Pronunciation is just as important for listening as for speaking. In this workshop, we looked at how to help learners to understand authentic English by focusing on pronunciation. Specifically, we looked at features of connected speech and accent. You can download the slides and handout for the talk below.
These are a series of practical teaching ideas which I have been contibuting to the IATEFL Pron Sig magazine 'Speak Out'. They cover a range of different pronunciation issues:
1. Contrastive stress
2. The final -s suffix - plurals, present simple, possessives
3. Consonant sounds /t/ and /d/ at the ends of words
4. Dividing text into tone units
This is an activity to raise students' awareness of the way words are modified in connected speech. In particular, it focuses on the way consonant sounds are linked, elided or assimilated.
New Edition of English Pronunciation in Use, out just last week! There's plenty that's new here, including a much clarified approach to tonic stress placement, and a section focusing on receptive pronunciation (ie, pronunciation for listening), including variation and accents.
This activity helps to make students more aware of the divergence of pronunciation and spelling in English. In order to do the crossword, they must be able to think of the word as a sequence of sounds rather than as a sequence of letters. More pronunciation ideas?
Here's a song/rhyme to focus on the pronunciation of the past tense ending -ed. There are three audio tracks to download: the poem read aloud; the poem read aloud with backchained drill repetitions for students to pause and repeat, and finally, the poem as a song lyric accompanied to music.
We see a waiter's responses to a complaining customer. The waiter can make the sentence mean something completely different according to the word he/she stresses... More pronunciation ideas? See this article.
Students find a path from top left to bottom right. They may only pass through a hexagon if the word has stress on the first syllable. Notice that all the words are 2-syllable nouns. Some of them may be cognates in your students' L1, but the stress may be different! More pronunciation ideas?
In 2017 English Pronunciation in use got a new look. The new cover design comes along with a new approach to audio - instead of being on a set of four audio CDs and a CD-ROM, the audio is now a free online download. This makes the whole package much more affordable and is published alongside the 2012 second edition of this best-selling pronunciation title, already in full colour and with a new section on understanding fast, authentic speech.
There is a video of this lecture recorded at TESOL Spain, Bilbao below. Pronunciation is just as important for listening as for speaking. In this workshop, we will see how to help learners to understand authentic English by focusing on pronunciation. Specifically, we will look at features of connected speech, intonation, and accent.
