Pronunciation and listening: A smart activity!
Adrian Underhill, author, international ELT consultant and trainerAdrian Underhill suggests that we encourage students to use their ‘inner voice’ and ‘mind’s ear’, ie to repeat new words in their minds, and then to listen to these internal words. This is a post that originally appeared on Adrian’s new pron-related blog (link at end of post) and it appears here with his permission.
Walter and Vera in Vienna
Lisa Pick, teacher trainer at BSC Brighton, UKDo your students have problems with /v/ and /w/? Then try this game that is designed to create a lot of laughs alongside the pronunciation practice. It can easily be modified for any other pair of phonemes, depending on your own students’ pron problems.
Have fun with ‘might’
Paul Emmerson, freelance writer, UKThe ‘meaning’ of many modal verbs depends partly on intonation, and none shows this better than ‘might’. Here’s a short intonation activity that is fun, and encourages the students to use ‘might’ more often.
Writing phonemic script
Paul Emmerson, freelance writer, UKUse the phonemic chart in your teaching? But unable to write the script on a word processor? This is the tool you need.
Awareness of connected speech
Paul Emmerson, freelance writer, UKThis is an activity to raise awareness about connected speech – a major problem for listening comprehension. The activity includes use of phonemic symbols, but these only need to be known passively (by the teacher) and not at all (by the students).
Topic lexis and word stress
Paul Emmerson, freelance writer, UKThis activity uses word stress as either a warmer or revision for topic lexis.