Unit 3 - PHONOLOGY

           Unit 3 is about Phonology. It refers to the study of the sounds features used in a language to communicate meaning. Also, it is a broader study of major speech sounds and their organization in a particular language. "Phonology is not just (or even mainly) concerned with categories or objects (such as consonants, vowels, phonemes, allophones, etc.) but is also crucially about relations" Jakobson, R. (1962). So English language involves all those features phonemes, word stress, sentence stress and intonation. However, learners should notice the relation between linguistics sounds and they need to learn that phonemes of a language are represented in writing by phonemic symbols such as: /aI/, /i:/ and the most significant aspect here is that each phonemic symbol represents only one phoneme. However, as future teachers when talking about phonology the first thing that should come to our mind is how vowels and consonants are used in words when we acquired a language, how they are sounded and the most important thing how the phonetic transcription is for each of them. In addition, in English language there is a phonemic chart that is divided into groups vowels and consonants. Vowels are sounds made with the mouth partly open and where the air is not stopped by the tongue, lips or teeth. On the other hand, consonants are divided in voiced and unvoiced sounds. Voiced sounds are spoken using the vibration of our voice, for example: /b/,/g/. But the unvoiced sounds are spoken without using our voice, for example: /p/,/t/. To sum up, when teaching this topic in a classroom I would like to stick a phonemic chart for my English learners to help them to deal with the pronunciation and also with the writing part. I am totally sure if they keep practicing every day they will learn better and faster.

You can look for more information on these links:

http://www.teachit.co.uk/armoore/lang/phonology.htm

http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/jcoleman/PHONOLOGY1.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De4iMKxSpgY

References: 

- Jakobson, R. (1962) The phonemic concept of distinctive features. In A. Sovijärvi and P. Aalto, eds. Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Mouton & Co. 440-455

- Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT course. Ernst Klett Sprachen.