Pronunciation

Here are the notes from this week's workshop. There are also some activities to practise at home.


Discussion

Do you think you need to improve your pronunciation?
Who do you want to sound like?
What areas of your pronunciation will you concentrate on?
How will you improve?
How can using the phonemic chart help you?

Task one: try these tongue twisters

How many cookoos could a good cook cook if a good cook could cook cookoos.

Three free throws.

Knapsack straps.

A noisy noise annoys an oyster.

The two-twenty-two train tore through the tunnel.

Good blood, bad blood, Good blood, bad blood, Good blood, bad blood, Good blood, bad blood etc…..

She sells sea shells by the sea shore.The shells she sells are surely seashells.So if she sells shells on the seashore,I'm sure she sells seashore shells.

I am not the pheasant plucker,I'm the pheasant plucker's son.I am only plucking pheasants'til the pheasant plucker comes.

Task two: what’s difficult?
Common Problem Areas.

Vowels
Health, feature, earn, wears, theatre, pleased, heard, leave, rehearsing, leather, break, teacher, appeared, yeah, ideal, increases, colleagues, death.

All the above words have vowel sounds spelt ea. However, ea can be pronounced at least 6 different ways. What are they?

Difficult Sounds
Why might some mother tongue Italian speakers have problems with the following words and phrases?
I hope he is.
Thin, other, thought, truth, Thursday
Pleasure, occasion
Sixths, clothes, rough, magnolia, significant
The jury convicts the defendant & the judge passes sentence.

Word Endings
Write the phonetic symbol for each -ed verb ending: [d], [t] or [Id]:
1
landed

2
expected

3
asked

4
regarded

5
decided

6
packed

7
locked

8
answered

9
stopped
[t]
10
requested


11
added

12
wished

13
liked

14
divided

15
played

16
multiplied

17
listened

18
listed

19
permitted

20
explored


Can you work out what the rule is?

Words commonly confused because of their pronunciation

What is the difference in pronunciation and meaning between these 4 pairs of words.
(a) rise, raise
(b) breathe, breath
(c) use, use
(d) bathe, bath

Have a look at the phonemic chart. Discuss with your partner which ones you find difficult.


Task three: stress, pauses and weak forms

You

me

him

her

You
and
me
and
him
and
her

You
and then
me
and then
him
and then
her

You
and then it’s
me
and then it’s
him
and then it’s
her

Where is the stress in the following phrases (usually)?

As far as I’m concerned, ………..
From my point of view, ……..
From the point of view of the shop owners, …..
I see what you mean, but…..
I see what you’re getting at, but……….
As far as the people in other parts of the world are concerned, …………….

Mark where the pauses and main stresses are.

The world’s most popular drink is water. You probably knew that already. After all, it’s a basic requirement of life on earth. But did you know that the world’s second most popular drink is Coke? And that the human race drinks six hundred million Cokes a day? Now let’s just put that into some kind of perspective. It means that every week of every year people drink enough Coke to fill the World Trade centre.

Answer:



The world’s most popular DRINK
is WATER.
You probably knew that ALREADY.
After all,
it’s a basic requirement of life on EARTH.
But did you KNOW
that the world’s SECOND most popular drink
is COKE?
And that the human race drinks
six hundred million Cokes a DAY?
Now let’s just put that into some kind of PERSPECTIVE.
It MEANS
that EVERY WEEK
of EVERY YEAR
people drink enough COKE
to fill the World TRADE centre.




Some to try at home


sheep/ship /
tin/ten /
bet/bat /
bet/bait /
bat/bad /
cat/cut /
cat/cart /
cart/cut /
cut/curt /
look/loop /
cart/caught /
caught/cot /
caught/coat /
caught/curt /
coat/cot /
coat/coot /
darling/dialling /
air/"A" /
tail/toil /
tail/tell /
tail/tile /
tile/toil /
hour/are /
rot/lot /
pull/bull /
heart/art / -
worse/verse /
worse/worth /
ass/as/ash / /


Why use the Phonemic Chart?
You need to learn the pronunciation to make the word part of your active vocabulary
Helps you train your ear – often fossilised grammar mistakes come from mis-hearing sounds e.g. been/being
Helps with spelling
Avoids confusing words with similar sounds or spelling

Many thanks to Andy Harris at London Metropolitan University for providing the format and some of the exercises for this lesson.