Do You Need Subtitles While Speaking English?

Week 46 / 47 ( Pronunciation )

What does it mean to know a language? For years, this question has been a great concern for many linguists. Some would argue it is important to know grammar of the language, others would say knowing a language would mean being able to use it. For me, linguistic knowledge is only one side of knowig the language. Reading and writing, and finally speaking are also quite important parst of the language learning.

In the past, what the traditional language teaching methods were missing most was the fact that speaking is equally important in language teaching. In teacher based classrooms, students were learning (we can say memorizing) the grammar of the language perfectly without being able to use it. However, today, it is quite important to let the students use the language in communicative situations. Namely, students are supposed to communicate in the foreign language in the classroom. Then what makes communication effective and what causes break downs in communication? In other words, how could teachers help their students to use the language correctly so that they can communicate with native or non-native speakers of that language without having any problems? Well, there are lots of things to take into consideration but one of the most important points is being comprehensible in the foreign language while speaking.

In order to be comprehensible one should use the language correctly. So it makes the teaching of correct pronunciation, intonation and stress vital for teachers. For a teachers who wants his/her students to use the language corretly it is necessary to teach speaking skills as well as others. For instance, if your students were making the same pronunciation mistake very often, then you should definitely work on it before the mistake is fossilized. It  is also important to teach intonation in the foreign language. English is one of the languages in which there are a lot of variation in intonation. So if the student's native tongue is Danish for instance, then it would be much more vital to teach intonation so that no negative transfer from native language will occur. Moreover it is very easy for the pupils who doesn't have some of the sounds of the foreign language in their native language so they will definitely have difficulty to pronounce those sounds in the foreign language. 

Now, are you aware of the fact that it is equally important to teach speaking skills in the classroom? Are you aware of the fact that speaking a foreign language is not limited to knowing grammar pefectly? Are you comprehensible enough in the foreign language or do you need subtitles while speaking?

For the illustration " To need subtitles while speaking English", here is a funny video about pronunciation and pronunciation mistakes. I hope that you enjoy it :)