Teacher Training Materials of Professor Dr David Ngin Sian Pau

Teaching Pronunciation and Homophones

Pronunciation is probably the most neglected aspect of English language teaching. Foreign teachers often lack of the confidence to teach it methodically and English teachers sometimes also lack the training and confidence to tackle this area.

For one thing students are as concerned about it as they are with any other aspect of learning English.

Phonetic sound

· Practice phonetic sounds with all the teachers.
· See Churchill House materials. Let the trainees match phonetics chart and the real English word.
· Pronounce the words as clear as possible.
· Encourage not to use Chinese sound when reading international phonetics.

How to pronounce two words together

· Give up, givap
· It’s an aim, itsenem
· It’s a name, itsanem
· cut it, cudid
· send them aid, sendemei
· goes up,
· what’s up?,
· open up,
· live out,
· live on,
· live off,
· liven up,
· link up,
· time’s up,
· hang on,
· hang out,
· hang over,
· hang up,
· hands on,
· Marble Arch becomes marblarch,
· Bond Street becomes bon street,
· Green Park becomes Greem Park,
· Ann and the king becomes Ann a and the king.

Technique:

· If the last letter of a word is a vowel and the first letter of the next word also is a vowel, use the sound of the consonant.
· If the last letter of a word is consonant and the first letter of the next word is a vowel, use the sound of the consonant.

Word Stress:

Individual sounds, sounds in connected speech stress within words, stress within whole utterances are all difficult for students. In the classroom there should be time given to pronunciation stress and intonation practice so as to make student aware of the importance of accuracy and clarity of communication.