Teaching Pronunciation through Games to the Elementary School Students

Elementary school students are children at the age of six to eleven. Wendy A. Scott and Lisbeth H. Ytreberg in Teaching English to Children (1990) assumed that young learners are between five and ten or eleven years old. So elementary school students are young learners who are at the beginning level. At this level, students have a language with all the basic elements. They are competent users of their mother tongue and they are aware of the main rules in their own language. When it comes to learning a foreign language, students will have some sort of language awareness and readiness which they bring with them into the foreign language classroom. Moreover, elementary school is an appropriate time to teach English due to the students’ awareness toward foreign language.

On teaching pronunciation for young learners, Brown (2001, p.284) stated “At the beginning levels, we want learners to surpass that threshold beneath which pronunciation detracts from their ability to communicate”. Therefore, children should be taught pronunciation as early as possible so that they can practice to speak English with a good pronunciation. And the goal of teaching pronunciation should be more realistically focused on clear, comprehensible pronunciation. However, Michael Wei Ph. D found that many students and teachers believe that spending time on pronunciation is useless because it would be difficult, if possible for students to hear differences, for instance, between ship and sheep (as cited in Wong, 1993). Pronunciation is the first material to be taught to elementary school students. It is the proper material at this level because teaching pronunciation includes intonation, stress, rhythm, consonants and vowels which support the communicative process. Listeners can not get the meaning if the rhythm and intonation are different. A wrong intonation will not fail to convey meaning, but it will succeed in conveying a meaning different from that intended by the speaker. Furthermore, teaching pronunciation to elementary school students is important. The purpose of teaching foreign language is enable students to communicate in the target language. Therefore, anyone who wants to gain communicative competence has to study pronunciation. Michael Wei PhD pointed out that even when the non-native speakers’ vocabulary and grammar are excellent, if their pronunciation falls below a certain threshold level; they are unable to communicate effectively (as cited in Wong, 1987). If children are taught pronunciation earlier, they will speak English as well as a native speaker. Since Brown (2001) stated that children under the age of puberty stand an excellent chance of ‘sounding like a native’. In addition, good pronunciation makes people understand what one has to say because it is more easily understood and more pleasant to listen than faulty pronunciation; as a result people pay closer attention to a speaker whose pronunciation is good (James,1958).

Teaching by using games helps the elementary school students to learn pronnciation. Michael Wei PhD noted that pronunciation should be taught in all seconds language classes through a variety of activities (as cited in Scorcella and Oxford, 1994). Most activities for young learners should include movement and involve the sense and games are appropriate for them. The teacher should be creative to make various activities so that students can learn how to use the language. Playing games is an interesting activity to study pronunciation. Games influence students’ condition in the classroom. Games can reduce students’ physical barriers in learning pronunciation. In the beginning, most students have a feeling that they can not be successful or the negative association they may have toward studying (Larsen-Freeman, 2000). Therefore, the teacher should recognize the students’ feeling and help them to break their physical barriers. Susanto (2009) stated that teaching through games make students feel fresh and fun since games function as relaxation and entertainment in studying. Games can be used as ice breaker and energizer, so the students will not bored and they will have high motivation to study. In addition, playing games has the same feature with learning pronunciation. Games practice students to communicate in real situation and also learn how to use the correct pronunciation in speaking. The games should include the materials about pronunciation. So the students get the theory and apply it directly through communicative activities such as pronunciation games. Mark Hancock in Pronunciation Games (1995) noted that pronunciation games should contain enjoyable activities designed to raise learners’ awareness of an aspect of English pronunciation. Therefore, the games include minimal pairs, stress, intonation, syllables and so on.

Teacher applies many kinds of games in teaching pronunciation. Case (2008) created 15 top fun pronunciation games; they are shadow reading, syllable snap, word stress pellmanism, The Yes?! Games, Yes. Yes! Yes!, sound brainstorming board race, minimal pairs stations, sounds same or different, sounds same or different pair work, tell me when I’m odd, silently mouthing, sound puzzle, pronunciation maze, common pronunciation pictures, no sounds listening comprehension. The teacher can choose which games are appropriate for the students in learning pronunciation. For example Romualdez (1999) created pronunciation games about minimal pairs and word stress. “Minimal pairs are words that differ by only one sound. Examples include the words "fourteen" and "forty," "ferry" and "very," and "climb" and "crime." These words can often be confusing for students trying to learn English. Students are paired and given flash cards with a minimal pair of words on each card. One student says one of the words written on the flashcard, and then shows his partner the flashcard. The partner must then determine which word was spoken. The person trying to figure out the word can ask the person speaking to repeat the word as often as she wants” (Romualdez, 1999, para. 2). The second game is word stress game. “Words with more than one syllable have different intonations or stress on a certain syllable. Stress on certain syllables can completely change the word itself, so knowing how words are properly stressed helps not only with English pronunciation but with understanding the meaning of words as well. For example, if the stress is on the first syllable for the word "record," the word becomes a verb; if the stress is on the second syllable, the word becomes a noun. For instance, "Please record our conversation" (verb) versus "We are listening to this old record" (noun). For the word-stress game, divide the class into two or three groups. On the blackboard, draw a table with three columns, marking each column with the numbers one through three (representing which syllable should be stressed). Read a word with three or more syllables out loud and have the first team to start write the answer in the correct column. For example, if you say the word "happily" the team should write the word under the first column; if you say "understand" the team should write the word under the third column. Each team should be given different colored chalk to differentiate among teams so you can check how many answers each team got right at the end” (Romualdez, 1999, para. 3).

Games activity is a good way to teach pronunciation to the elementary school students. Because games can reduce students’ barriers and have the same feature with learning pronunciation. It helps them to learn about minimal pairs, word stress, intonation, syllables and so on. The teacher applies which games activity is attractive for students, so they have great motivation in learning pronunciation. Studying in the classroom will be interesting and fun with games. For instance, the students play minimal pairs game and word stress game.