Teacher Discussion Forums

[chavelasimpatica]

I'm observing an ESL class, and the teacher asked me to do a lesson to help pronounciation. I have a list of the languages that the students primarily speak from the class, as well as which of the students need the most work. These are middle school students, so I've decided to figure out the sounds that the students have the most problems with, and then find a text (probably a poem) that has all the sounds. We'll read it and get reading/comprehension practice, and then focus on the sounds

Is there a website or guide someplace that lists what sounds are tricky to students of ESL based upon their native languages?

here are the languages, with an asterisk near the ones that need the most help:

*Russian
*Korean
*Vietnamese
*Serbo-Croatian
*Hindi/Kanada/Tamil (He speaks all these languages, we think his primary language is Tamil)
Farsi
Shona
French (from Niger)
Spanish (From Dominican Republic)

[Your Average Joe]

Well, I don't know any websites offhand, but I know a very good book. Teaching American English Pronunciation (Avery and Ehrlich, OUP) is very good. It has a section that deals with exactly what you are asking about.

[fluffyhamster]

http://www.cambridge.org/elt/elt_projectpage.asp?id=2500393

[fluffyhamster]

Japanese isn't in your list, but just came across this link, looks interesting and could give you some ideas:
http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/december_04_KO.html

[fluffyhamster]

http://pers-www.wlv.ac.uk/~le1969/psig/mh.htm

[neilhrd]

I don't know a web site but if you have access to a decent library you will find "Learner English: A Teacher's guide to interference and other problems" by Michael Swan and Bernard Smith very helpful.

It has chapters dealing with pronounciation problems encountered by speakers of all the main language groups in the world. I find the chapter on Chinese speaker's difficulties invaluable.

By the way the authors assume knowledge of IPA.