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Phonetics: How can Phonemic Awareness Facilitate Effective Reading? - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Alumni Experiences
Phonemics according to the Merriam Webster dictionary is a branch of linguistic analysis that consists of the study of phonemes. In other words, it could be explained as the study of the sound system of a given language and the analysis and classification of its phonemes. Phonemics awareness, on the other hand, is the ability to examine language independently to its meaning and to manipulate its component sound[1].
Difference between phonemes and phonics
Universal way of acquiring a language
Why phonemes are important?
Correlation between phonemic awareness and spelling ability
Teachers' Role
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This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Lystra H. Please note that... [Read more]
English as a Non-Phonetic Language - TEFL Blog
Linda Dunsmore
Alumni Experiences
Like we all know, the English alphabet has 26 letters. These 26 letters can make 44 different sounds or phonemes – 20 sounds come from the vowels a, e, i, o and u; and 24 sounds come from the remaining 21 consonants. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can change the meaning of a word.
The Vowel Sounds
The Consonant Sounds
Syllable Stress
Without Jumping to Conclusions
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If we consider sounds made simply by the letter 'a' for instance, in the word 'apple' – it's /ae/, in 'car' – it's /a:/, in amount – it's /a/, and so on. This, consequently, makes English a non-phonetic language, which means that the pronunciation of a word is not... [Read more]
Tefl reviews - Pronunciation And Phonology/phonetic Alphabet - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
A better way to go about imparting how to make sounds or what sounds are utilized in a word, is this international phonemic alphabet. Now we have as mentioned one symbol being used in all the words which share that same sound. Now once we get a little bit more familiar with our phonemic alphabet we can also show how different our different sounds can be as in this symbol for ?ooh?, this symbol for ?ow? and this symbol for ?uh?.
Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the... [Read more]
Tefl reviews - Pronunciation And Phonology/phonetic Alphabet Issues - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
There are two issues that need to be stressed when working with the international phonemic alphabet. First is the fact that we are no longer concerned with how a word is traditionally spelled. Additionally we need to stress that we are only concerned with the sounds needed to correctly produce a word. So rather than numerous spellings, which can often be pronounced in different ways, we have one symbol representing one sound. Once we can isolate a sound, rather than juggling various spellings, we can work with our students on how to say that sound. Doing that successfully is related to manner and place of articulation, which will be covered shortly. To get a better understanding of the phonemic alphabet, let's take a look at our chart. In the bottom half of our chart we have our... [Read more]
Should Chinese ESL Students Have Explicit Phonetic Instruction? - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Alumni Experiences
During nine years of teaching English as a Second language, I have discovered how important phonetics is in learning the correct pronunciation of the English language, and in fact, in any language. Derwing and Munro (2005) emphasize, "It is essential to have an accurate understanding of the target language phonological system to enhance the quality of pronunciation".
We should look at some of the problems that L2 learners have when trying to produce accurate L1 language patterns.
We also have to take into account the students.
Chinese students are very reluctant to speak in a classroom setting.
So what pronunciation mistakes are most common?
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Phonetics Difficulties for French Students - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Alumni Experiences
One of the most important problems encountered while learning a foreign language is undoubtedly pronunciation. Knowing a language fluently may not always be enough. Fluency level may be open to discussion if an accurate pronunciation is not used. Therefore as teachers, we must teach our students how to use the correct pronunciation. However, pronunciation can be a nightmare for some students, especially for young learners.
Common Errors in Pronunciation
/h/ Sound
Ways to Fix Errors
Articulation
Simple Way to Overcome the Problem
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This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Selin K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or... [Read more]
Advantages and Disadvantages of Teaching Phonetics - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Teaching Ideas
This will be a discussion aimed at presenting both the advantages and disadvantages of teaching phonetics. We will show how teaching phonetics help create approachability and reinforce language similarities. Inversely we will look at how English suffers from inconsistent phonetic rules and the conflict between words as written and words as said. We will also look at methods to mitigate these issues.
Self-awareness
Noticing language similarities
English rules
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This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Mitchell D. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.
Teaching phonetics help create an approachability towards... [Read more]
Quantifiers in English - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ A Lot Of, A Few, A Little, A Bit…
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What are quantifiers? We use quantifiers (A Lot Of, A Few, A Little, A Bit…) when we want to give information about the number of something: how much or how many. Let's take a look at it below.
Quantifiers form a sub-category under determiners. They are adjectives or phrases that answer two possible questions:
1. How many?
2. and How much?
For example: a few, a little, much, many, most, some, any, enough, etc., are quantifiers.
Quantifiers that describe quantity include a little, none, a few, etc. Some of these are used only with:
Countable nouns – These are the nouns that answer the question "How many?"
For example: a few, a number of, several, etc.
Uncountable nouns –... [Read more]
The Utmost Importance of Phonetics and Phonology - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Teaching Ideas
Speech has been used to communicate and express many things since the dawn of man. When we look at wildlife, we can see a pattern in a speech similar to human communication. To truly understand science speech, we must look deeper at the concept of communication.
Why Speech is Important?
Word Stress
Speech and Communication
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This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Dan S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.
World leaders, actors, entertainers, successful businessmen and other professionals all have one major thing in common, their speech. We look at presidential talks and product release conferences... [Read more]
Phonetics and Phonology in the ESL Classroom - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Teaching Ideas
What is phonology? Most students have not even heard about it. Whenever I ask my students whether they know or have ever learned about phonetics, the same answers come out, "No, we don't know about it at all". It is no wonder they reply like this because there is no phonetic teaching lesson in English classes from KG to high school here in my country. As for me, I got to study about this only when I attended college. Even then, it wasn't taught comprehensively and I only learned very little. So I couldn't read nor write phonetic symbols very well. Thus I thought it was the most difficult part of studying English.
Reasons to pay attention to phonetics
Phonetics in the early years
Benefits
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Related... [Read more]
The Importance of Phonetics when Teaching English - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Alumni Experiences
For the longest time, people have separated teaching English from linguistics, which tends to include all their subcategories. However, phonetics, in particular, plays an incredibly integral part of the teaching of the English language. Why is an understanding of phonetics important in aiding the teaching pronunciation, articulation, and intonation? Being able to demonstrate how one changes the shape of their mouth, or the placement of their tongue can be the difference between someone speaking correct English and sounding as close as possible to a native speaker. Without at least a basic knowledge of this concept, how can we as teachers properly explain and display the way our language sounds in comparison with students' native languages, despite... [Read more]
Tefl reviews - Pronunciation And Phonology/phonemic Spellings Part 1 - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
Now let's take a look at how we go from traditional spellings into the phonemic spellings. The first step in this process is identifying each unit of sound or each phoneme within a word. Let's look at bet, bit, but, and bought. The only difference in each one of these words is in the vowel sound. We have bet, bit, but and bought. Each word simply uses three sounds. Now we have photo. That's four phonemes. Wow we have taxi. That's five phonemes. We have unite with a hidden phoneme in there being the ?y? sound before anything else. Those are five phonemes as well and now we have a longer word: chemistry. Let's give that a shot. That's eight phonemes used in the word chemistry. Now once we've isolated each sound we want to assign a phoneme for each one of those sounds let's do that... [Read more]
Rules of Phonetics and Phonology in ESL Teaching - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Teaching Ideas
In my experience tutoring students in English as a foreign language, the most overlooked learning points were undoubtedly phonetics, phonology, and their connection to pronunciation. Occasionally, there would be a few students who specifically asked for materials that would allow them to perfect or improve their English accent. Some students even requested to receive tutoring in different accents such as the Australian accent. No matter what the request was, it became clear to me over time that the missing link when teaching pronunciation was its connection to phonology and phonetics. From this point on, I became incredibly interested in this topic.
My Course Research
Accent vs. Low Level of Education
Solving Anticipated Problems in the Beginning
Do you... [Read more]
Tefl reviews - Pronunciation And Phonology/phonemic Spellings Part 2 - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
"As mentioned before our four words here all are similar in using the ?b? and ?t? sounds at the end. So we know that those phonemes will be used in spelling each one of those words phonetically. Now what we're left to do is assign a phoneme for our vowel sounds. So if we analyze the word, it's ?e? as in bet. We look at our chart, we see the phoneme which corresponds to that sound and that happens to be the standard ?e? that we all recognize. Here, bet phonetically looks very similar to bet in the Roman script. Now let's take a look at ?i? bit. Now we look at our chart and we see that this symbol represents the ?i? sound and that resembles a capital I not a lowercase I but a capital I and so we've arrived at bit. Now with ?but? we have to find the sound and that corresponds to this... [Read more]
How Basic Understanding of Phonetics Can Help Your EFL Teaching - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Teaching Ideas
Say the word 'hat' to yourself out loud. Now say 'mouth'. Was it easy? If you are a native English speaker you did it without thinking. You didn't have to contort your face into all sorts of funny shapes or feel self-conscience during the process. The reason is that you already know the phonology of those two English words. You may not understand exactly how you said those words; whether they were plosives or voiced or non-voiced, whether or not the tongue was forward touching the teeth or raised touching the soft palate. You don't need to know. You have heard and said these words hundreds if not thousands of times in your life. You already can say them easily without thinking. But what if you are learning English and your Native Language does not have... [Read more]
Deciphering English Language Sounds: The Realm of Phonetics and Phonology - TEFL Blog
Federico Riva
TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas
In this blog post, we'll will delve into phonetics and phonology as described in George Yule's book, "The Study of Language." Phonetic and phonology are two branches of linguistics focused on the sound system. They are critical to understanding how speech sounds are produced, which, in turn, shapes language and communication. This discussion will explore various aspects of phonetics and phonology, breaking down the complex world of sounds in the English language.
Phonetics and the Sound System
Articulation Points
Manner of Articulation
Vowels and Diphthongs
Phonology: The Sound Patterns of Language
Teaching Phonetics and Phonology
In Conclusion
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What are the best strategies for teaching English pronunciation and phonetics to non-native speakers? - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT TEFL & TESOL
Teaching English pronunciation and phonetics to non-native speakers is crucial for effective communication. Clear pronunciation helps students convey their ideas accurately and be understood by others. Without proper pronunciation and phonetic skills, students may struggle to communicate effectively in English, leading to misunderstandings and barriers to language acquisition. By focusing on pronunciation and phonetics, teachers can help learners improve their speaking skills and develop confidence in using English in real-life situations.
There are several strategies that teachers can use to help students improve their English pronunciation. One effective approach is to focus on individual sounds and phonemes, helping students understand the specific mouth and tongue positions needed to... [Read more]
Which Difficulties Do German Have Learners with the Phonetics of English? - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Alumni Experiences
In this essay, I will deal with the pronunciation difficulties of German learners of English. In particular, I will treat some issues at the segmental level.
English German
I will discuss only the final devoicing in this essay
Way to pronounce
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Although both English and German are Germanic languages, the sound inventories of these two languages are quite different, especially the vowels. In the following table, the sounds are listed which exist only in one but not in the other language:
This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Gisella F. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.
Consonants Consonants/θ/,... [Read more]
A New Year - A New Me Worksheet - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
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This worksheet is ideal to make promises and think about what we want to do in the new year.
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Managing a Class as a Foreign EFL Teacher - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Teaching Ideas
When it comes to managing a class, a teacher must be prepared to face many different challenges. This can be especially true for a teacher in classrooms abroad. In addition to teaching a subject, a foreign teacher may also have to worry about the cultural or social norms of a country they may be unaccustomed to, and other problems might arise from language barriers. An EFL teacher can better manage a classroom if they prepare for these in advance, and utilize the appropriate behaviors and routines while running the classroom.
The Importance of Planning Classes
Setting up Goals
Cultural Habits
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This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate David H. Please note that this... [Read more]
A Teacher’s Role in a Classroom's Daily Life - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Teaching Ideas
A teacher who teaches students in an environment using their native language will play various roles in the classroom. My interpretation of these roles includes their abilities to facilitate and manage learning through their personalities, have an understanding of their student's needs while also being a genuine messenger. As a manager, it is the teacher's responsibility to control the environment and organization of the classroom, the students' behavior, and the class syllabus. As a messenger, it is the teacher's responsibility to deliver the content on the syllabus to the students to improve their reading and writing abilities. We can, therefore, summarize the main role of a teacher teaching in an environment where both student and teacher are using... [Read more]
Designing a Plan for a Preschool ESL Class - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Teaching Ideas
Although I have spent many years as an English tutor and teacher of children, I always relied on my own innate skill and have never been formally trained. Within my circle, I was the resident expert on the English language, as I was one of the few native speakers. From my own efforts and studies, I developed my own program for my students. I often felt unsure if I was applying the right methods and longed for some formal training. Now I can say that I have learned a great deal from studying the ESA method, and have a better understanding of what good lesson planning and classroom management involves. From my own intuition and experience, I learned to apply some of the techniques and methods presented in this course; however, the examples and explanations... [Read more]
How Does a Teacher Successfully Manage a Classroom? - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Teaching Ideas
Finding the perfect balance between being a fun teacher who creates an environment in which students want to be a part of and are excited to learn and a teacher who is firm enough to maintain discipline in the classroom is possibly the most daunting challenge of a new teacher.
Let's think about a possible scenario for a new teacher.
Students' expectations
This fictional scenario is an example of how not to manage a class.
There are numerous techniques for achieving a well-managed classroom.
Body language and voice
Various other factors help in setting up a well-managed classroom.
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This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Christine F. Please note that this blog post... [Read more]
Making a Difference as a TEFL Teacher - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
The Impact of TEFL Teaching
Advantages of Teaching English Abroad
Challenges Faced by TEFL Teachers
Importance of TEFL Courses
The Role of TESOL Training
Cultural Awareness in ESL Teaching
Building Relationships with Students
Enhancing Communication Skills
Professional Development in TEFL
ITTT: A Leading TEFL Provider
Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) is a rewarding profession that can have a profound impact on the lives of students around the world. By helping individuals improve their English language skills, TEFL teachers open up new opportunities for them in terms of education, employment, and social interaction. The ability to communicate effectively in English is increasingly important in our globalized world, and TEFL teachers play a crucial role in facilitating... [Read more]
The Importance of a Teacher in a Classroom - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Alumni Experiences
The role of a teacher plays a critical role in a classroom setting. They are seen as leaders and someone for the learners to provide support and guidance. A great example of the impact of a teacher was in a previous lesson where it shows a comparison of two videos. One video showed the teacher being rude, disrespectful, uninterested, and inpatient among many things. He was rushing through his lesson, causing confusion among the students, and made it dreadful to be in the classroom. The other video showed positive examples of how to be a great teacher. The most valuable trait the teacher exhibited was by ensuring a healthy and positive learning environment. He started the lesson by smiling, greeting the students, and learning their names. Afterward,... [Read more]
Key Responsibilities of a Teacher in a TEFL Classroom - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Alumni Experiences
The roles of an English teacher in a TEFL classroom are varied and depend largely on the stage of the lesson and the situations that may arise, both planned and unplanned. Many people see the teacher as the main source of information and an example of the English language. This, in a sense, is the primary role of a teacher; however, in order to fulfill the ultimate goal a teacher has, they must create a productive atmosphere in the class and a good, working relationship with their students.
Learning trajectory
Lesson flow
Role model
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This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Shannon T. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the... [Read more]
Why Complete a TEFL Course? - A TEFL Graduate Explains - TEFL Blog
Linda Dunsmore
Alumni Experiences
Why complete a TEFL course? For me there was never a question, never a doubt on why I should complete this TEFL course. I want to be the best teacher possible and with the help of the TEFL course, I know I can achieve my goals.
Not everyone learns from being placed in front of a classroom and judged.
The TEFL course knows it is meant to be a strong guideline for success and not a rule of absolute law.
How prepared are you without a TEFL?
Listen to this blog post
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Though no substitute can be given for actual classroom experience, what I have found throughout this course is that TEFL shows and explains the core basics of nearly everything. Any topic and any subject and aspect that comes with or... [Read more]
Q A Ask A Non Native Esl Teacher - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
Are you a new non-native ESL teacher or have some challenges as an experienced one? Come to this live stream to chat with Liza, a non-native ESL teacher with 8 years of in-class and online teaching experience! #TEFL#BestTEFL #TeachEnglishOnline Are you ready to teach English abroad or online? Click here and get started today: https://bit.ly/37gs5vO What is TEFL Certification? Where is it valid: https://bit.ly/36ma2Fg Check out our wide range of TEFL Courses: https://bit.ly/3ltqt73 Teach English online from anywhere you want: https://bit.ly/3ltqEPL
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Why Complete a TEFL Course - A TEFL Graduate Explains - TEFL Blog
Linda Dunsmore
TEFL Information Alumni Experiences
Whether you are currently considering embarking in a career in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) or have been a teacher of English language learners for years, a TEFL certification course will provide you with an invaluable source to develop your skills as a teacher. This course presents an overview of TEFL. It explains the responsibilities and skills a successful teacher should have, as well as the many roles the teacher must employ in the classroom. It introduces the ESA (engage, study, activate) methodology, and demonstrates how to effectively prepare different types of lesson plans based on the ESA approach to teaching.
The Basics of Teaching
The Importance of Good Rapport
The ESA Methodology
The Lowdown
Listen to this... [Read more]
A Sample Lesson Plan For a 2nd Grade Classroom - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Teaching Ideas
This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Trang V. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.
Preparation
PROCEDURE
Engagement
Study
STAGE 2- Attending To Form (20')
Activate
STAGE 3- Practicing And Enjoying Activities (20')
STAGE 4- Review Vocabulary With Song (15')
STAGE 5- Developing Strategies For Vocabulary (25')
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Also Read: Moving Forward: My Personal Teaching Experience, Changing Careers
STAGE 1 - Understanding And Learning The Meaning Of New Words (10')Firstly, students watch a video that is related to colors. Students give... [Read more]
