The Pronunciation Blog - Adrian Underhill's Pronunciation Site

Connected speech Recently however, there has been a shift of focus towards the other systems operating within phonology, which may be more important in terms of overall intelligibility. What connected speech is How this affects native and non-native speakers Aspects of connected speech Working on weak forms Conclusion What connected speech is "English people speak so fast" is a complaint I often hear from my students, and often from those at an advanced level, where ignorance of the vocabulary used is not the reason for their lack of comprehension. When students see a spoken sentence in its written form, they have no trouble comprehending. Why is this? The reason, it seems, is that speech is a continuous stream of sounds, without clear-cut borderlines between each word.

Error Correction 1 Therefore the aim of this article is not to be prescriptive, but to highlight some key areas. It is in 2 parts. In the first part we look at ... Using students' first languages in the classroom Summary: Using students' first languages in the classroom Whether it is better to use the students' first language (L1) in class or have an English-only policy is something that has been much debated and that has seen many changes of fashion over the years. It seems, therefore, that the only sensible reaction an individual teacher can take to this controversial subject is to neither accept nor reject the use of L1, but simply to search for an ideal level of its use in each individual class- maybe changing its use as the class progresses in level or changes in other ways. Here are some tips to help you spot if you have found your own perfect level of L1 use in your classes and how to adjust the level if you haven't reached that point yet. Possible signs that there is too much L1 in your classroom

Working in pairs and groups The advantages of pair work and small group work Gives learners more speaking time Changes the pace of the lesson Takes the spotlight off you and puts it onto the children Allows them to mix with everyone in the group Gives them a sense of achievement when reaching a team goal Teaches them how to lead and be led by someone other than the teacher Allows you to monitor, move around the class and really listen to the language they are producing Pitfalls and how to avoid them Checking Understanding Analysis of the language consists of two sub-stages, often known as highlighting and concept checking. Highlighting is taking the model sentence and showing, telling or eliciting what the problems are in terms of form, function, and phonology. Concept checking is checking the understanding of difficult aspects of the target structure in terms of function and meaning. Concept checking is vital, since learners must fully understand the structure before any intensive practice of form and phonology is carried out.

Grouping students Do you think about whether you’ve got a balance between pairs, groups, whole class and individual work? If you have activities for pairs and groups, do you let the students decide who they’re going to work with or do you decide? This tip looks at the advantages and disadvantages of the three main ways of grouping students. They are, giving students the choice, random grouping and selecting the groups yourself. You’ll probably find that no one way will always be the best choice for a particular group, but that you’ll use all three ways at different times depending on your students and the activities you plan to do. Giving students the choiceThe chances are, if you let your students decide who they want to work with they will always stick to the same people.

Asking questions Questioning is crucial to the way teachers manage the class, engage students with content, encourage participation and increase understanding. Typically, teachers ask between 300-400 questions per day, however the quality and value of questions varies. While questioning can be an effective tool, there is both an art and science to asking questions. Every question demands a response (except in the case of requests and suggestions), so that questions inevitably generate communication. However the quantity of questions asked needs to be considered in relation to general time constraints and the need to keep teacher talking time to a minimum while maximising learner contributions.

How to get started as an online teacher of English Have you thought about teaching English online? Emma Segev gives some practical tips and useful websites for getting started in one of our top five articles of all time, illustrated by artist Jamie Johnson. When I first started teaching in 2004, I was sceptical about the effectiveness of online teaching, but since then I have accumulated a lot of experience. I'd like to share with you a few things I've learned along the way. Getting started

Teens classroom rules posters - Smart white These posters are designed to be used on your classroom walls with teenage learners aged from 13 years old. This distinctive Smart white poster will appeal to teenage learners and comes with speech bubbles completed giving five key classroom rules: Try to use EnglishListen to your teacherParticipate in all activitiesRespect your classmatesArrive on time Classroom activity We also have a version of all our posters with blank speech bubbles for you to use with your class.

Teaching one to one One to one teaching is made more special by the fact that many teachers have to develop their own strategies, approaches and materials; one to one work is common the world over but discussion, support and resources are not. In this article we will look at what exactly makes these classes so different from teaching groups, identify the advantages and disadvantages of learning and teaching in this way, and review some possible approaches and techniques to help effective learning. Why one to one classes are different Advantages Disadvantages Approaches Conclusion Why one to one classes are different Classroom management It may seem that there is little or no classroom management required in a one to one class, but there are still key decisions to be made about how the classroom is set up, where you and your learner should sit, how you should manage the physical resources etc.

Kids classroom rules posters - Under the sea We have a great range of motivating and bright, colourful classroom rules posters for your primary classroom, designed to help remind your students about how to behave in class. Kids will love them! The under the sea theme poster is available to download in two versions below.