ACCENTS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS

Check the potato map below and click on the potatoes to hear how people from different areas sound. Give it a go and add your own accent to the map.

Check the following post for 6 myths about accents.

IMPROVING YOUR PRONUNCIATION

We are going to start working on improving pronunciation through a series of posts which include some tips, some practice on phonetics , some posts about homophones and some videos to help you sound a bit better in English.

Let's start with this video where you're given advice on what makes a speaker sound as a native speaker:




Now let's try to do some practice by reading out some tongue twisters. Although most of them make no sense at all, they can definetely help you improve your pronunciation skills. There are some examples below:

Tongue Twisters by www.getenglishlessons.com

You can listen to the podcasts for some of them here and here.

For homework this weekend, send me a voicemail with your reading of two of them. Pay attention to pronunciation as well as to intonation.

2nd TERM ORAL ASSIGNMENT: PRONUNCIATION

You have to pronounce the verbs in the VoiceThread below, but before make sure you revise the -ed pronunciation rules in the following video.











DEADLINE 3rd AB: Friday 16th December

PHONETICS IV

This time you are going to try Unit 5 in the BBC Site about /əʊ/ and /o/. 

If you think that is all you should know about phonetics, you are wrong. When you finish you can start taking the Quizzes  on that same page.

If you need extra explanation on any sound, click here and you'll get to learn how to pronounce all the symbols and sounds in English.

Write a comment on how you did with the quizzes.

PHONETICS III

Let's go with some more pair discrimination. Today you're going to study the differences between /ɔː/ and /əʊ/ in Unit 3 at the BBC site. Watch the videos on the two sounds first of all.


You also have to learn about three more sounds: /e /  /æ/ and /ʌ/. Listen to the videos and do Unit 4

When you finish you can do more practice here
Let's start testing ourselves. Do this short test and tell me how you did.

PHONETICS II

By now all of you should have practised the minimal pair /i:/ /i/ and be familiar with both sounds. However, there are some of you who still haven't made their comment on the post. Remember your final marks depend on your active participation in all the activities suggested.


Today you must go to the BBC site and listen to the pronunciation of these two sounds /u/ /u:/  Then do Unit 2.
After that, go to this page and do some more practice on the pairs studied so far.

PHONETICS

This is the first post of the year for APLE2 and it's about phonetics, which we didn't work on last year but I definitely intend to do throughout this school year. We will learn the phonetic symbols and their sound to help you improve your pronunciation in English.

Have you ever wondered what those strange symbols are that appear next to words in the dictionary?

They are a guide to pronounciation called Phonetics. Those symbols represent sounds, of which there are roughly 44 in the English language. Since there are only 26 letters in the alphabet, 44 characters are used to represent them all. Phonics should be a part of every student's tools for learning a language.
There is no end to our study of grammar and vocabulary but phonemic symbols are limited, visual and physical. They may seem challenging at first but it is like learning to swim or ride a bicycle. Once you can do it, it is easy and you never forget.







Watch the following videos from the site we will be using to practice phonetics, BBC Learning English, to know the hows and whys of what we are going to learn about.




Why should you learn the different English sounds? Why should you learn the symbols? Watch the next video to find out:





Let's become familiar with the sounds of English by clicking on the different symbols. Click on each symbol to go to the video with the explanations: Sounds of English 


Start by clicking on the sound /i/ and doing the activities in Unit 1. Then write a comment about the different exercises you have done.
Then go to the Minimal Pair Website and go through the activities there.
Notice the interactive phonemic chart on this blog on the right column as well.

APLE: HOMOPHONES

Notice how important phonetics and pronunciation are in English:




Homophones are words that sound the same but have a different spelling and meaning; eg: to, two, too.

Try now the following audio-crossword about the spelling of homophones.

Play the Pairs Word Game and learn when to use and spell these words correctly.

But never give up, keep trying. We all know that English pronunciation is not always easy, as you can see in the following video: