Back-chaining

Back-chaining is a useful technique in teaching oral language skills, particularly when it comes to polysyllabic words. Suppose, for example, you are teaching someone to pronounce the name ‘Mussorgsky’. First, you get them to say the last syllable, ‘-sky’; then to repeat it, with '-sorg-' attached before: ‘-sorgsky’; and then all that remains is the first syllable: ‘Mus-sorg-sky’. This technique is easier for the learner than the more obvious front-chaining, starting with the first syllable, as it requires the learner to put the new element first, where it is less easily forgotten.

Back-chaining also respects the phonological structure of English better than front-chaining: as there is usually no difference in stress between a word spoken in isolation and one spoken at the end of a sentence, it is arguably better to begin with the final syllable (main stress in bold):

Chaining sequences for the English word 'aroma':

(1) Front-chaining: [ə] - [ə.ɹəʊ] - [ə.ɹəʊ.mə]

(2) Back-chaining: [mə] - [ɹəʊ.mə] - [ə.ɹəʊ.mə]

In English, syllables tend to follow a stressed-unstressed pattern, e.g. 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 might also choose to present a chain as pairs of syllables, e.g. beginning with -roma, then aroma: this introduces the strong-weak stress pattern from the outset.

See also

• Syllable
• Stress (linguistics)
• Second language acquisition