Contractions and ESL Speakers

Many of my private ESL students are advanced level ESL speakers. Many come to me because they want to sound more like a native English speaker. Together, we work on many ways to improve their American English pronunciation and reduce their native accents. We look at intonation, pronunciation of words and of individual sounds, we look at voiced and unvoiced sounds, etc.

We also look at reductions and contractions. Most advanced ESL students are very familiar with contractions. They've been taught about them many times. However, very few of my students use contractions. As a matter of fact, when they are reading aloud to me, they will even take apart a contraction. "I'll" becomes "I will" when they are reading. So it is often very difficult for ESL speakers to consistently use contractions.

And yet, the use of contractions during speaking is one of the best ways to move toward sound more "native." With a lot of practice and reinforcement, non-native English speakers can move towards sounding more native by using this one technique.

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Reductions in English

Many non-native English speakers think Americans speak really fast. While this may be true for some people, what tends to happen more is that native speakers use contractions (e.g., I did not = I didn’t) and reductions (e.g., I’m going to = I’m gonna).

Contractions are usually taught when English language learners study English as a foreign language in their home countries, although most non-native English speakers need more practice in this area. However, reductions are seldom taught, with the exception of “gonna” and “wanna.” Most of my students, especially Korean students, are good at using these two reductions, but not others.

Other common reductions used by native English speakers are “shoulda,” “coulda,” and “woulda.” There are a couple of steps to get to these reductions. First, the student must be taught to use the contraction “should’ve,” for example. After the student is comfortable with this contraction, you can introduce the reduction “shoulda.” You don’t really need to teach it step-by-step, but I’ve found that a lot of students are uncomfortable with what they think is improper English. It sometimes takes a little convincing that contractions and even most reductions are correct and are used by, even, educated people.

Another reduction I heard once is a big jump, even for me! I’ve heard some people turn “I am going to” into “I’m’n’a.” I don’t even know how to write that out!

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