Job Discussion Forums

[molly farquharson]

since english comes in so many accents, how do you go about teaching pronunciation? some books come with british pron and some with english, and of course some avoid it altogether. i tend to use a great book to teach american pron (even though i'm canadian-- no one has written that book yet ) but i of course add a caveat that this is more or less how i talk. what about the rest of you? how do you use the phonetic alphabet (if you do)?

[yaramaz]

For beginners, I've occasionally been using the Turkish alphabet. It's remarkably effective at clarifying bizarre English spelling. Kon-grat-�u-ley-şınz is far more graspable than its English counterpart...

[dmb]

I've tried using the phonetic alphabet but students aren't interested. for any difficult words I will write the phonemic script on the board. It is more out of habit. I hate the pronunciation exercises in bookks like headway. It relies on having an RP accent which i just don't have. I used to try to modle the sentences in them putting on my best RP accent but I don't bother anymore. My attitude is I don't want an RP accent and sound if I come from the home counties so why should the students. we are lucky in that there are few pron problems for Turkish learners. Yes there are the obious th and such.
Good books Tree and three, ship and sheep and the best one is Speaking Clearly by Rogerson and Gilbert