Ears to Hear

           This week I was sitting in a coffee shop, working on my TESL homework and reading about the effect of an L1 on a student. As I zoned out, I began to hear the voices around me and I fixated on a lady’s voice who, it became apparent, was from India. I did not follow the conversation but I listened to her speech and the way she articulated herself, I could hear the result of her L1 coming through. This drew my attention back to my homework. I began to read about how having Hindi as your L1 can influence your English. I focused again on the lady’s voice in the coffee shop and I heard her mispronounce sounds such as the /th/ sound in place of the /s/ sound. I was delightfully surprised to see how I could identify the errors she made according to what I had read.

            Something that I learned this week was how an L1 can influence the learning of English. I had never thought about how a language could impact in a consistent way the education of a new language such as English. It has been intriguing to run into people, by accident or through the TESL program who have a different L1 than English. You can hear their struggles with the English language through their speech. People I work with, podcasts I listen to and kids I interact with who have grown up with another language other than English, all have their primary language affecting their English speaking. 

            It has been easy for me to spot the issues and problems these people have in their language speaking in regards to segmentals. A segmental includes the sounds of vowels and consonants, easily seen in phonetic charts. Hearing the missing /r/ in “more” or the missing “k” sound in “picnic” is quite clear to me, despite learning to listen for these sounds recently.

            Suprasegmentals have been more of a challenge for me to pick up on. Suprasegmentals are smaller elements or features included in speaking. These smaller features include the tone used to speak, the word or sentence stress and the rhythm in which words are spoken. It has been intriguing to try to identify suprasegmentals in listening to anyone, including myself, speak. Although I have spoken English for my entire life and for the most part, only heard English spoken to me, to identify the errors in regards to suprasegmentals is very difficult. I can hear when something besides the basic segmental is wrong but to identify precisely what it is will take some training for my ears.

            Learning the parts of speaking, such as the segmentals or suprasegmentals and all these two terms encompass, has truly opened my eyes further to the world of both speaking and listening. Becoming aware of the factors that play into speaking, makes me wonder how anyone can learn a language. Patient instruction, listening and practicing are key ways to succeed in both teaching and learning English. As my eyes are being opened to seeing the factors that play into speaking English, my ears are being opened to learning how to identify errors and bring about greater excellence.   

Bibliography 

Shoebottom, P. (n.d.). The differences between English and Hindi/Urdu. Retrieved September 21, 2018, from http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/langdiff/hindi.htm