英语专业课程教学大纲 Week 2 Features of vowels and rules of articulation These two periods mainly focus on the articulation of vowels. After a general description on the features of vowels, the vowels will be dealt with one by one, from the monophthongs(the front vowels the central vowels, and the back vowels) to the diphthongs(the closing diphthongs, the centering diphthongs). The methods of delivery are firstly the illustration of rules for articulation, like the lip shape, tongue position and degree of tenseness. Then, the teacher makes models for each sound and listens to some students to find out the mispronunciations. A lot of repetition exercises follow to enhance the rules of articulation. The correction of the monophthongs is the most important, because the position articulation for the front, back and centering vowels are confusing. They could be illustrated as follows The features for the front vowels are a. the front of the tongue is raised to various levels in the direction of the hard palate b. The tip of the tongue is usually kept down behind the lower teeth The features for the back vowels are a. The tongue is retracted, the back part is raised to various levels in the direction of the soft palate b. The tip of the tongue is slightly drawn away from the lower teeth The features for the centering vowels are a)the middle of the tongue is raised towards the dividing line between the hard and the soft palates b)The lip position is neutral, that is, the lips are held naturally and normally英语专业课程教学大纲 100 Week 2 Features of Vowels and Rules of Articulation These two periods mainly focus on the articulation of vowels. After a general description on the features of vowels, the vowels will be dealt with one by one, from the monophthongs (the front vowels, the central vowels, and the back vowels) to the diphthongs (the closing diphthongs, the centering diphthongs). The methods of delivery are firstly the illustration of rules for articulation, like the lip shape, tongue position and degree of tenseness. Then, the teacher makes models for each sound and listens to some students to find out the mispronunciations. A lot of repetition exercises follow to enhance the rules of articulation. The correction of the monophthongs is the most important, because the position of articulation for the front, back and centering vowels are confusing. They could be illustrated as follows: The features for the front vowels are a.the front of the tongue is raised to various levels in the direction of the hard palate b.The tip of the tongue is usually kept down behind the lower teeth. c.The lips are spread out The features for the back vowels are a.The tongue is retracted, the back part is raised to various levels in the direction of the soft palate. b.The tip of the tongue is slightly drawn away from the lower teeth The features for the centering vowels are a)the middle of the tongue is raised towards the dividing line between the hard and the soft palates b)The lip position is neutral, that is, the lips are held naturally and normally