Essay Example on One aspect of pronunciation from the MOE EL Syllabus

One aspect of pronunciation from the MOE EL syllabus that I would like to focus on is reading aloud clearly and fluently using appropriate voice qualities to convey meaning and expression From my contract experience working with Primary threes and fives students I realized that that group of students I taught generally have less issues with pronunciation with accuracy They are generally able to pronunciation their vowels and consonants when they make a conscious effort to do so However one prominent issue is their lack of expression Their reading is mostly monotone with no variation in their volume and pitch Even in reading direct speech in their passage they show no change in volume and emotions Their reading is not able to capture the attention of their listeners and they are not able to convey the meaning of the passage across One common mistake is their pacing at reading They do not pause at the correct place particularly in a long sentence and they seems to rush through their reading Therefore I would like to target this aspect of pronunciation which is their pacing and expression to improve their fluency Punctuation To help learners develop in this area these are the few proposed activities that could be carried out in the classroom 

I feel that when it comes to expression in fluency it is important to take note of the punctuation first The learning outcome of this activity is to let the students know that punctuation has an impact on our voices as we read In pairs the students take turns to ask their partner a question While listening to their partner they are to take note of their tone Do their tone raises then come to a stop or drop and comes to a stop Do they pause and take a breath after each comma Have students note down their observations Next we repeat with other statements for example a statement that ends with an exclamation mark a statement that has a list of things separated by commas Students will have a feel what each punctuation can do to change the voices A followed up activity will be to have students work in groups and to give each group of students a poem The poem is given to them with all punctuations removed Together as a group they discuss and decide where and which punctuation goes onto the poem Once they are done they read their poems in their groups to their class From their sharing they may find that they may place different punctuation differently and how sometimes although we say the same word or same sentence it has a different meaning each time we say it according to the punctuation after it To illustrate the point for example No No No Yes Yes Yes With regards to pausing some students exhibit issues with pausing at the right place for a long sentence Students can be given a long sentence to practice and have them decide where is a good place to pause and read it to their partner 

Having a fluency assessment rubric for the students is necessary as it provides feedback to the students on the areas he or she is doing well or areas which he she needs to improve on The fluency rubrics should include target areas like punctuation and pausing expression rhythm and smoothness In punctuation and pauses the rubrics look at if reader pause after the punctuation and if pauses are place at the right places in long sentences In expression the rubrics look at if the reader reads with feelings and voice goes up and down Record students reading and have them played back and listen and assessed themselves using the rubrics