regardless of whether they are accompanied on either side by a consonant or two, or three, or none. On the projector screen, I go through the phonemic transcription and point out that in each segment, there is only one vowel. I even read the sentences without any consonants to emphasise the point: ‘ a ʊə | ɑː | ɪə | i ː | ɪ | ɔː | ə | ɪ | a ɪ | ɪ | ə | ɪ | ə | ɒ | ɪ | ɪ ‘ and invite them to do so themselves.
We practise in class to some extent, but students are to produce, for homework in their own time outside of class, a recording of themselves reading the sentences. However, the reading is to be very much a spoken representation of the syllable-by-syllable phonemic notation, not a regular spoken version in which syllables will naturally connect to each other. Each syllable is to be read individually, separately and strictly in lockstep with a metronomic beat. I would represent this style of recitation thus:
‘Vowels, are, ree, lee, im, por, tant, in, fine, ding, the, ri, thm, of, En, glish.’
In my example, I establish a tempo of about 60 beats per minute, which is obviously an easy-to-find speed. (I should note that an actual metronome is unnecessary – a steady tap on the desk is sufficient.) I demonstrate the peculiar style extensively in class and also provide an example recording of myself reading the passage in this way via the university’s learning management system (LMS).
This exercise raises the students’ awareness towards their tendency to expand consonant clusters into multisyllabic utterances. Rather than what we might consider a natural and smooth rendition of ‘Some words, like “next” and “spring” ’, students will tend towards dividing and expanding consonant clusters into superfluous syllables along the lines of:
samu wahdzu (some words),
like-uh nekusuto (like ‘next’)
ando supuringu (and ‘spring’)
By anchoring each cluster to a metronomic beat, the exercise gives them experiential practice in very deliberately not augmenting and expanding clusters. Each of the words of that sentence must fit within the same timeframe as each other, regardless of whether or not they contain multiple consonants.
The sentences are carefully written. Even in only that first sentence (‘Vowels are really important in finding the rhythm of English’), we have simple syllables such as / ɑː/ and /p ɔː/ as well as clustered syllables such as /t ənt/ and / ɡl ɪʃ/, all of which must fit into the metronomic pulse uniformly. To maintain the consistent beat, those syllables featuring consonant clusters cannot take up any more time than their simple neighbouring syllables, nor be segmented into rhythmic subdivisions.
Students are instructed to practise repeatedly and with self-discipline, and to only commence recording themselves once they have mastered the recitation of each sentence independently in lockstep with a steady beat. The speed is up to them, but it is to remain consistent across the sentence. Using the voice memo recording application on their phone, or an audio recording app on their computer, they record their well-practised recitation and submit the recording to me via the LMS.
Evaluation
The first time I assigned this as a homework assignment, as I listened to each recording I leaned in with particular interest as the example words ‘next’ and ‘spring’ were to be pronounced. Time and time again, I found myself smiling at the great execution. Across more than thirty recordings, I’m not sure I even heard one ‘nekusto’!
The students did not seem put off by the odd, unnatural style of reciting the sentences. I anticipated resistance to it in the classroom, and that some recordings would simply not follow the requirement of separating each syllable into distinct beats, but the students appeared keen to try it out with their classmates, and the recordings sounded like they had been made enthusiastically.
Aligning this pronunciation challenge with something as familiar as a steady beat, I think, is what led to it being a success. Simply explaining and demonstrating the correct pronunciation of consonant clusters has often been insufficient to have students pronounce them correctly with any consistency. The presence of a consistent beat, even one that they were establishing and maintaining themselves, brought a sense of ‘reality’ to this unfamiliar and paradigm-shifting exercise, and gave rise to an intention in the students to get it right. With the next beat bearing down, there was no way to avoid placing the next syllable on it, and therefore that this current syllable at hand, be it / ɒv/ or /l ɒts/, simply had to be fit entirely within its own allotted time. Also, this was a chance to practise consonant clusters within and among other nonclustered words, across the length of an entire sentence.
I did reflect, however, that when running the activity next time, I would like to include more challenging consonant clusters more often. That is, with more frequency in each sentence. The assignment was the correct length, and yielded recordings of about 60–80 seconds, which I was happy with as they had obviously given rise to much more time than that spent in individual practice. Subsequent versions of this activity have included longer strings of potentially problematic words, and have even included sentences such as: ‘Many common words like ‘smiled’, ‘played’, ‘scratch’ and ‘speaks’ all contain clusters of consonants’. Having multiple one-syllable consonant-cluster words in a row like that posed an especially interesting challenge.
Conclusion
My experience is obviously with students who have Japanese as their L1, but I am certain that other L1s give rise to complications with consonant clusters that this activity can help with. The activity is completely adaptable to any group of learners, by way of a teacher coming up with example sentences that contain the kinds of clusters that challenge their students. The commonality with what I came up with need only be the requirement of the students to separate each syllable and maintain the uniform tempo, and to record themselves doing so after having achieved a satisfactory result in practice.
Taking such an unnatural approach to the language was remarkably effective in bringing the challenge of consonant clusters to the awareness of my students. The assignment provided a unique opportunity for them to practise pronouncing clusters correctly and in a way that they themselves could accurately monitor.
