I got my first teaching job in 1984, working at a large boy's secondary school in El Obeid, Sudan. This experience made it very clear to me that there's a lot more to teaching English than just being able to speak the language!
This article, which first appeared in Modern English Teacher 29.3 (July 2020), argues for a more democratic use of the IPA phonemic symbols in English language teaching.
Pronunciation teaching can be a joy – it doesn’t have to be all complicated theory and difficult symbols. With a playful and experimental approach, it can be a part of the lesson that your students look forward to most. In this session, we will take a look at some example activities designed to practise some of the pronunciation features that Spanish learners need to focus on.
Most learners today need English to communicate in a lingua franca (ELF) environment. The recognition of this fact has disrupted pronunciation teaching. What model can learners aspire to if not a ‘native speaker’ model? What can be considered ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’? In this talk, we will look at what is to become of pronunciation teaching these post-ELF times.
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.
