Teaching Pronunciation

TEACHING PRONUNCIATION

TEACHING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION I have been teaching ESL to Spanish speaking adults for about 25 years and my course is the basis of a free website, PUMAROSA.COM. In my program for beginning adults, I focus on pronunciation from the first class on, until the students are able to speak comfortably. And I usually review pronunciation for intermediate and advanced students.

I do not use the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) because it takes too long to learn, but instead I have developed a method based upon how Spanish speakers would write words phonetically.

I concentrate on "problem sounds" such as: 1. G AND J –George and Jim jump in the garage 2. V – Virginia is very intelligent 3. H – Harry has a red hat 4. SHORT I- Jim swims in the river 5. SHORT U-Uncle Harry’s umbrella is under the bus And I include a special section on words beginning with s followed by a consonant because Spanish speakers have a tendency to add an e at the beginning, and at the same time I teach the silent e at the end of words rule.

Most of these sounds can be found in the lessons on the alphabet, the numbers, greetings and in Cognates

I demonstrate how to make the sounds as comically as I can, because after all, English is a very funny language! Actually, English may be the most difficult language to pronounce in the world!! So I have found it necessary and ..even rewarding and fun!...to use humor.

And then I "weave" pronunciation lessons or drills into nearly all my classes for at least three months. At a certain point I teach ’confusing words" (tree, three) in a quiz show kind of approach. I have found that students learn to pronounce English fairly well after a month or so using this approach. And I have observed that when a student learns to be comfortable with English pronunciation, then that student also begins to learn quickly.

I think that a lack of pronunciation hinders learning because the student feels ... stupid, and I try to help the student acquire confidence in speaking. I also have found that a student can understand spoken English better when his or her pronunciation is improved. For example, a difficulty in pronouncing "three" versus "tree' leads to a misunderstanding of either of these words when spoken by another person. Therefore learning and practicing correct (or good) pronunciation can help a great deal when students are taking tests involving “Listening Comprehension”.

My program is bilingual, but some of the drills can be used in an English only class. The more advanced pronunciation lessons are also used to teach spelling (see Principiante, lesson 15). So if anyone is interested in using my exercises, please email me. And please include a description of your class, your location, etc. Paul Rogers pumarosa21@Yahoo.com

Below are some lessons that should be useful to help people pronounce well. PUMAROSA.COM is very good in this area especially lesson 15 Pronunciation Introduction I incorporate pronunciation into all of my lessons up until the student is comfortable speaking English and can be understood. At first I focus on how to make the sound. For example when I started to learn Spanish I could not roll my double R. So I practiced every day until gradually I could do it better and better. Unfortunately English has about ten sounds that are difficult to make. Such as the soft G the J, the V, sometimes the W, short i, short u, TH words, GH words, etc. So I focus on these sounds. For example - can your students spell their names out loud? Can they spell Jorge, Juana, Victoria, Vanessa? Can they count to twenty? After the students have had a chance to practice these basic sounds they need to read out loud in the class. All my students get my textbooks and workbooks. These include the text of PUMA plus a lot of lessons like the lessons that are below. After a student reads or speaks out loud, I give small “reminders” like corrections but in an easy way. “Don’t forget to stick out the tongue when you pronounce TH.” No olvidas: la lengua asi (I stick out my tongue) cuando pronuncias palabras con TH. It is very funny. After a while I give a “Test” on the comparisons of sounds above. Such as Short I versus ee sound Live (live) vivir Leave (liv) salir Sit (siet) sentarse Seat (asiento) Etc. And I hide my mouth and say Que digo, vivir o salir Then I say …. Live Then I ask everyone what they think I said. After a while everybody gets 100% correct. Well here is a text you can use. Let me know how it works. Profe Pablo

LA PRONUNCIACION DEL INGLES - INTRODUCCION*

El inglés tal vez es el idioma más difícil de pronunciar en el mundo. ¿Por qué? Porque no se pronuncia el inglés a veces como se escribe. El inglés está mezclado con muchas palabras de España, Italia, Alemania, Griega, Francia, Holanda, y - ¿ quién sabe? Los siguientes ejercicios están ordenados para enfocarse en los problemas de la pronunciación del inglés que más afectan la persona hispanohablante. La gente que habla otros idiomas tiene problemas distintos con la pronunciaciòn del inglés. Por ejemplo, la combinación de TH: los alemanes pronuncian TH como D; los franceses como Z, y los hispanohablantes como T. Los japoneses tienen mucha dificultad con la L y la R, se confunden una con la otra; los hispanohablantes no tienen este problema. Por eso, esos ejercicios estan ordenados concentrandose en lo que necesita la persona hispanohablante. *Para las reglas completas vaya al texto se llama: LA PRONUNCIACION COMPLETA DE INGLES.

La E al fin de la palabra no se pronuncia - es muda - y cambia la pronunciación del vocal anterior de suave a fuerte. Por ejemplo: Aa SUAVE Fuerte (ei)

1.…(‘ah’ ) Bar bare Car care Far fare I eat chocolate candy bars. China is far. I drive my car.

2....(‘aw’) Ball Call Fall Hall Mall Tall Wall The tall boy throws the ball against the wall in the hall.

3. …(‘ae’) Can cane Cap cape Fat fate Man mane Can you help me? I wear a cap and a cape. The fat man eats too much.

Ee ‘e’ ‘I’ Hen (‘jen’) here (‘i’) Ten (‘e’) teen

‘Ie’ ‘hay’ Bit (‘ie’) bite (‘hay’) Hid hide Oo ‘oe’ ‘oh’ Cod (‘oe’) code (‘o’) Con cone Ton tone

Uu U suave = AH U fuerte= (‘u’ …’iu’)

CUT CUTE(kiut) Up

Us USE (yuz) Bus But Umbrella Summer Sun Under Minute Butter Nut *Full (ful) fuel (fiul) Just juice *Pull pool *put Run Fun

Yy - VOCAL FUERTE SUAVE Hay I (ee) By city Cry dirty Fly thirty Fry fifty My emergency Try slowly Why rapidly 1 silaba 2,3 silabas

2. CH - tiene tres pronunciaciones: A. Como CH en español- chair (cheir) - silla church (chuerch) - iglesia B. Como SH – numero 3 que sigue Chevrolet (shavrolei) Chevron (shavran) Charlotte (sharlat) C. Como K - Christmas (kriestmas) - Navidad chemical (kamakl) - quimico cholera (kolera) - colera

3. SH - Forma la boca coma pronunciar CH pero sóplala más largo: she (shi) – ella shoe (shu) – zapato shut (shat) – cierra She sells seashells, down by the seashore (ella vende conchas en la playa)

4. La G suave y la J - Se pronuncia como "YI" o "DCH" – haga vibraciones entrer los dientes detrás. garage (garadch) - garage garbage (garbadch) - basura orange (orandch) - naranja juice (yus) - jugo

PRACTICA: joke (broma) jam (mermelada) jail (cárcel)-

5. La S seguida con una consonante - S___ No se pronuncia una "E" antes. school (skul) - escuela space (spes) - espacio station (steishan) - estación star (staer) - estrella student (studant) - estudiante study (stadi) - estudiar slow (slo) - despacio speak (spik) - hablar sports (sports) - deportes start (staert) - empezar stay (stei) - dejar stop (stap) - parar

ESTUDIANTES DE PUMAROSA.COM! VAYAN A VER EL VIDEO DE JASON LEVINE SOBRE LA PRACTICA DE PALABRAS CON Th.. y después REPITEN CON CONFIANZA ESAS PALABRAS: TH - La pronunciación de la "th" se hace así: sague la lengua y ponga en los dientes de arriba y sopla! No se pronuncia como "T" !

A. Con vibración - the (tha) - el, la that (thaet) - ese this (thies) - este, esta they (thei) - ellos there (their) - allí, allá

B. Sin vibración - three (thri) - tres thirsty (thiersti) - sediento think (thienk) - pensar thumb (tham) - pulgar Thursday (thiersdei) - jueves

ESL Th Sound English Tongue Twister Pronunciation Vocabulary Grammar Rap with Fluency MC! www.youtube.com Try these TOUNGE TWISTERS to practice the TH sound in English! Fluency is all about the 3Rs: Relax, Repeat, Rememberhttp://www.colloandspark.com http://www....

________________________________________ PRACTICA: thigh (muslo) thanks (gracias) bath (baño) three (tres) those (aquellos)

7. V - ponga los dientes superiores en el labio bajo y haga vibraciones. No se pronuncia como la "B" en español! every (evri) - cada very (veri) - mucho vampire (vampair) - vampiro valley (vali) - valle

PRACTICA: valley (valle) vat (barríl) vote (votar)

8. Y - cuando es una consonante, se pronuncia como la 'll' en español. yes (lles) - sí yellow (llelo) - amarillo you (lliu) - tú, usted, ustedes young (llang) - jòven ¡No se confundan con la J!