Choose words ending with a specific consonant like "d" or "g" that will require the "z" sound when pluralized. Follow the exercise above, creating a rhythm around the room with sounds like "gz," until there is no vowel sound in between the consonants. When the students are making the sound successfully, begin adding in the rest of the word.

Plural Verb Pronunciation

The problem with plural verbs is similar to plural nouns; while the ending contains a vowel ("ed") the "e" is often silent. Most students will be tempted to say "walk-eh-d" instead of "walk-d," for example. The important thing is to explain to the students that while the ending is spelled "e-d," it is usually not pronounced "ed." In fact, the "d" is usually pronounced more like a soft "t." For plural verbs, it's best to have the students practice saying first the singular verb, then the plural in rhythm. Too often, ESL students give up on pronouncing plural verbs because their ears can't hear the difference. For example, they say "Yesterday, I walk to the store," because when a native speaker says the sentence, they can't hear the "ed."

To correct this, have the students perform repetition exercises with both singular and plural verbs side by side. "I walk. I walked." Critical listening is essential for students before they can master the pronunciation, so speak and repeat constantly as a guide.

Below are tips for pronunciation activities you can do with your students, including links to printable resources and games and links to related web sites. Enjoy!

Poetry

Drama

Bingo

Contrastive stress

Pronunciation Partners

Humming

Pronuciation Scavenger Hunts

Poetry One interesting way to practice the rythmn or English, as well as such features as linking is to use poetry. One of the poetry web sites that we like is Academy of American Poets, which has a large collection of different poems, many with audio recordings made by the poet.

Walt Whitman's poetry has also worked well with my students. Try the Poetry of Walt Whitman web site.

A neat poetry web site which even includes audio is actually the page for English 88: Modern and Contemporary Poetry at University of Pennsylvania. Check out the Gertrude Stein and Wi lliam Carlos Williams. [12,74]

Holly is a big fan of Haiku. It is a good way to have your students practice the concept of syllable. Holly not only has students read Haiku, but also write them.

Limericks can also be really fun and helpful. Their predictable stress pattern makes them useful for practicing sentence stress. You can find some (clean) limericks on the web at There once was a man from Nantucket. We've read some in class (clapping out the rhythm helps students pronounce the stressed and unstressed syllables), and for homework, they are working on creating their own limericks.

Drama Drama is also something Sharon used often with my students to practice rythmn, intonation, linking, etc. It's often a good idea to have students work in pairs and focus on a particular aspect of pronunciation, su ch as intonation. Have them decide on the correct intonation, then record the scene, and finally listen and discuss their recording. The Dramatic Exchange Catalog of Plays is one good web sites to find scenes to use with your students.

Bingo One of our favorite activities for a change of pace is PRONUNCIATION BINGO!!! To play pronunciation bingo, first you need to think up a bunch of words that sound simiilar (bath, bass, Beth, Bess, bus, but, bat, path, pat, bit, pit, etc, etc). Now, make up a stack of cards with all your words and bunch of bingo boards (Sharon has a set of six, and she usually can use them with groups of 20-- it usually doesn't matter if some students the same board. Because it is rather challenging to distinguish between similar sounds, we normally don't have more than one winner). For the really adventerous teacher, you can have the bingo winner read out the words for the next game. Here are word stress bingo and final consonant bingo boards for you to download and print out.

Contrastive Stress Practice. Here is another fun activity. Have students write 10 FALSE sentences. They could be about anything, as only as they are not true. Next have students read the statements to their pa rtner. The partner must correct each of the incorrect statements.

For example: "Christmas is in July." "No, Christmas is in December ."

My students really like this game, especially when the false sentences are outrageous!

Pronunciation Partners. Put students in groups of 4-5. Deal 6 cards to each students and put the rest face-down on the table. Students take turns asking for a card they need to complete their set.

Get cards and detailed instructions from our printable resource page. [13,84]

Humming. Put students in pairs. Give student A a list of questions or statements. Give student B a list of replies. Student A should hum the intonation patterns of his utterances. Student B should reply with the correct response. We like to make sure that all of the sentences have the same number of syllables so that Student B really has to listen to the intonation to get the sentence. Example utterances:

Student A

Student B

I like pizza, pickles, and chips.

(list intonation)

Not all together, I hope.

Would you prefer coffee or tea?

(choice intonation)

Tea, please.

Would you like some ice cream and cake?

(double-rising intonation)

No, thank you. I'm not hungry.

Next week we are flying to Rome.

(falling intonation)

Really? How long will you be there?

Is he going to the dentist?

(rising intonation)

Yes. He has a toothache.

Pronuciation Scavenger Hunts.

These are so fun and successful that they deserve a section of their own.Segmentals. Ask students to find as many objects as they can with a specific vowel or consonant sound. If the weather is nice, send them outside. Bring in books or magazines with lots of pictures to stimulate their minds.

Conclusion

Speaking is so important in my opinion, in acquiring and using a language, and language-competence covers so many aspects. Phonetics, both theory and practice constitute the basis of speaking above all other aspects of language in my opinion. Speaking is a tool of communication. Many teachers, especially if they are new to teaching ESL classes, may be a little intimated by the prospect of having to teach pronunciation. But, just like almost every thing else, if the process is broken down into small manageable steps, the task is not all that daunting. This site is an attempt to do just that- to break the process of teaching pronunciation down into smaller steps.

Why is proper pronunciation important? Because without correct pronunciation- no matter how vast the students vocabulary may be, no matter how well the student understands and uses grammatical rules, no matter what their level of reading or writing skills may be- if they don't use correct pronunciation it may be very difficult for listeners to understand what they say. And that is a huge hindrance to communication. In addition, some research indicates that if a student can not pronounce a word correctly, they may not be able to hear it when spoken by another person either, which furthers hinders communication. The students can then repeat the correct version or tell you what the difference between the two sentences was and why their version was wrong. Because the students don't do much of the work in this way of being corrected, it might not be as good a way of remembering the correction as methods where you give more subtle clues. Its advantages are that it is quick and suits cultures, classes and students that think of elicitation as shirking by the teacher. It can also be more face-saving than asking them for self-correction, as trying to correct themselves risks making even more mistakes. The “right version” could mean the whole sentence or just the correction of the part that was wrong. In the latter case, you can then ask them to put it into the sentence in the right place and repeat the whole thing.

The best way is: while they are talking or reading in class, you shuldn't interrupt them in the middle of the conversation or text. Let them finish first and then you can correct pronunciation mistakes by using those words and phrases frequantly in different ways, making students take part in activities too. Don't directly correct the student who's made a pronuncation mistake. This will cause him/her to lose self confidence and be discouraged.

Students from different languages have different pronunciation difficulties. Not all sounds in the English language are common to other languages. For example, some languages do not have an 'r' sound, so students use a similar sound 'l' instead. So when a students says "What a lovely libbon", the native English is totally confused. Or maybe in a student's native tongue there is no distinction between 'b' and 'p'. Just imagine the misunderstanding that will result if a teachers says "I need to be on that bus" and the student hears "I need to pee on that bus".

When teaching pronunciation, teachers are giving feedback to their student about how they are saying things. This feedback includes what the problem is and what they need to do to correct it. This feedback may include where to place the tongue in the mouth to say particular words, or how the lips should be formed, or the action of the tongue when saying specific sounds. One of the most difficult parts of learning to speak English is the correct pronunciation of plural nouns and verbs. Many of these words simply add a suffix such as "s," "es" or "ed" to the original word, and this can be challenging for many English as a Second Language, or ESL, students to pronounce. The key to improving pronunciation of plurals is consistent practice and correction combined with listening.

Mastering proper pronunciation is not just a matter of learning individual sounds. Many students can hear and make the different sounds for all the vowels and consonants in English. Unfortunately, they also have to contend with the sound changes that occur with different letter combinations resulting from linking or reduction of vowels and consonants, not to mention stress, pitch, and intonation differences between their native tongue and English.

That's basically all there is to teaching pronunciation- giving feedback and ensuring that the student uses the feedback to improve their speaking skills. That along with providing adequate practice to the students to hear the sounds and practice making the sounds. Remember (as some research implies) if a student can't say a sound, they won't be able to hear it either.

Bibliography

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Australian Language Matters, 7 (4). Retrieved on 14 October, 2004. - p. 136

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Appendix 1

Useful language:

“Here are some things that people said in the last activity”

“I heard several people say this one”

“Can anyone correct this sentence? It has one missing word/ one word missing/ You need to add one word”

“The words are in the wrong order/ You need to change the words around/ change the word order/ mix the words up”

“This is a typical mistake for students from…”

“Don't worry, even native speakers make this mistake sometimes/ every nationality makes this mistake”

“This mistake is something we studied last week”

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Appendix 4

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