Pronunciation Teaching Tools

Burgen Youngbyoung@themlc.org

Pronunciation is a key to

communication.

But…

Isolated pronunciation exercises are not very effective.

And…

Technical explanations of pronunciation are often confusing.

A Solution

Practice pronunciation as problems occur

And…

Avoid pronunciation jargon

alveolar ridge

fricative

voiceless

supersegmentalschwa

dipthong

vocal tract

Keep it simple

How?

Pronunciation Tool Number One

familiarUse symbols

Pronunciation Tool Number Two

I hear . Try to say .

I hear . Try to say .

I hear . Try to say .

how house

t-shirtteacher

sheepship

Pronunciation Tool Number Three

Listen, listen some more and then repeat.

Just listen. Ruler. Ruler.

Pronunciation Tool Number Four

Break it Down

fridgere fridge

re fridge erre fridge er ate

re fridge er ate or

Pronunciation Tool Number Five

You can say

when you say . You can say when you say .

You can say when you say .

the s sound at the beginning of a word

start

the v sound very

the r soundred

Tool Kit

1. Use familiar symbols2. When you say that I

hear ____. Try to say ____.

3. Listen, listen again, and then repeat.

4. Break it down5. You can say that when

you say ___.

Pronunciation is more than sounds.

wordstress

vowels

consonants

pitch

sentencestress

thought

groups

Intonation is more important for comprehension than individual sounds.

The teaching tools work with intonation too.

What is intonation?

Intonation is…

Pitch

Intonation is…

Stress

Intonation is…

Thought Groups

What is sentence stress?

The important words in a sentence are stressed.

A stressed syllable has a vowel sound that is…

longer

louder

To identify the number of syllables in a word, count the number of vowel sounds.

To find a stressed syllable, s t re t ch the word and identify the longest vowel sound.

For more informationhttp://online.themlc.org