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Active fast speaking enables fast listening …
Learning to speak short phrases fast and fluently unlocks the ability to listen to rapid connected speech. It is not unlike learning to play and listen to music, especially improvised music like jazz, since language also improvised
How can we teach phonemic symbols to beginners and young students without causing confusion?
Pronunciation: Learn the sounds before the symbols. Learn pronunciation as early as possible, with beginners and young learners
Diversity, pronunciation, and being ‘correct’
teach with your own accent whether it is a native or non native variety. Expose learners to multiple varieties of accent from around the world. This is now an easy thing to do through media, films, youtube etc.
Sound by sound or all at once?
Sound by sound or all at once? Using the whole chart
Tips to boost my confidence …
Tips to boost my confidence in pronunciation teaching. Exploration in the moment rather than prior certainly
What metalanguage should one use with the pronunciation chart?
Use simple everyday words to teach pronunciation and how to find new sounds of new languages in the mouth
Pronunciation upgrading and correction
Pronunciation, Advanced Students, Upgrading All levels need attention to pronunciation upgrading and correction. It's part of intelligibility and self expression. Challenge individual learners by inviting them to attend to sounds, to joining words, to speed, and to...
Grammar is generally prioritised over Pronunciation
This is true, but can be turned to advantage Pronunciation can be in the background of every activity, and foregrounded as it emerges in the course of any activity. To do this you need an immediate and ready to hand approach to dealing with whatever pronunciation...
Consonants or vowels first?
This post continues with questions raised by teachers on the online Trinity Diploma at Oxford TEFL. The themes here are 1) whether to deal with consonants or vowels first; and 2) the use of phonemic symbols. Consonants or vowels first? Q1: While learning the sounds...
Grammar without pron . . . is like food without taste (Part 2)
Ten Classroom Activities based on my Ten Liberating Assumptions about Pronunciation (that appeared in the Jan 2018 issue of Modern English Teacher) Part 2 is in the Apr 2018 issue of MET In Part 1 of this article (MET 27.1 in Jan 2018) I outlined ten different ways of...
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