Comply Pronunciation

  Whereas stress is typically concerned with one individual word, intonation is generally concerned with the variation in volume and pitch throughout an entire sentence. Intonation carries the message of a sentence. It's particularly important when questioning or agreeing, disagreeing and confirming statements. It's also very important when expressing emotions and feelings. The normal pattern for intonation is the rise-fall. Few examples would be ?I haven't seen him for a week,? or a simple word as ?okay?. With the falling intonation, we?re indicating that we're finished speaking. Again, ?I haven't seen him for a week? and ?okay?. A few more examples would be ?I'll see you at six then,? or a question of information ?How do you spell rough?? These are straightforward statements that...  [Read more]

  In this video we'll be looking at the international phonemic alphabet and how it's used in the classroom. There are other phonemic alphabets but this is the most popular and the system, which is most widely used. You may have seen some of these symbols before as any good dictionary will supplement standard English spellings with the phonemic spellings to aid in pronunciation practice. Here we have a situation where we have what are called phonemes and each phoneme represents a sound within the English language. How is this helpful? Well, what it does is help students understand how to say words rather than simply relying on the often archaic English spellings. To illustrate this point let's for a moment put ourselves in the shoes of our students when trying to understand how to...  [Read more]

In these videos our grammar expert Linda demonstrates how to correctly pronounce a wide variety of common and not so common words that you might encounter in an English language classroom. Come back regularly as our Ask Linda series is frequently updated.  [Read more]

  Connected speech is also an important element of phonology and it's involved in joining words together in an effect to make our speech more efficient. Some might say it's a product of being lazy but nonetheless it's what we all do and we want all of our non-native speakers to speak as naturally as possible, so we have to be aware of these things. Here are a few of the more common examples. We have linking, dropping, changing and extra lettering. An example of each would be with linking, we link our words together so that they almost in effect become one word. Instead of saying ?What do you want to do,? we typically will say ?Whatdoyou want to do?? Then, we can also have dropping. Rather than pronouncing each and every consonant, we can sometimes, especially in certain accents,...  [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]

  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]

  The next thing we should look at is how our consonants are arranged for the top two rows we have P and F at the left side of our chart and G and J at the right side of our chart. They're arranged this way because if we analyze the way we speak we're using the front of our mouth to use these sounds as in ?p? and ?f? and I'm using my lips and my teeth to produce those sounds and as we move to the right on the chart slowly but surely we're making those sounds it towards the back of our mouth. We can use the examples of ?g?. The sound ?g? is produced further back in our mouth than ?p?. The next thing we'll notice about our chart is that some of our symbols are shaded. Notice that none of the symbols in the vowel sections are shaded but only a few are in the consonant section. The...  [Read more]

  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]

  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]

  "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...  [Read more]

  And now we have our nasal sounds. There are three nasal sounds and basically the pattern of air that's moving out of our vocal tract has to do with two big instances and that is a closure in the vocal tract. Except aside from the plosives and affricates, what we have is air escaping through our nasal cavity. These sounds include ?m?, ?n? and ?ng?. We're moving from the front of the mouth to the back of the mouth. First with the M sound or the ?m?, we're closing both lips and the air is escaping through the nasal passage ?m?. Next we have our N sound or our ?n? sound. There, the closure is inside the mouth but our tongue is closing up near our alveolar ridge and the air is escaping through the nose. Again that's ?n?. Finally we have our NG sound and the closure there is happening...  [Read more]

  Alveolar sounds get their name from the fact that the alveolar ridge is being used. Again, that ridge is just behind the front top row of teeth. Here the tongue is on or very very near the alveolar ridge. It's typically the tip of the tongue or what's just behind the tip of the tongue, called the blade of the tongue. Here, we're talking about sounds such as ?t? and ?d?. If you say them at home, you can tell the tip of your tongue is on that alveolar ridge. Again, that's ?t? and ?d?, as well as sounds such as ?s? and ?z?. Again, the blade of the tongue is just near that alveolar ridge but it is very near nonetheless. The two other sounds that make it into this category is the ?l? sound, where the tip of the tongue is very clearly touching that alveolar ridge, as well as ?r? or the...  [Read more]

  Place of articulation deals with the placement of the vocal organs when producing a sound. Before we can cover the particulars of places of articulation, we'll need to take a look at the various vocal organs and their locations. Moving from the front to the back we'd begin with our lips. We can use both lips in order to create a sound or we can use one of our lips with one of our rows of teeth, usually the top, in order to produce another sound. We also have other sounds, which use both of the rows of teeth. Further back we have what's called the alveolar ridge. That's the bit of the mouth that may get burnt when we're eating a pizza that's a bit too hot and the cheese burns just behind there our top two teeth. That again is the hard bit just behind our top teeth, called the...  [Read more]

  When it comes to manner of articulation, we have six different ways in which our breath is produced in order to make our sounds. We have our plosives, our affricates, fricatives, the nasal sounds, our lateral sound and the approximants. Let's take a look at each individually and see how they differ from one another. First we have our plosive sounds. As the word might indicate we have basically a little explosion of sound with our breath. The plosive sounds are made through a three-step process. First there's a closure somewhere in the vocal tract. Second there's a buildup of air and finally there's a sudden release of that air like a little explosion. If we look at some of the sounds that are made this way we might better understand why they are called plosives. Examples are the...  [Read more]

As a TEFL teacher, having clear pronunciation and a neutral accent is crucial for effective communication with students. Pronunciation plays a vital role in language learning as it helps students understand and imitate the correct sounds of the language. A clear accent also aids in comprehension and builds students' confidence in their own speaking abilities. Additionally, as a model for your students, your pronunciation and accent will influence their own language acquisition and communication skills. There are several strategies you can employ to enhance your pronunciation and accent as a TEFL teacher. Firstly, practice speaking slowly and enunciating words clearly to ensure that your students can understand you. Focus on specific sounds that may be challenging for your students and work...  [Read more]

Teaching English pronunciation in TEFL is crucial for effective communication skills. Proper pronunciation enhances students' ability to be understood by native speakers, improves their confidence in speaking, and helps them communicate more clearly. It also aids in developing listening skills and overall language proficiency. As a TEFL teacher, focusing on pronunciation can make a significant impact on your students' language learning journey. Several TEFL courses offer specialized training in teaching English pronunciation. These courses provide in-depth knowledge of phonetics, intonation, stress patterns, and other key aspects of pronunciation. Some renowned TEFL certification programs, such as the Cambridge CELTA and Trinity CertTESOL, include modules specifically dedicated to teaching...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word filibuster. This word can be used both as a noun and as a verb. As a noun, it refers to a speech that avoids the progress in a legislative assembly while not technically being illegal or unlawful. As a verb, it describes the action of acting in an obstructive manner in legislature. The word originates from the Dutch vrijbuiter meaning freebooter. 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 next. The...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word anemone. This word is used as a noun and refers to brightly colored flowers of the buttercup family. The word comes from the Greek word anem?n? meaining 'windflower'. 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 next. Unit five explained how to manage a classroom. It focused on the way the teacher acts, the students act, and the way the room is setup. All of these factors help in the process of keeping...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word variety. This word is used as a noun and describes a state of being different or diverse. The words diversity and variation can be used as synonyms for variety. The word comes from the Latin word varietas. 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 next. Understanding the forms and usage of all four present tenses is important to master before a teacher can impart the the knowledge to students in a...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word mugwump. This word is a noun and refers to a person who remains independent, especially from politc parties. This word comes from the Algonquian native peoples in Canada. It has been used in English since the 19th century. 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 next. This unit showed me how i need to introduce myself to young learners. How to test them during the first lesson to see what the...  [Read more]

  In this episode, Linda takes on the pronunciation of the word "bicoastal". Enjoy the episode! 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 next. This unit has taught me more about preparing the lessons and materials for lessons, and creating a lesson overview or syllabus based on the students needs or wishes. The advantages and disadvantages of using authentic and non-authentic materials and how to get the most out of them, Using our resources to their full...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word "bellwether". This word is a noun and describes someone who takes the lead and sets trends. A long time ago, shepherds hung a bell around the neck of one sheep of its flock designating it the leader. Therefore, bellwether is a combination of the words "bell" and "wether", a male sheep that has been castrated. 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 next. The framework for a business English class...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word psychology. This word is used as a noun and describes the science of mind and behavior of a person or animal. The word was created by combining the Greek word psych? (meaning life or soul) with ?logia, from the Greek logos, meaning reason. 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 next. This unit covered different equipment and teaching aids to use in the classroom. There are advantages and...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word "inculcate". This word is a verb and describes the act of teaching something through frequent repetitions. The word can be traced back to the Latin "inculcare", meaning "to tread on." 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 next. I found this unit very interesting because in reviewing the parts of speech, I learned more and understood the difference between pronouns and adjective and the two kinds...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word armada. This word refers to a large fleet of warships. The word has been in use ever since the Spanish naval forces lost against England in 1588. 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 next. This unit provides the information about teaching methodology and techniques as well as some usefull ideas that can be used during the lesson. After studying the Unit 3, I have learnt that the mistakes and...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word kismet. This word is a noun and means fate or destiny. The word comes from Arabic ?ismat meaning 'division'. 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 next. Planing our class previously its very important, specially for new teachers. It guide us throughout the lesson but it can surely be flexible to the students level and needs. While planing a lesson we need to know what the students will be able to...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word pundit. This word is a noun and refers to an expert in a particular field who is often consulted by others. Suitable synonyms for pundit include expert or specialist. The word has found itself into the English language from the Sanskrit word 'pa??ita' meaning ?learned man'. 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 next. This unit compares reading and listening skills and discusses the difference...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word "bunkum". This word is a noun and refers to foolish talk or nonsense. The word came into existence after a representative for Buncombe County, North Carolina, held a speech on an irrelevant subject in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1820. Soon after, the word "bunkum" became known as a synonym for nonsense. 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 next. Once again the information contained in this...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word caparison. This word refers to decking something out in rich decorative coverings, usually used for horses. This word found its way into the English language through the French word caparasson who took it from the Spanish caparazón meaining ?saddlecloth'. 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 next. This unit has outlined how the class atmosphere and physical surroundings can drastically affect the...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word meticulous. This word refers to the action of showing great attention to detail, as well as being very careful or precise. Some synonyms for meticulous include careful, diligent and conscientious. The word comes from the Latin meticulosus meaning fearful. 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 next. This unit is teaching the future tenses and how to break down each element in order to help students...  [Read more]