IATEFL Pronunciation SIG newsletter Speak Out, Dec 2006
This article consists of two parts. In the first part, I will argue that the rejection of certain pronunciation materials on the grounds that they are not communicative may be unjustified. In this argument, I will make use of the concept of language play.
There's so much more to teaching pronunciation than drilling and the phonetic alphabet. A few simple exercises can open your students' senses to the rhythms and patterns of speech.
IATEFL Pronunciation Sig magazine 'Speak Out', issue 30, Sept 2003
For me, the first example that springs to mind when talking about minimal pairs is ship or sheep. This is almost certainly due to the influence of the title of the well known book Ship or Sheep by Anne Baker. The formula is this: take a word, remove one of the phonemes and replace it with another such that it forms a different word.
English Teaching Professional, issue 40, September 2005
There are three distinct aspects of intonation:
1. Separating what you say into groups of words;
2. Stressing the most important word in each of these groups;
3. Ending each group of words with the voice going up or down.
In this article, we’ll look at simple, practical ways of presenting intonation from each of these three ‘takes’ in turn.