• Justification:

• I chose this topic because is a common problem in students who go to speaking corners in the language center (SAC) of the university of Quintana Roo. I think that the fossilization in students because they don t know how to identify their errors in pronouncing because not all of them know about phonology or do not have a high level of English.

• Objectives:

• To know what factors make that some Mexican students tend to have pronunciation problems with the phonemes; theta, eth, and the mispronunciation of the consonant: f, v, s, and z,

• Show how to pronounce these different phonemes.

What is fossilization?

• “Fossilizable linguistic phenomena are linguistic items, rules and subsystems which speakers of a particular NL will tend to keep in their IL relative to a particular TL, no matter what the age of the learner or amount of explanation and instruction he receives in the TL. (NL - Native Language; IL - Interlanguage; TL - Target Language)”, ( Interlanguage & fossilization, 2012)

• SELINKER(1972)

What does fossilization happen?

• Linguists do not know exactly why

fossilization happens

• Because of an inadequate learning

environment .

• They are not in a native speaker

country, so they cannot have a good input.

SPANISH AND ENGLISH SOUNDS

Theta and eth

• Theta /θ/ and eth /ð/

are dental fricative

sounds in English

language. They are

called dental because

to reproduce them you

have to put your

tongue between your

lips.

• theta is voiceless and

eth is voiced.

The consonants F and V

• In English: • The consonant “ f ” can be pronounced with the

phonemes /f/ and /v/. These phonemes are labio-dental

fricatives because the air comes through the teeth and

lips. And the /f / is voiceless and the phoneme /V/ is

voiced.

• The consonant “ V ” is only pronounced with the sound

/V/

• In Spanish:

• The consonant “ f ” is pronounced with the

sound /f/

• The consonant “ v ” is pronounced with the

sound/b/ which is a bilabial stop and voiced

sound . In Mexico is common to pronounce the

letter “ v ” as /b/.

The consonants S and Z

• In English:

• The consonant S is pronounced with the sound /s/

and also with the sound /z/

• The consonant Z is pronounced with the sound /z/

• In Spanish:

• The consonant S is pronounced with the sound /s/

• The consonant Z is pronounced with the sound /s/

• The phonemes /s/ and /z/ are alveolar

fricatives, there are alveolar because the tongue

is on the alveolar ridge when the sound is

reproduce. And also it results from an

obstruction of the air flow at the alveolar ridge.

The /s/ is voiceless and the /z/ is voiced.

• Research

• Group 1: students with a basic level in

English.

SAC

Student 2 student with an advanced level in

English,

he has taken phonology

Theta Eth

Mouth /t/ There

Breath This

Earth That

Think /t/ Then /d/

Birth /t/ Those

Thanks /t/ Either /d/

Thieve /d/ Than

Thorax Weather /t/

Pathetic /d/ Mother /d/

Catholic Father /d/

Theta Eth

Mouth There

Breath This /d/

Earth That

Think Then

Birth Those

Thanks Either

Thieve Than /d/

Thorax Weather

Pathetic Mother

Catholic Father

GROUP 1

STUDENT 2

Theta and eth• Group 1

• Students tend to pronounce the consonants TH as /t/ or /d/ because

these phonemes are in Spanish phonetic alphabet. They listen how the

pronunciation of the words is, and they adapt the sound with /t/ and /d/.

• It is common to see this problem because these phonemes are not used

for Mexican people; however, there are some regions in Mexico where

people used the phoneme theta. The phonemes theta and eth are difficult

for Mexican people because they are not getting used with these sounds.

•

• Student 2

• Student demonstrated to be familiarized with these sounds. He has a

high level in English, and also he has taken courses of phonology and

linguistics which allowed him to know about these phonemes.

F V

Off Thieve /f/

Fan Of /f/

Feel Five /f/

Professor Veal

Fault Event /b/

Fresh Van

Shelf Available /b/

Half Evaluation

Wolf Prevention

Vote /b/

F V

Off Thieve

Fan Of

Feel Five

Professor Veal /b/

Fault Event

Fresh Van

Shelf Available

Half Evaluation

Wolf Prevention /b/

vote

GROUP 1

STUDENT 2

• Group 1

• In this part, students did not have problems pronouncing the /f/ because this sound

exists in their alphabet; however they think that the consonant F is pronounced always

with /f/. An example of this is the word - of – that is pronounced with the phoneme /v/

but they pronounced it like /f/.

• On the other hand, they do not know how to pronounce the letter V in English

because in Mexico we pronounced the letter V as /b/ like in the word - vil – we do not

say /vil/, we say /bil/. This problem happens when the letter V is in the beginning of the

words. However, they can pronounce the letter V as /v/ when the consonant is in middle

of the word; - Prevention- they say /prɪ v̍entʃən /. But when the consonant is at the

end of the word they pronounced the letter as /f/ like in –of-, they pronounce /af/ instead

of /av/.

• Student 2

• This student made mistakes in pronunciation but in a different way that the group.

He mispronounced the word –prevention-; /prɪ B̍entʃən/, when the group pronounced

it well, so for this student can be a problem the pronunciation of the letter V in middle of

a word. Also he had pronounced the word –veal- with the sound /f/.

GROUP 1

STUDENT 2

S Z

Bus Buzz

So Zoo

Sip Zip /s/

Muss /z/ Zebra

Miss /z/ Zombie

Stand Zoom

Mess Busy /s/

Case Quiz

Base Phrase /s/

Suggest Rise /s/

S Z

Bus Buzz

So Zoo

Sip Zip

Muss Zebra

Miss Zombie /S/

Stand Zoom

Mess Busy

Case Quiz

Base Phrase

Suggest Rise

• Group 1

• Like in other consonants, the sound Z is not pronounced like /z/ in

Mexico. An example: the word –zapato- ,Mexicans say /Sapato/

instead of /Zapato/. So it is not surprising that students with a basic

level in English do a lot of mistakes with the letter Z in English

words.

• It is important to mention that these students know that in

English exists the sound /z/ but they think that when word has a

double S, they have to pronounce it like a /z/. For example the

words -miss- and- muss- they pronounced them with /z/.

• Student 2

• In this lists of words, the student had a mistake with the letter

Z, he pronounced it as /s/ in the word –zombie-.

Ways of correcting these

mistakes in pronunciation in

class

How can you indicate inviduals

sounds

• Mouthing the word using gesture

• Emphazising a Finger indication

syllable

Making marks

/hoTEL/ /hotel/ /ho tel/

Visuals

CapitalizationUnderlining

Stress

mark

Conclusion• First, we are not familiarized with the English alphabet, it

has different sound that in Spanish alphabet of Mexico

does not have. So for this reason many students carry

with these mistakes in pronunciation. For this reason it is

important to study phonology and phonetics to

understand how the sounds work.

• Other reason can be that we are not in a country

where English is spoken like a national language so we

do not have the enough and appropriate input of English

to improve our language, Also that we live with people

who can have mistakes and they can transmit us those

mistakes. In short, we are in an inadequate learning

environment.

•

• These mistakes can be corrected in class with

the help of the teacher; there are many ways of

do it. But the important thing is that students

realized about their mistakes and correct them in

order to follow in a good way their process of

learning the language.

• This correction will help students to acquire a

better accent in English.