Govern How Words Sound When Pronounced

  Here we have a set of five words, which all share one sound: the ?oh? sound, as in ?go?, ?show?, ?dough?, ?note? and ?boat?. They?re five different spelling patterns to tell our students so they can identify when to make the ?oh? sound. We can have a simple letter ?o?, ?ow?, ?ough?, ?o? with the magic ?e? which turns our vowel into what we knew as long sounds and the ?oa? as in ?boat?. Now, for a non-native learner, perhaps they can handle something like this. They remember that these spelling combinations help to produce the ?oh? sound and they can go about their business looking at the words and memorizing this knowing that these spelling patterns will produce the sound ?oh?. Now that?s okay until we get to a situation where we can also have words like ?to?, ?cow? and also...  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Here's a useful word list with long vowel sounds to use with your ESL students.   Long vowel sound spelling patterns are quite difficult for students to learn. First they must understand that more than one letter can be used to represent one sound and then learn the various ways that the sound can be represented in print.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! These 16 slang words are the perfect addition to your English vocabulary! Sound just like an English native speaker.     Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Here's a useful word list with long vowel sounds to use with your ESL students.   Long vowel sound spelling patterns are quite difficult for students to learn. First they must understand that more than one letter can be used to represent one sound and then learn the various ways that the sound can be represented in print.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Here's a useful word list with long vowel sounds to use with your ESL students.   Long vowel sound spelling patterns are quite difficult for students to learn. First they must understand that more than one letter can be used to represent one sound and then learn the various ways that the sound can be represented in print.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Here's a useful word list with long vowel sounds to use with your ESL students.   Long vowel sound spelling patterns are quite difficult for students to learn. First they must understand that more than one letter can be used to represent one sound and then learn the various ways that the sound can be represented in print.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Weather and whether are a pair of homophones which means they sound the same, but they have different spellings and meanings. Here we explain how to use these words correctly.   WEATHER Definition and Examples Weather can be a noun or a verb. WEATHER Examples: WHETHER Definition and Examples Whether is a conjunction, which joins two words or phrases together. WHETHER Examples: Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Proper pronunciation is essential to the understanding and communication of a language, and therefore it is an essential component of English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. Students of different nationalities and backgrounds will have different issues regarding English pronunciation depending on their native language. Their pronunciation issues often directly stem from the pronunciation of their native language because of differences between the two languages. This summative task will highlight the most common English pronunciation issues for Italian native speakers.Table of Contents The main problem that many Italian students have with their English pronunciation is the pronunciation of certain phonetic sounds. There are many vowels in English...  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!   Do you want to sound more interesting? Use this list of descriptive words and step up your spoken language! This list has been chosen especially for ESL learners.   Learn synonyms of different words in English Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas As an aspirant teaching English to Chinese children, I chose 'Pronunciation problems of Chinese people' as the most attractive and the most useful topic for my summative task at this moment.Table of Contents So let's begin from the very beginning. The Second difficulty in pronunciation is so-called dark L or L's with no vowel sound after them. How can the teacher help students to correct this? Different Approaches Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: As resources of this joyful and useful research on the internet, I have used three videos on Youtube made by the three experienced teachers of the English language. Only one of them works with children. And only one of them (accent coach from London, Luke Nicholson) gave...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Stefania F. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.Table of Contents Teaching English pronunciation to students of other languages is always a big deal. One of the biggest challenges when teaching English to Italians is its phonetics. I personally witnessed pronunciation difficulties when I taught English in Italy in high school last year. Apart from Italian students, I also taught a small group of French, Latin-American, and Arabic migrants, recently arrived in Italy. Not only did they have a low level of Italian, but they were also beginners in English. Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: English...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences A learner's mother tongue has a profound influence on verbalization of the second language. The absence of some sounds in the learner's first language, and the difference in intonation, word, and syllable stress between the learner's native language and English are some of the many factors that often lead to an incorrect pronunciation of English words. In order to address these issues, a teacher needs to have a basic understanding of the student's native language. This essay will briefly explore the most common pronunciation problems for Egyptians learners of English and some suggested solutions to tackle these problems.Table of Contents Problems with the /p/ sound Confusing voiced and unvoiced sounds Replacing /ÆŸ/ and /ð/ with /s/ and...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas According to a study by scholars and experts in the field of linguistics, more specifically in the article of Riney & Anderson-Hsieh from International Christian University, the native language (L1) is a good predictor of pronunciation accuracy in English as researched by Suter in 1976. In the same article, it was mentioned that a subsequent study by Purcell and Suter in 1980, found that non-native speakers who are most likely to pronounce English (L2) poorly, fit the profile in Japanese ESL students.Table of Contents 1. /L/ and /R/ sound 2. /ng/ sound 3. /th/ Fricatives Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course today! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Cherryl T. Please note that this blog post...  [Read more]

Charlotte Lam Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Phonics is a method of teaching children to read by linking sounds (phonemes) and the symbols that represent them (graphemes, or letter groups). Phonics is very commonly used in Hong Kong's kindergarten to teach children the sound of the words. It involves matching the sounds of spoken English with individual letters or groups of letters. For example, the sound k can be spelled as c, k, ck or ch.Table of Contents Phonics teaching step 1: Decoding Phonics teaching step 2: Blending The Phonics System Are you ready to teach English online? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! Teach children the letters' sounds. They think about what sound a word starts with, saying the sound out, and recognize...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Japan is a country with a long history, deep tradition, and vibrant culture. Within this culture sits the Japanese language. At first, being a spoken language and then adopting the Chinese Writing System, Japanese has grown and changed into what it is today. If you look at all languages, most Western languages originate from a set family, such as Romance Languages (which became today's Spanish, French, Italian, etc). But Japanese (as most Asian languages) was formed from entirely different roots. These fundamental differences mean that the method of learning these languages has a lot to do with memorization and repetitive practice of the Chinese symbols and the words they represent. Which means it is difficult to find any common ground between it and...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences As defined through the units of the course and through many linguistic books, pronunciation is to say a word in a language in the correct way. Although the correct pronunciation of words and even the correct intonation in sentences in English, is thought through course books all over the world and thanks to media students are exposed to the natural and correct pronunciation, numerous mistakes are observed inside the classroom and outside. The reasons for the problems in pronunciation might vary depending on the country. I have been teaching English in Turkey for a while and have witnessed many problems with the students which will be explained through this essay.Table of Contents Turkish is a phonetic language. Pronunciation Difficulties with Vowels...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences It is not a secret for anyone that native speakers of any language always easily identify "non-native" when they hear at least a few words spoken by them. Often native speakers are able to fairly accurately determine the country from which the person came, based on his pronunciation. This happens due to the fact that it is common for all of us to use the sounds of our native language in the pronunciation of words of a foreign language, as well as to use articulation models we know from childhood the position of the organs of speech (lips, tongue, etc.).Table of Contents The "Russian mistakes" Muting voiced consonants in the endings. Replacing long vowels with short vowels. Replacment of different English sounds Using Russian intonation models instead of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Learning a second language can be difficult and depending on the learner's mother tongue, it can present challenges unique to a certain group of people. More specifically, there are several unique challenges for Japanese native speakers who are learning English and vice versa. English can be difficult for Japanese native speakers for various reasons such as difficulty distinguishing certain sounds, the use of katakana to teach English words, and drastically different sentence structure.Table of Contents Difficult Sounds Vocabulary Typical to Japanese Only Sentence Structure Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Justin W. Please note that this blog post might not...  [Read more]

  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]

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.Table of Contents Common Errors in Pronunciation /h/ Sound Ways to Fix Errors Articulation Simple Way to Overcome the Problem Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Selin K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In my experience with teaching Chinese students, most pronounce the unvoiced 'TH' sound correctly. To account for the difference in sound between the unvoiced 'TH' and the voiced 'TH', most students seem to have developed the habit of placing their tongue either on the back of their front teeth or on the roof of the mouth immediately behind the front teeth to create a plosive 'TH' sound which sounds most closely like and' sound.Table of Contents Defining the problem Understanding physiology of the sound How to work on pronunciation online Memory games Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Michael D. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences Learning a second language is never easy but the problems that each learner faces are not all the same. Sometimes the grammar of your first language is completely different from your second language. There might be sounds you do not know how to make because your first language does not have them. You might have limited access to fluent speakers of the language you are learning. All of these are true for Lao learners trying to acquire English as a second language.Table of Contents "Teaching students new vocabulary and how to pronounce it requires patience and creativity." "Spoken and written grammar are huge hurdles." "The Lao writing system is completely different compared to English." "The exposure to English is very limited in Laos." Are you ready to...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences Grammar is the whole system of language. It includes a set of rules known as syntax. Occasionally when working on the computer you may get a message "Error Syntax; code 141" this means you have typed into the computer something that did not fit into the rules. This is not allowed and the computer will reject it and force you to obey the rules.Table of Contents Affect vs. Effect That Whom vs. Who Are you ready to teach abroad? Related Articles: Listen to this blog post When speaking English we have no restrictions on the structure or form and no computer monitoring us to stop us from speaking incorrectly. We can say anything anyway we choose, well-spoken or poorly spoken. There are some common words which are frequently misused. They are, affect, that,...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences In recent times, it is safe to say that the English language is one of the most spoken languages and widely preferred L2s according to the Oxford dictionary. For communication to be successful, however, certain criteria need to be met. For instance, one must not only study the forms or shape of things but must also adhere to the formation of words and phrases alike in order to craft well-formed sentences, along with understanding the meaning of each word, phrase or the relationship between two words. Whether they differ or are similar in terms of phonetics and spelling before actually making use of it, it is important to note that anything contrary to this will corrupt the efficient and effective use of the English language.Table of Contents Tribal...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences What's the most difficult part of learning a new language? Is it writing? Perhaps it's the reading or memorizing new vocabulary? Well for some it's speaking the new language, specifically when it comes to pronunciation. Every language has its unique ways or pronouncing their vowels and constants as well as how they form their sentence structure. Especially this write up will focus on Japanese English as a Second Language (ESL) students and the difficulties they face while learning English and its pronunciation.Table of Contents Japanese Writing Teaching Approach Pronunciation Differences Further Steps Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Zachary B. Please...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas The above is a topic that I want to particularly used to teaching reading to young learners. There are some points given below, they are.Table of Contents 1. Use songs and nursery rhymes to build phonemic awareness 2. Make simple word cards at home 3. Engage your child in a print-rich environment 4. Play word games at home or in the car 5. Understand the core skills involved in teaching kids to read 6. Play with magnet letters 7. Harness the power of technology to keep your child engaged Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Angeline J. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Children's songs and nursery...  [Read more]

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].Table of Contents Difference between phonemes and phonics Universal way of acquiring a language Why phonemes are important? Correlation between phonemic awareness and spelling ability Teachers' Role Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Lystra H....  [Read more]

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.Table of Contents Self-awareness Noticing language similarities English rules Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: 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...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Each student faces their difficulties when it comes to English pronunciation depending on their country of origin. This essay will focus on the pronunciation difficulties facing ESL students in France and will also propose some solutions to help students overcome these difficulties.Table of Contents French Sound System IPA Difficult Sounds The Dark /L/ Sound Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Kerri M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The number of English vowel sounds greatly outnumbers those found in the French language. As such, French students will have to produce sounds that they have never...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Brazilians are learning English all over the country, for various reasons and with diverse goals. In this text, I would like to approach some very common deviations to standard English dialects, such as General American and Received Pronunciation, by Brazilian speakers. I have chosen to address some problems in phonetics and pronunciation that are the most frequent in my classes. I also give attention to some problems in word linking that generate tough challenges for English teachers.Table of Contents Official Language Influence Pronunciation Vowels Consonants Diphthongs Linking Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Linecker M. Please note that this blog...  [Read more]