ESL – EFL PRONUNCIATION
MAGAZINE By:
Ariel Sotela & Mónica Agüero 1
Index To the Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 In Class Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Out Class Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Vocabulary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Tips to Teach Pronunciation & Students’ Articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Reflection. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
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To the Reader… ¨This magazine is for those who are always willing to learn. Pronunciation is not easy, that is why we consider it is important to have this kind of aids in an easily way. Notwithstanding the complexity of teaching and learning pronunciation, it is of equal importance for us to encourage people to make an effort. It is difficult, and it can be exhausting but there are some sacrifices that must be done in order to succeed. While learning, people must take risks. If we do not take them life would be such a waste of time.¨
“The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice” – Brian Herbert. 3
In-Class Contributions This contributions are the most important because is what we learned from the course. Everything that you can see in this section is what we created, practiced learned in class with our teacher and classmates help.
A.
Our Pronunciation Activities.
Vowels Project Basically, the main characteristic of this project was to create a pronunciation class directed to beginners. The content of the activity was about the different vowels /i/ - /ɪ/ - /ε/ - /æ/ - /ə/ - /ʊ/ - /u/ - /ɔ/ - /ɑ/, and vocabulary about food (Breat, Chicken, Eggs, Milk, Apple, Tomato, Cheese, Soup, Corn, Banana, Carrot, Fish, Lemon, and Meat). As one objective, we wanted the students to be able to recognize the appropriate sound of the vowels mentioned before in the used vocabulary. Also we wanted to notice if the students had a good performance in order to give a clear articulation throughout mouth positions. What we wanted to evaluate was how much they achieved by vowels identification and interpretation on the right form. These are the instructions of the game: 1. Please make four groups. 2. Each group is going to be represented with a colored coin and every member is going to play in a different round. 3. The first student that is going to play will be randomly chosen. 4. You have to move forward according the numbers shown on the dice. 5. When you are in a picture square: 6. Say the name of the picture. 7. Identify the vowel and the mouth position from the picture. 8. Say another word with the same vowel. 4
9. The game has BONUS CHANCES! 10. The first group to reach the final; WINS! The materials that you are going to need for the game are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
A Power Point Presentation Colored Coins A Dice Pictures The Board Game
Look at this picture, it is our board puzzle!
Consonants Project This is the second part of this task. We had to create another pronunciation class but in this case for advanced students and only working with the consonant system. The objectives of this lesson plan are to transcribe sentences and provide the appropriate use of phonemic symbols. How much the students have achieved by the appropriate 5
transcription and interpretation of the assigned task is the assessment of the project. The activity consists in the transcription of sentences from a song. The class will be divided in two groups. Each group will receive a stanza of a song. Every student is going to be given a sentence. They have to transcribe it individually and figure out the order of the song with the rest of the group. The group, who finishes first, is the winner! The only materials that we used to apply the activity were the sentences. If you want to have a more interactive and funny activity you can search on YouTube the song in karaoke and make the students sing a little part of it. You might thing that the activity is boring a very simple but when you do it the results are totally different from what you expected.
B.
Transcriptions Done in Class. A prerequisite for this course was to know in advance the vowels and
consonants systems because we worked a lot with them. In the class we practiced with some transcriptions of words and sentences. Sometimes it was very hard to do them because in Phonetics and Phonology course we learned to transcribe in one way and when we had to transcribe in Teaching Pronunciation course it was a mess. In other cases it was funny because some words were already transcribed on the previous class. In the following list you can see some transcribed words from the two Pronunciation courses that we took.
Map: /mæp/
Thing: /θɪŋ/
Neighbor: /neɪbɔr/
Vest: /vεst/
Together: / tugεðɚ/
Freeze: /friz/
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C.
Popcorn: /pɑpkɔr/
Leather: /lεðɚ/
Wonder: /wʌndɚ/
Cry: /kraɪ/
Classmates’ pronunciation activities.
Since the pronunciation activities were held to be as interesting as possible, some of our classmates nailed it with theirs. The activities are included because they gave us understanding about different topics. The classmates’ tasks we chose went the extra mile regarding creativity and originality. For such aspect, they caught everybody’s attention, especially ours. There was so much participation from every of us. All the activities concluded in being more interesting than the expected.
The activities When Irene’s & Steven’s activities were being developed everybody was wondering what they were going to do. The activity was a Phonological Bingo. We did not just have fun, but also we practice and learned more about it. At the end of the assignment the winner had to dial a strange number that it was supposed to be some of us phone number. It was quite interesting and we practice the vowels as Hello?
well. The activity was pretty interactive and it kept
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everybody’s attention. In such instances is when you can guarantee yourself that you did a great job. Another activity that we liked was the Richard’s and Noelia’s one. The activity was called
“Hot
Potato”.
Even
though the name can create negative expectations among the
students,
this
one
in
particular was not negative at all. They blow some balloons and inside of them there were some indications about consonants. When it came to passing the balloon around everybody was excited about it. Then, at the moment of bursting the balloon the indications that were inside of it were mostly clear and precise. The subject was nicely applied. The last activity we decided to include as an in-class contribution was the one of Wendolyn, Valeria and Andrea. They decided to bring a Jenga game. Each of the Jenga’s blocks had a sentence which had to be transcribed. The class was divided in subgroups and each group had a leader. The person in charge had to pull out a block, read the sentence and transcribe it with the groups’ help. Everybody participated and the activity itself was one of the most creative and original ones. We think that the inclusions of these activities in the syllabus are amazing. Students love to learn interactively. This kind of activities build confidence on the learner and such aspect creates positive attitudes towards the learning process. In spite of the complexity of some topics there 8
was interest on it and everybody could succeed in understanding. The course provided useful and dynamic tools which everybody took advantage from.
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Out-Class Contributions The contributions for our knowledge outside the classroom were as important as the in-class ones. We were also taking a course of Phonetics and Phonology and it helped us in many aspects of pronunciation. Besides, the out-class assignments gave us a deep and reflective understanding about the importance of team work. It is of equal importance to highlight that each contribution that was not done inside the classroom, also helped us to practice. Therefore we improved as students and as professionals as well.
Phonetics & Phonology Transcriptions The transcriptions we were addressed to do on this course, provided us a clear comprehension on the general objectives from both classes (Phonetics & Phonology/Teaching Pronunciation). Although it was kind of difficult to handle both because they had mostly the same content, we could learn different aspects from each other and not get confused. With the transcriptions, we had plenty of practice. In addition, we learnt new features such as the Diacritic Marks that had to be included on phonological transcriptions later on. We constantly had double practice on the same based topic.
Creation of Quizzes In the Phonetics and Phonology course we were assigned to create quizzes for our classmates. In the first half we had to include vowels and in the second half, the consonants. We and two other classmates did a quiz from vowels. We decided to include content like: Mouth Positions, Minimal Pairs, Transcriptions, and Identification of Long & Short “I�. Our classmates 10
from P&P concluded that our evaluation was easy and they practice important sides of the course while doing it.
Dialect Presentation In the same course of P&P we were also allocated to create a presentation of Dialects. The chosen one was the Caribbean Dialect. The preparation of such task made us aware of the variety of pronunciation features around the world. The awareness did not lie only on our Dialect Presentation but also on our classmates’ ones. A range of accents were presented in two weeks with well-elaborated aids. Each of us was conscious about the different aspects of the dialects presented.
The Metacognitive Task At the beginning of the course we had no idea what this was about. The idea of recording ourselves in order to be conscious about our weaknesses and strengths was a little bit tedious and stressful. In one class we read and discuss some important information about Metacognition. Livingston (1997) defined Metacognition in a simple phrase “thinking about thinking”. While doing our Metacognitive task we were aware on our mistakes, as well as what we were doing correctly. At the end we were also able to evaluate our performance and reflect upon them. We could apply each topic covered in class.
Service Learning Activities such as Service learnings are great opportunities for us to demonstrate what we have learned throughout the course. However, service learnings do not only provide such opportunity. This activity makes the student know how to deal with students’ learning needs. Also, it makes 11
the students appreciate team work and respect different classmates’ opinions. By doing such activity we can learn beyond expected.
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Vocabulary The box below contains some words that we found/learned throughout the quarter. Not all of them are related with Teaching Pronunciation Class. Now these words are part of our speech. Some of these words were very estrange for us so we decided to include them in this section of the EFL Magazine. Go and check them, maybe you can learn a new word!
Word
Meaning
Ailments
A physical disorder or illness, especially of a minor or chronic nature.
SWBAT
Students will be able to‌
Pitfalls
A lightly covered and unnoticeable pit prepared as a trap of people or animals.
Syllabi
Plural of Syllabus.
Kettle
A metal container in which to boil liquids, cook foods, etc‌
Fusty
Having a stale smell; moldy; musty. Plural of Syllabus
TESOL
Teachers of English to Speakers of other Languages.
ACTFL
American Council of the Teaching of Foreign Language.
Place of Articulation
Where the sound is produced.
Manner of Articulation Voiced Sounds Voiceless Sounds
How the sound is produced. Vocal cords have vibration. Vocals cords without vibration.
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Tips to Teach Pronunciation & Students’ Articles Tips to Teach Pronunciation (taken from the Book “Pronunciation Instruction in Perspective”)
Guided-Imagery Activities The
teacher
learners
in
guides
calling
up
relaxing images. Close your
eyes.
Find
a
comfortable position in your chair. Imagine you are
in
a
soothing,
peaceful place. Maybe you
are
outside
and
there is a warm breeze flowing through the air. Breathe in slowly through your nose and out through your mouth. Now take a deep breath and hold it – 1, 2, 3 – and then slowly exhale. Notice how you are already feeling more relaxed. Imagine that all the tension in your body is draining away. Move your head around slowly in a big circle and relax your neck. Lift and lower your shoulder muscles. Allow the muscles in your face to relax. Focus on your mouth, lips, and jaw. Feel how loose and relaxed your mouth feels. Picture yourself having a pleasant conversation with a Friend in English”.
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Effective Listening Exercise The instructor first models how to be an effective listener by having a student volunteer come to the front of the class and converse with the instructor on a topic of the student’s choice for three minutes. During this period, the other students act as observers, taking notes on the instructor’s behavior. Following the three-minute conversation, the class members discuss the strategies the teacher used to encourage the speaker. Students are divided into groups of three, with one student taking the role of the listener, one the role of the observer, and third the role of the speaker. The groups can choose from topics suggested by the teacher or select their own. The listeners practice implementing supportive
listening
techniques
while
the
observers take notes on how these techniques influence
the
speaker.
Five
minutes
are
allowed for this phase of the activity, including two minutes set aside for the observers to report their observations to the other two participants. Following this, roles are switched, until each member of the triad has had a chance to assume all three roles.
Fluency Circles This technique promotes fluency by having learners repeat the same story, anecdote, or response to a speaking prompt in progressively less time. The class is divided in half, and learners
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stand up and form fairly close concentric circles. The idea is to give learners multiple opportunities to perform the same speaking task with different partners, gaining fluency (and speed) with each telling. As a culminating activity, the teacher can ask the students to discuss how their fluency level differed.
Visual Reinforcement For learners familiar with a phonemic alphabet, it is helpful to display large phoneme cards, each one containing a symbol,
a
containing sound,
and
word the a
picture. Similarly, a vowel chart or a sagittal section diagram of the mouth and articulators can provide a quick visual reference for the classroom learner.
Auditory Reinforcement Having learners imagine the sound of a moving train (“choo, choo”) to help produce /ʈ ʃ/ or the sound of a buzzing
bee
to
assist
in
producing /z/. Students can also peg a given sound by associating with a set phrase. Students repeat the phrases until they can remember them.
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Tactile Reinforcement Have the students place their fingers on their throats or cup their hands over their ears to experience the vibration of their vocal cords, or have them place their fingers in front of their mouths in order to feel extra puff of air for aspiration.
Kinesthetic Reinforcement Students
systematically
practice
extended reading aloud or recitation in conjunction with breathing exercises and some form of body movement. It is recommended to have learners wave a pencil, glide their hand, nod their head, or move their entire bodies according to the stress and intonation pattern of the phrases they read aloud or recite.
Neurolinguistic Programming NLP is concerned with the connection between the body, thoughts, and emotions. Teachers can promote enthusiasm and a view toward success, capitalizing on their rapport with learners and ability to encourage and motivate. Achieving an awareness of such states helps learners to bring about change, in this case, the ability to alter fossilized phonological patterns.
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Drama Techniques Both the context and emotional involvement provided by the dramatic situation foster communicative competence, which is the ultimate goal of the language classroom. One means by which drama techniques can enter the pronunciation classroom is for teachers to employ
the
voice
modulation
techniques
typically used by drama coaches. Several techniques are intended to give students better control over their articulation – specifically their pitch, volume, and rate of speech.
Imitation Techniques Its purpose is to build beginning-level students’ confidence in producing the new sounds of the second language. Students are asked to remember a dialogue they have practiced, then come in front of the class and mime it without words. Mouthing shares characteristics with other imitation technique typically used in pronunciation instructions – shadowing and mirroring.
Gadgets and Props As another source of sensory reinforcement, the teacher can bring in props to demonstrate and reinforce features of the English sound system. The teacher can use a feather, a match, or even just a small strip of paper held 18
in front of the mouth while pronouncing. Using rubber bands help the learners understand the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables. The teacher places the rubber band around both thumbs and models saying a multisyllabic word or a rhythm phrase, stretching the rubber band apart widely for the stressed syllables and relaxing it for the unstressed ones. Mirrors are another essential tool in the pronunciation classroom. Learners need to see whether their lip position and mouth movements match a particular model. Teacher should have learners hold the mirror so that both the model and their own mouth movement are in a view. A mirror is an effective way of showing learners how the air comes through the nose for nasal sounds such as /n/. Borrowing form speech pathology techniques, teachers can use cotton swabs, drinking straws, popsicle sticks, or tongue depressors to monitor tongue position.
Games If the learners are practicing the distinction between /I/ and /iy/, the teacher can write these two vowel symbols on the board. The class is
/I/
/iy/
divided into two teams, which line up six or eight feet from the board. The teacher pronounces a word with one of the two sounds and the two students at the head of each line race to the board to touch the correct symbol.
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Students’ Articles How to Greatly Improve Your English Pronunciation in 8 Steps By Yuliya Geikhman
1. Learn to listen. Before you learn how to speak, you’ll need to learn how to listen. Some sounds can be hard to tell apart when you’re listening. Did the speaker sleep or slip? Did he hurt his chin or his shin? If you can hear the difference, it will be
easier
to
speak
the
difference. There are many guides to get you started in learning to listen. We have some great articles here about learning to listen from movies, songs and music and podcasts. You can also find listening exercises online, like this one from Rong-chang. The pronunciation practice at Many Things is really slick, especially its huge selection of lessons on minimal pairs. Minimal pairs are pairs words 20
like sleep and slip, that are only different by one sound. You can click on each word to hear a complete sentence with each, then quiz yourself in the second box and click the correct answer. When you want to listen to authentic English instead of pronunciation exercises, you can watch videos on FluentU. FluentU is an online immersion platform that takes real-world videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons. Every word comes with an in-context definition, image, audio and example sentences, so you have enough support to make native English accessible to you. FluentU’s “learn mode” takes your learning history into account, and asks questions based on what you already know, which sets you up for success. The better you get at hearing better
words,
the
you
will
become at pronouncing them.
2. Notice how your mouth and lips move. When you speak, you move your mouth. How you move your mouth affects how you pronounce a word. The first step to correcting your mouth shape is to notice it and pay attention. There are a few ways you can check that your mouth and lips are making the correct shape: 21
Use a mirror. This is by far the simplest way to tell what your mouth is doing while you talk.
Put a finger in front of your lips (like you’re saying “shh”). As you speak, don’t move your finger. You should feel your lips moving away from or pushing against your finger.
Watch other people and notice the shape their mouth and lips make when they talk. Try following along with your favorite TV show or movie. Can you repeat the faces and sounds that the actors are making? There are guides and pictures online that will help you learn how to move your mouth. Sounds of English has some good explanations for pronouncing specific words. This guide is for people making 3D animations, but the pictures are a great start to understanding how your mouth should look when you speak.
3. Pay attention to your tongue. The main difference between rice and lice is in your tongue. When you speak, you move your tongue to make sounds. You probably didn’t even notice that, since you do it without thinking. To improve your English pronunciation, it’s a good idea to check what your tongue is doing. Some difficult sounds for non-native speakers to make are the letters “L” and “R,” and the sound “TH.” Pronouncing them correctly is all in the tongue.
To make the “L” sound, your tongue should touch the back of your front teeth and the top of your mouth, just behind your teeth. Try it now: Say the word “light.” Say it a few times. Feel where your tongue is in your
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mouth. Make sure it touches the top of your mouth.
To make the “R” sound, your tongue should not touch the top of your mouth. Pull your tongue back to the middle of your mouth, near where it naturally rests if you weren’t saying anything. As you say the sound, your lips should be a little rounded. Try it now: Say the word “right” a few times. You should feel air blowing between your tongue and the top of your mouth as you speak. You should also feel your lips get a little rounder when you make the sound.
Now for the “TH” sound. This one may seem strange if you don’t have a similar sound in your native language. To make this sound, put your tongue between your top and bottom teeth. Your tongue should stick out a little between your teeth, and as you push air out of your mouth, let some air escape between your tongue and teeth—that’s what makes the sound. Try it now: Say the word “think.” Repeat it a few times. Make sure you push your tongue between your teeth.
Now that you know where to put your tongue, can you hear the difference? For a more detailed explanation on how to make those three sounds correctly, watch this video from the Woosong University, this one from Club English, or any number of other pronunciation guides you can find on YouTube. If you can’t figure out what to do with your tongue to make the right sound, try asking someone. Ask them to say a word with that sound, and then tell you where they put their
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tongue. They probably never thought about it before either!
4. Break words down into sounds. Words are made up of syllables, or parts. The word “syllable,” for example, has three syllables: syl-lable. Turning words into parts can make them easier to pronounce. To check how many syllables a word has, place your hand flat just under your chin. Say the word slowly. Each time your chin touches your hand, that’s a syllable. You can even write the word down in parts. Leave a space or draw a line between each syllable (every syllable should have at least one vowel: a, e, i, o, u, y). Now try saying the word. Say it slowly and pause after each syllable. Isn’t that easier? If you’re having trouble with syllables, you can check out How Many Syllables. This website shows you the syllables in any word you look up, and even shows you how to pronounce it.
5. Add stress to sounds and words. English is a stressed language. That means some words and sounds are more important than others. You can hear this when you say a word out loud. For example, the word “introduce” is pronounced with a stress at the end, so it sounds like this: “in-tro-DUCE.”
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Sometimes where you put the stress in a word can change the word’s meaning. Say this word out loud: “present.” If you said “PREsent,” you are talking about a noun that means either “right this moment” or “a gift.” If you said “preSENT,” you are talking about a verb that means “to give or show.” There are rules for where the stress goes in each word. Here’s one rule:
Most two-syllable nouns are
stressed on the first syllable, and most two-syllable verbs are stressed on the second syllable.
That’s just like the word “present.” Here’s another example: the noun “ADDress” is the place where you live, and the verb “addRESS” is to speak to someone. If this all sounds too complicated, don’t worry about memorizing all these rules—the best way to learn is by listening and practicing. Remember that most native English speakers don’t know the rules either, they just say what “sounds right.” With enough practice, you can get what sounds right too. Sentences have stresses too; some words are more important, and are said with more clarity and strength than the rest of the sentence. Try reading this sentence aloud: “I ate some toast with butter in the morning.” The sentence should have sounded like this (the bold words are the stressed ones): “I ate some toast with butter in the morning.” Notice how you slow down every time you get to an important word, and quickly pass over the less important ones?
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Keep practicing by reading out loud, having conversations and listening well to where others place stress when they speak.
6. Use pronunciation podcasts and videos. There are some excellent video and audio guides on English pronunciations that you can use to improve. The English Language Club has videos that show how to make different sounds in English. Rachel’s English has friendly videos on how to speak and
pronounce
American
English
in
everyday conversations. If you like podcasts better, Pronuncian has over 200 audio files that help with everything from pronunciation to stress and pitch (how you raise and lower your voice while you speak). If none of these are what you’re looking for, there are many more to choose from. Find the one that’s right for you.
7. Record yourself. One way to tell if all your practice is working is to record yourself with a camera. Use a camera and not just a sound recorder because it’s important to see how you speak, not only hear it. You don’t need to download any special software to record yourself; most computers and mobile devices have built-in video recorders. You can use PhotoBooth on a Mac or Movie Moments on a Windows computer. Your
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phone or mobile device also has a video capturing app, usually as part of the camera app. Compare your recording to someone else saying the same words or sounds. Find a video of your favorite part from a movie, like this clip from “Earth to Echo.” Choose one or two sentences and record yourself trying to match the stress, tone and pronunciation of the video. Then you can compare the two and see what you did differently, and try again. Ask a friend or watch a video to check. If your pronunciation doesn’t sound the same, ask yourself some questions: Are you moving your mouth the right way? Is your tongue in the right place? Are you stressing the right part of the word? Use everything you learned in this article!
8. Practice with a buddy. As always, “Practice makes perfect!” And it’s easier to practice with a friend. Find someone to practice pronunciation with, either in person or through
online
communities
like
Language Exchange or InterPals. Practicing with a buddy (friend) will give you a chance to try everything you learned, and learn new things from each other. Plus, it’s fun! Pronunciation is as important to learning English as vocabulary and grammar.
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Thanks to these eight tips, you’ll soon be on your way to pronouncing English like a native.
7 Things Your Students Need to Hear You Explain By: Claudia Pesce
1. Realistic Expectations ¨The goal of pronunciation practice is to pronounce correctly, not sound like a native English speaker. Only children who are exposed to a second language for extended periods of time are able to eliminate their foreign accent because their brains are still flexible enough to do so. There is such a thing as accent reduction, but a foreign accent in an adult will never be completely eliminated. Furthermore, an accent is a part of who you are, a part of a student’s cultural heritage. Students should accept this and strive to improve pronunciation instead.¨
2. Stressed vs. Syllabic ¨It is tremendously useful for students to understand that English, unlike other languages, is a stressed language. This means that in a sentence some words are stressed more than others. In syllabic languages, like Spanish for example, it makes more sense to focus on pronouncing each word, syllable by syllable. But if we were to do this in English we’d sound like robots. Try saying, “Your book is on the table” by pronouncing each word – doesn’t sound like fluent, human speech, does it? It is vital for students to understand that making the
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effort to pronounce every single word does not lead to good pronunciation. How many times has a student asked you how to pronounce an article like the or a? They need to understand that articles and other non-stressed words are not clearly pronounced but rather “swallowed”. This is why two separate words like is or on are not pronounced separately in the above example, but combined to sound like one “ison”.¨
3. Linking Sounds ¨Related to the previous point, and the fact that pronouncing each word separately is a bad idea, is that quite often two sounds are linked to sound like one word (sometimes even more than two words are linked). This is often the case with the verb is when it’s followed by an article or preposition that starts with a vowel (an, a, on, at). “He’s an architect” sounds like “He – za – narchitect”. This happens when a word ending with a consonant is followed by a word starting with a vowel. Something similar happens when we ask, “What did you do?” (sounds like wha diju do?) In this case, the two sounds are combined to form a new mixed sound.¨
4. Silent Letters ¨Just like there are words in a sentence that are not clearly pronounced or stressed, a single word may have consonants that are not pronounced, either. ESL students are often unaware of this. Words they often mispronounce are those that end in a “b”, like bomb, dumb, or comb. Others have trouble with the silent “g” in foreign, sign or champagne. Be sure to clarify in which cases letters are silent.¨
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5. Sounds that Disappear ¨There are words that have consonant sounds that are not exactly silent, but simply disappear. This is the case with the “d” in and (often pronounced an) and the “t” in it or but. In “I went there last night” we wouldn’t pronounce the final “t” in went, last or night.¨
6. Spelling vs. Pronunciation ¨Students must understand that quite often the spelling of a word is no indication of how it should be pronounced (and by the same token the pronunciation of a word is no indication of how it is spelled). The “th” for example sounds like a “d” in then or than, but completely different in thing, three or thousand. Students must learn to distinguish between letters and sounds, i.e., same letters may have different sounds depending on the letters that follow it or precede it.¨
7. Understanding the Schwa ¨The schwa sound is one of those little mysteries that ESL students often hear about but never truly grasp. The schwa, whose phonemic symbol looks like an upside down “e” ([ə]), is an unstressed, weak sound that occurs in many English words. In the phrase “a story about a girl” the three “a”s are schwa sounds. The same happens with the “e” in the or the “o” in to. ESL students who master the schwa are well on their way to improved pronunciation.¨
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There is no mystery to correct English pronunciation – not when you explain these basic concepts to your students. Once you do, they will be better armed to understand the differences between their native language and the one they are trying to learn.
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Reflection ¨The creation of this magazine has helped us to understand better the importance on the acquisition of pronunciation skills. We could review relevant information from the book and from other important sources. Moreover, the entire redaction from this magazine make us realize how nice is to provide tools and materials to others in order to improve learners’ skills. The experience has been remarkable and totally rewarding for each of us...¨
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¨If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you!¨
Bibliography Celce-Murcia; M.; Brinton, D. & Goodwing, J. (2010). Teaching Pronunciation: A course book and reference guide (2 Ed.). New York, U.S.: Cambridge University Press. Geikhman, Y. (2015). How to Greatly Improve Your English Pronunciation in 8 Steps. FluentU. Retrieved from: http://www.fluentu.com/english/blog/how-to-improve-english-pronunciation/ Pesce, C. (2007). Pronunciation 101: 7 Things Your Students Need to Hear You Explain. Busy Teacher. Retrieved from: http://busyteacher.org/14845-pronunciation-101-7-things-students-need-to-know.html
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