Back-chaining is a technique used in teaching oral language skills, especially with
polysyllabic or difficult words and phrases.
["Backchaining." ''Glossary.'' Retrieved April 4, 2009, from http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/backchaining.html] The teacher pronounces the last syllable, the student repeats, and then the teacher continues, working backwards from the end of the word to the beginning.
For example, to teach the name ‘
Mussorgsky' a teacher will pronounce the last syllable: ''-sky,'' and have the student repeat it. Then the teacher will repeat it with ''-sorg-'' attached before: ''-sorg-sky'', after which all that remains is the first syllable: ''Mus-sorg-sky.''
Back-chaining makes natural
stress easier for the student.
It is easier than the front-chaining, which starts from the first syllable, because back-chaining requires that the student put the new element first where it is more
difficult to forget.
Back-chaining can also be applied to whole sentences, for instance when teachers model dialogue sentences for learners to imitate. The teacher first models the whole sentence. When they get faulty and hesitant imitation responses from the learners, back-chaining (backward build up) should be used. Here is an example taken from Butzkamm & Caldwell:
:Teacher: I‘m studying the present progressive. ''(Students find it difficult to reproduce the sentence.)''
:Teacher: Progressive.
:Student: Progressive.
:Teacher: The present progressive. ''(Students imitate.)''
:Teacher: I’m studying the present progressive. ''(Students imitate the whole sentence correctly.)''
English
In
English, back-chaining retains
phonological
Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often prefer ...
structure better than front-chaining. Normally there is no difference in
stress between a word spoken in isolation and one spoken at the end of a sentence
[Compare ''psychological'' in isolation, ''it's psychological'' and ''psychological profile'', where only in the last does the main stress shift to another syllable.] and it is arguably better to start with the final syllable (main stress in bold):
''Chaining sequences for the English word 'aroma':''
# ''Front-chaining:''
# ''Back-chaining:''
Syllables tend to follow a stressed-unstressed pattern in English, example: ''happy'' (though there are many exceptions). The order ''-ma,'' ''-roma'' and ''aroma'' respects this. Starting with ''a-'' and ''aro-'' entails reversing this pattern, which complicates learning. Teachers could choose to present a chain as pairs of syllables too, beginning with ''-roma,'' then ''aroma'' which introduces the strong-weak stress pattern from the outset.
Footnotes
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Language-teaching techniques