Phonemic symbols – we love them or hate them, but often for the wrong reasons. For some, they are symbols of an elite accent which is not our own. But there is an alternative way of viewing them which is less prescriptive and more tolerant of accent variation. From this angle, they can be symbols of empowerment.
A phrase usually has one word which is stressed more than the rest. Normally it is the last content word of the phrase. For example, the normal stress on You never help me is on help. It’s not on me because me is not a content word but a function word.
This chant has a waltz rhythm – each stressed syllable is separated by two unstressed syllables. The overall form of the text is a limerick. It has an unusual density of the sound /w/ - a semi-consonant created by movement of the lips.
In this You Tube Video, Mark demonstrates a series of different classroom activities for presenting and practising the contrast between the vowel sounds in live and leave.
In this practical session, I present simple tips on how to give more weight to pronunciation by exploiting the book more thoroughly and supplementing where necessary. The Pasta rap activity is here. The handout, slides and game can be downloaded below.
Thanks for coming to this talk! The empty worksheet templates and slides from the talk are downloadable at the bottom of this page. The worksheets and audio for the raps are here: The Brothers and Pasta.
The Albert Hall, Dumbarton Road, Stirling, Scotland
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What is to become of pronunciation teachng in these post-ELF times? Thanks for coming to this talk. The slides can be downloaded below. The pronunciation errors diagnosis game can be found here.
This chant is made up of five rhyming couplets, and it has an unusual density of TH-sounds (the hard TH in 'earth' and the soft TH in 'brother'. The hard TH is called ‘theta’, and for convenience, I’ll use that name to refer to both sounds.
This is a board game for use in teacher training. Players can use a dice and counter. They take turns to throw the dice and move. They should explain the pronunciation error in the sentence they land on, and match it with one of the causes in 1-5 at the top of the board.
