Pronunciation Pick & Mix Amanda Avison
Aims Apply some tried and tested techniques to pronunciation Some ideas which you might be able to use with learners straight away Some tips and ideas to follow up
Some ideas to practice pronunciation in relation to Vocabulary Listening Homework and follow on activities
Look at the yellow pages and the page of vocabulary on your table. Choose the activity which matches your table number How does the activity work? What are the students practising? When could you use it?
Richard Cauldwell s approach to phonology for listening
What a day! Student: I hear water Sometimes students have problems recognising words they know A few ideas to help students predict and notice what happens to words when they are spoken Help students to unpick what they hear
Some ideas focussing on pronunciation to help develop listening skills prediction noticing follow on work/ homework
Prediction Before listening to focus the listener Work with sections from 5 to 10 seconds long Use it for anything at all you've been focussing on
Example for prediction Activity 8 On the green sheet
Suggestions Activity 8 Jess, (1) you were talking before about mistakes that your Hungarian (2) students (3) always made, and how some students from the same country all make the same mistakes (4) again and again and again. 1 Which of these words do you think will be stressed? 2 Do you think students will be pronounced in the same way in both positions? 3 Do you think this word will be stressed or not? 4 How do you think this phrase will be pronounced?
Noticing: Choose anything that s relevant to your students any features of connected speech eg schwas intonation patterns particular sounds stepping stones eg Um, erm, well Words and phrases with a certain stress pattern
Suggestion for noticing Activity 9 On the green sheet Choose any aspect of pronunciation that you would like your students to focus on Make a gap fill of the listening script Once the students have completed the comprehension task, use the audio again for dictation
Suggestion for noticing Activity 10 On the green sheet Do the following questions go up or down at the end? 1 2 3 Where are you going? For a holiday? Where exactly in Nicaragua are you going? From English File Pre-intermediate 3 rd edition
Example for noticing Activity 10 Which words in each sentence have the biggest stress? Where exactly in Nicaragua are you going? That sounds amazing. Yes, I m really looking forward to it.
Some tried and tested ideas for follow on activities or homework Activities 11 to 14 On the peach sheets
Activity 12 After working on contrastive stress Give the students a number The student writes a dialogue to include their sentence number with the correct meaning The students can use these dialogues during the next class
Activity 13 After work on how to produce the sounds Sounds that are difficult Aim: practise careful speech and focus on the production of phonemes Excellent for raising awareness Motivational
Activity 14 Focus on connected speech Students work together Builds confidence Motivational
Activation semi-controlled practice Activity 15 Using a mill drill or mingle activity to practise pronunciation
Set 1 Discrimination between /iː/ and /ɪ/ 1. Do you go to sleep or to slip at night? (sleep /i:/) Set 2 Discrimination between final consonant sounds (impact on preceding vowel) 1. In the winter do you wear a coat or a code? (coat /t/) Set 3 Practise using 2 different intonation patterns for the same words to indicate either I was right or I was wrong 1. Are you a vegetarian? No > I thought you were Yes > I thought you were