Pronunciation Snippet: Disappearing sounds in expressions

One thing we often forget to do when dealing with new lexical items in class is to let our learners know what this language is going to sounds like in a natural setting.

While looking through a course book recently, I came across a vocabulary activity in the post-reading stage of a lesson. I thought to myself, "these are lovely expressions to teach, but I bet they sound very different to how they look on the page." So how could we integrate some pronunciation into this to give our learners a chance a recognising? Very simply!

In the course book they have gone through the meaning and use of the phrases, so I won't describe these steps here. I have also written my own sentences and added a few extra expressions.

The steps below are to demonstrate how easily we can integrate pronunciation, but for those who are not confident enough yet, please feel free to download the worksheet and notes below to use in class.

Procedure

1. Ask the learners to think about how these expressions might sound when spoken in the sentences.

2. Play the recording and ask them to check their predictions.



3. Write the expressions on the board and mark the features that might occur when spoken naturally.

4. Listen to expressions in isolation. You could go through step 3 and 4 for each expression individually.



5. Listen to some new sentences and ask the learners to fill in the blanks with the correct expression.





Select here for the student worksheet

Select here for the teacher's notes.


You can do steps 1 to 3 any time you introduce expressions in your lessons. You don't have to make a recording, you just simply say the expressions yourself naturally. With practice, this can become a regular feature of your teaching whether you are working with one expressions or many.

Get excited about teaching pronunciation - ELTed Limerick June 2014

As promised, I'm posting my presentation from Saturday's ELTed event in Limerick:

Get excited about teaching pronunciation from Loueltblog

 

 

Here are just some of the resources that I recommend and that have helped and continue to help me on my pronunciation journey:

 Adrian Underhill

• Sound Foundations: Learning and Teaching Pronunciation (Macmillan)
• This is the video I spoke about.
• Adrian's Pron Chart Blog
• Macmillan short videos

Books

• How to Teach Pronunciation by Gerard Kelly
• English Phonetics and Phonology by Peter Roach
• Phonology for Listening by Richard Cauldwell
• The Phonology of English: An Introduction for Teachers of ESOL by Ray Parker & Tim Graham
• Teaching the Pronunciation of English as a Lingua Franca.

Activty and photocopiable resource books

• Pronunciation Practice Activities by Martin Hewings.
• Pronunciation games by Mark Hancock
• The Book of Pronunciation by Jonathan Marks & Tim Bowen
• Test Your Pronunciation by Michael Vaughan Rees

Online Resources

• Hancock McDonald
• English Global Communication
• Pronunciation Bites blog and Facebook Page
• IATEFL Pronunciation Special Interest Group Facebook page 

Thank you very much for the positive feedback on Saturday. If you have any questions or comments on my presentation, please feel free to comment below, or e-mail me at loueltblog@gmail.com

/hæv sʌm fəˈni:mɪk fʌn/

Integrating the phonemic script into your lessons can be so much fun. There are so many ways that you can do it (take a look at the Pronunciation page in the bar on the right-hand side), but here I'm going to describe some other ways that I use it, using exercises and activities that we all know and love.

1. Songs - Using a song that contains the target language of the lesson, take out words that are relevant to what you're studying, e.g. emotions, money etc. Instead of leaving the spaces blank as you usually would, put the missing word in phonemic script. Give the students a few minutes to read through the lyrics and see if they can figure out what the words are. Then they listen to check if they wrote down the right word. If they are familiar with the script, you could turn it into a competition to see who can guessed the words the quickest. If they aren't as comfortable with the script, it's an opportunity for them to start getting to know it! I encourage them to use the Pronunciation App by Macmillan too if they're struggling.
2. Back to the board - The phonemic version of this game is pretty much identical to the original game, the only difference is you write the words in script! Divide the class into 2 groups and have them sit in semi-circles facing the board. One student from each team sits with their back to the board and faces their team. The teacher writes a word on the board and the teams have to explain the word that they see. The first person to guess what the word is, wins a point for their team. Writing the words in script adds a little extra challenge!
3. Brainstorm - Give each pair a topic in phonemic script on a card or slip of paper. First they have to decipher what the topic is. When they've discovered what it is, they have to brainstorm words related to the topic. Then each pair have to read out their list of words and the others have to guess what their topic was.
4. Hangman - There has been some debate as to whether hangman has any pedagogical benefits, however, I have to say that phonemic hangman really does. The students have the opportunity to really become familiar with the sounds and the symbols. By saying a sound and having someone else write it, it's beneficial both productively and receptively. It allows them to discover sounds that they have individual problems with too. Give each pair a list of 3 or 4 words. They have to then write them in script. Then make groups of 4 or put them into different pairs and the play hangman!

These are just some of my favourites and ones that the learners have found really engaging while allowing them to gain more confidence in using the phonemic script.