The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was devised by the International Phonetic Association as a standardized representation of the sounds of spoken language. The IPA is used worldwide by linguists, foreign language teachers, students, speech therapists, singers and actors. The following tool will enable you to hear the sounds of the IPA symbols used to represent the sounds of the English language. Each symbol has sample words that use the selected IPA symbol. Touch the IPA symbol with your mouse and you will hear the sound...
About Listening More than forty percent of our daily communication is spent on listening, thirty-five percent on speaking, about sixteen percent on reading, and only nine percent on writing. - Miller L. (2003). Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials. ESL Magazine. Listening Process Listening process is usually divided into three basic stages: 1. Pre-listening (listening with a purpose, brain storming, preparation, etc). 2. In-while listening (the actual process of listening). 3. Post-listening (preparation for speaking). How to Teach Listening If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn. - Ignacio Estrada Teaching listening is a challenging task for an ESL teacher. As we know, listening skills can be acquired only with lots of practice. Students can practice their listening skills both in class and at home. 1.For home practice advise your students to do the following: 1. Get a tape-recorder / a walkman and listen every day with short periods of time, at least ten to fifteen minutes. 2. Use a computer (there are many useful listening tools and materials in the Internet). 3. Watch movies in English (with captions are also OK). 4. Listen to the English radio programs (BBC, VOA, ABC, etc. – depending upon the needs). 5. Listen to English songs; there are many songs suitable for listening. 6. Explain to the students that if they do not understand it is OK: they should listen even if they do not understand, they should listen to the sounds of the language in the same way as they listen to the words of a beautiful song when they do not understand the words but they still enjoy the process of listening. 7. Advise your students to buy interesting audio books and listen with i-Pod when they travel or are engaged in routine activities such as laundry or gardening. 2.For class activities try to combine listening with speaking: 1. You should develop active listening skills in real-life conversation. 2. Use your own voice instead of a tape-recorder. 3. A tape-recorder or a computer should be used during lab hours where students can be supervised by a lab assistant, if necessary. 4. Teaching listening should include pronunciation, imitation, posture, face mimics, intonation, rhythm, meaning; in addition, it should be integrated with some other skills. ESL Learning Tools A good ESL teacher should advise her/his students to acquire (and help to buy) proper learning tools such as good quality electronic dictionaries, textbooks, audio books, laptop computers, software, cassettes, and CDs/DVDs. Good quality electronic dictionaries are very convenient and students like to use them. Electronic dictionaries are not heavy to carry and students can listen to the pronunciation of the words at any time, no matter where they are. It is important that the teacher chooses a good electronic dictionary for his/her students. Most ESL colleges, universities and schools buy all the necessary learning tools for their students at wholesale prices. These tools are usually included into tuition fee. Some schools advise students to get these tools by themselves. No matter which way it happens, ESL learners really need these tools very much. Unfortunately, many students and even some teachers do not realise how important these tools are for successful English language learning. ESL Learning Materials Although you can find many good quality free materials online we strongly advise you to have your own materials and not to depend on online resources all the time. Some of these materials are downloadable for free; others can be purchased at a reasonable price. For most students listening and pronunciation can be very frustrating because there are no clearly formulated rules of listening or speaking as in grammar and vocabulary teaching. However, there are certain rules and we can still apply them depending on the age of students, their level, general education of the students, number of students in class, the intensity of learning, learning objectives and motivation. Basic Difficulties Listening skills can be developed best if they are integrated with speaking skills. Here we come up to pronunciation of separate sounds and connected speech, and here are the basic difficulties: 1. The sounds written with th, i.e. the inter-dentals, /θ/ and /ð/, such as throw, three, thousand and this, these, therefore, are widely spread in English but are unusual in other languages. Some students frequently substitute [t] or [d] sounds (pronounce these sounds instead of /θ/ and /ð/), while others shift to [s] or [z], [v] or [f] and even [ts] or [dz]). 2. Chinese, Korean and Japanese students have difficulty in distinguishing [r] and [l]: instead of /very gud/, they can say /veli gud/. 3. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and Portuguese students have difficulty in distinguishing between [b] and [v]. 4. The number of vowel sounds depends on the variety of English. British English has twelve monophthongs, eight diphthongs and two triphthongs; American English has thirteen monophthongs and three diphthongs; many learners have fewer vowels in their mother tongue so they may have problems both with hearing and pronouncing these vowels. 5. Syllable structure causes problems for speakers of many languages. For example, Chinese learners of English alternate consonant and vowel sounds (in a similar way they do it in their own language). As a result of this mother tongue influence they pronounce, instead of desks /desks/ - "desukusu", instead of milk shake /milk ʃeik/ - "mirukuʃēku"). 6. Learners from languages where words usually end in vowels sometimes tend to make all English words end in vowels; thus they pronounce [meikə] instead of /meik/. 7. Stressed – unstressed vowel problem occurs due to cultural differences and different structures, e.g. Where do you come from? And: I just came back from school. Stress for emphasis may be not used / not understood because it is never used in the learner’s mother tongue. 8. The process of assimilation in connected speech is usually the most confusing, as in the following example: I should have done it; if pronounced every word separately we get /ai ʃud hæv dʌn it/. But in normal speech it will be something like /aɪʃədəv dʌn it/. 9. Intonation is another issue and needs a separate explanation. Possible Solutions So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it. - Jiddu Krishnamurti The following methods proved to be efficient: 1. Devote some time teaching difficult sounds; study together with your students the position of the teeth, the lips and the tongue. 2. Ask your students to pronounce sounds in front of a mirror. 3. Record students’ voices, ask them to listen and compare their own voices with the native speakers; repeating this procedure many times can bring excellent results; students can practice this activity both in class and at home. 4. Convince your students that not understanding is OK; this is a psychological issue and can be easier for some students to accept than others. 5. Explain to your students that they need to listen as often as possible but for short periods of time; for example, if students decide to listen 7 hours per week, it is better to listen one hour every day - 30 minutes before breakfast and 30 minutes after dinner, instead of listening for seven hours on a Sunday or any other day. It would still be more useful to subdivide these portions of time into smaller amounts, e.g. four listening sessions of fifteen minutes every day. 6. There are many listening resources available online (e.g. audio books) but it is very important to select those which satisfy your students’ needs. British and American English
There are many varieties of English but the most commonly taught in schools are either British or American. Students frequently ask their teachers, “Which variety should we learn, British or American?” The answer, to a large extent, depends on the learning objectives. Imagine the following situation: you have twenty adult students in class and their common goal is to learn business English for international communication. They need English to communicate with the Germans, the Japanese, the Koreans, the French, the Irish, the Americans, the Turkish, the Canadians, the Indians, business people from the Middle East, the UK, and other parts of the world. In such a case, we can answer: “You should learn International English”. However, if you are preparing your students for IELTS or TOEFL, you should give a more comprehensible answer. For American English teaching materials, click HERE...
Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab
Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab
This free ESL Web site is specifically designed to help English learners improve their listening comprehension.
American English accent is becoming more and more popular worldwide among ESL learners. Instead of choosing to learn British English, they choose to learn American English.To find American English resources, click HERE...
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