International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
The Intrusive Sounds in the Connected Speech
Mehmet Deniz Demircioğlu a
ª ELT Lecturer, Uludag University, School of Foreign Languages, 16369 “Bursa,” Turkey
Abstract
In our modern and globally developing age, accurate and fluent verbal communication in English is inevitable
for everybody. The use of technologically developing electronic devices, such as computer, Face book, twitter,
and Skype has predominantly entailed educated people to learn English at the desired level accepted by all over
the world. However, many people whose mother tongues are agglutinating languages, because of the insufficient
and baseless educational systems that are based on the Grammar-Translation method put into practice in the
developing countries’ secondary and high schools, still have difficulty to learn English.
Every English teacher righteously justifies that the Grammar-Translation method is ineffective to teach English.
On the other hand, most of the native and non-native ELT teachers find skill-based and task-based teaching
methods are more useful and interactive than the Grammar-translation one in teaching English. Teaching
pronunciation and articulation in which intrusive sounds play an important role is considered to improve the
listening skill for learners.
Students who do not know how the intrusive sounds work and who have no experience in practicing on that
have mostly difficulty in understanding what they hear, even if they watch TV in English such as BBC, CNN,
and other international media organs.
The Turkish teachers who teach English in non-English speaking environment, especially in Turkey, often
advise that the students watch TV, and listen to the radio in English as much as they can so that they can
improve their understanding (listening) ability. No matter how much, and how long a student watches TV and
listens to the radio in English to improve his or her English listening ability, practicing by students or learners
without being informed in the presence of the intrusive sounds is absolutely observed to be less easily digestible
than it is advised by those teachers.
After the function of the intrusive sounds being learnt by Turkish students and when they understand how those
sounds work in the pronunciation and articulation, their listening abilities will improve quicker than expected.
Keywords. Intrusive sounds, pronunciation, articulation, Turkish language, Turkish learners, language families, language teaching.
Introduction
In our modern and globally developing age, accurate and fluent verbal communication in English is inevitable
for everybody. The use of technologically developing electronic devices, such as computer, Face book, twitter,
and Skype has predominantly entailed educated people to learn English at the desired level accepted by all over
the world. However, many people whose mother tongues are agglutinating languages, because of the ineffective
educational systems based upon the Grammar-Translation method put into practice in the developing countries’
secondary and high schools, still have difficulty to learn English.(especially in Turkey)
Every English teacher righteously justifies that the Grammar-Translation method is ineffective to teach
English. On the other hand, most of the native and non-native ELT teachers find skill-based and task-based
teaching methods are more useful and interactive than the Grammar-translation one in teaching English.
Teaching pronunciation and articulation, as important tools of both listening and speaking abilities, in which
intrusive sounds play a significant role is considered to improve the listening skill for learners.
Students who do not know how the intrusive sounds work and who have no experience in practicing on that
have mostly difficulty in understanding what they hear, even if they watch TV in English such as BBC, CNN,
and other international media organs.
The Turkish teachers who teach English in non-English speaking environment, especially in Turkey, often
advise that the students watch TV, and listen to the radio in English as much as they can so that they can
improve their understanding (listening) ability. No matter how much, and how long a student watches TV and
listens to the radio in English to improve his or her English listening ability, practicing by students or learners
without being informed about the presence of the intrusive sounds is absolutely observed to be less easily
digestible than it is advised by those teachers.
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