Understanding and Teaching the Pronunciation of English.pdf

• When explaining or demonstrating a sound, give students
  many chances to practice during your explanation. They
  need to try out each element that you explain right away.
  Explain or introduce a small point brie$y and then spend
  lots of time practicing. If students hear too much
  explanation before they have a chance to practice, they’ll
  forget everything and won’t be able to use what you’ve
  told them. In other words, your lesson should look like
  this:

Explain Æ Practice Æ Explain Æ Practice Æ Explain Æ Practice

Not like this:

Explain Explain Explain Explain Æ Practice

Listening discrimination

If someone can’t hear the di"erence between two sounds,
then it will be very di#cult for them to pronounce those
sounds correctly. Students need to build up their ability to
recognize new sounds and di"erentiate them from each other
and from sounds in their own language. Here are some types
of practice that emphasize listening, moving roughly from
simpler to more demanding:

Same or different: Students hear two words and decide

whether they’re the same or di"erent. For example, if they

hear right, right, they say “same,” but if they hear right,

light, they say “di"erent.”

“Odd man out” listening: Students hear a series of three

or four words, all the same except one. They have to identify

which one is di"erent (the “odd man out”). For example, if

they hear right, light, right, right, they’ll say that the second

word is di"erent.

Matching spoken words to written words or pictures:

Students see a series of pairs of pictures representing minimal

pair words (for example, pictures of a sheep and a ship or a

piece of paper and a pepper shaker). As they hear words,

they choose the matching picture. This can also be done with

written words instead of pictures, or with spoken sentences

matched to written sentences or pictures. If you do the

activity with pictures, be sure students know what word each

picture represents. For example, does a picture of a smiling

man holding a book represent man, boy, teacher, student,

person, happy, smile....? Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

Sound sorting: Prepare a handout with boxes for the

sounds you’ve been practicing, each labeled with a phonemic

symbol, example word, or picture, depending on your

students. Give students a set of words containing the sounds,

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