Ms. Solberg, I wanted to respond to your comments about your search  
for  finding a program to teach pronunciation and spelling skills to  
ESL students with  wide and varying educational backgrounds.  You  
indicate that you are now in the long process of developing for  
yourself a system that teaches both pronunciation and spelling  
skills.  I can tell you from personal experience that you are indeed  
setting out on a longer journey than you perhaps might ever have  
intended.  Thirty years ago I was teaching high school English and  
remedial reading at an inner-city high school in Atlanta, Georgia.  I  
too began to investigate various programs that would teach reading,  
pronunciation, and spelling skills for my struggling students.  I did  
not find any programs that I felt were suitable for them, so I began  
to develop my own program.  The net result is now thirty years later  
the fifth edition of my book We All Can Read was published this past  
summer along with an online version of the program that anyone  
connected to the Internet may access.  624 lessons from my book are  
published online combining text and audio to teach decoding,  
pronunciation, and spelling skills to the adult learner.  The first  
28 of those online lessons are accessible for anyone at http:// 
www.weallcanread.com/online_instruction.html.

All adult students who are learning English as a second language  
regardless of their educational background need to be taught the  
direct and consistent relationship between English letters and  
sounds. Once students learn the basic foundation, they will almost  
immediately be able to see an impact in their ability to pronounce  
and spell words.  Thank you.

Jim Williams
E-mail Address: jw at weallcanread.com
Web Address: www.weallcanread.com

On Jan 7, 2007, at 7:17 PM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:


> Hi Bonita,

>

> The pronunciations of truespel are based on the voicings, as I  

> heard them, from the American Heritage Talking Dicitonary and in  

> some cases m-w.com, a wonderful internet resource.  They are both  

> very siimilar.  Accents will vary, but if one were to speak as  

> truespel spells, it would be exceptable meda quality USA English.

>

> As I am writing, I see a news report saying that the lack of being  

> able to speak Arabic hurts our efforts in Iraq.  I believe that  

> truespel, as the only English friendly phonetic spelling system,  

> would be a good way to display or teach other languages to  

> Americans (See truespel book one, authorhouse.com) .  It can be  

> learned quickly by English natives using extended truespel.   

> Present standard phonetic system, such as SAMPA, are not English  

> friendly and not intuitive to use.  The military could use truespel.

>

> I understand that in China, some teachers are using the IPA to  

> spell English phonetically for English learners.  That is so hard.

>

> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL4+

> See truespel.com and the 4 truespel books at authorhouse.com.

>

>

>

>

>

>> From: Bonnita Solberg <bdsunmt at sbcglobal.net>

>> Reply-To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion  

>> List<englishlanguage at nifl.gov>

>> To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion  

>> List<englishlanguage at nifl.gov>

>> Subject: [EnglishLanguage 932] Re: Help with pronunciation issues

>> Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 10:58:26 -0800 (PST)

>>

>> Hi Again Tom;  I think the critical difference between use of this  

>> program with kids and using it with adults is that our ESl  

>> students come with a very limited vocabulary that is often  

>> mispronounced and cannot be spelled correctly because of it.  Some  

>> do not have an alphabetically based first language, some do not  

>> pair sounds with letters; they often do not read or write even in  

>> their first language. To teach students truespel phonetics then  

>> convert to English spelling is one step too many in my  

>> estimation.  Was this system developed in England or a British  

>> English speaking country?  The pronunciations presented do vary  

>> from American English in more than one case.  In any event, good  

>> luck teaching English speaking kids with your system; I think it  

>> is not appropriate for an adult population that wants to talk to  

>> survive and has little time to spend in a classroom learning basic  

>> English conversation.  It could be a research project to determine  

>> how much time adult ESOL

>>  students need to learn truespel letter-sound pairing, then  

>> essentially unlearn truespel pairing to learn the true English  

>> spelling.  I would love to hear from others in the adult ESOL  

>> field. Bonnita

>>

>> Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote: Thanks for your  

>> comments, Bonita.

>>

>> Truespel, as a phonetic spelling that uses no special symbols and  

>> spells out

>> all schwas.  It's not fair to all accents to pick one dominant  

>> form, such as

>> ~is for ending "ous".  I had to do a lot of listening to pick the  

>> spelling

>> of some of those schwas.  Accents will vary.  In fact truespel can  

>> be used

>> to write accents for better understanding for kids.  That's  

>> basically what

>> it is - a simple English friendly phonetic writing system.

>>

>> Regarding using truespel as an initial teaching system for kids,  

>> this idea

>> seamed compromised to me also by the realization that kids would  

>> have to

>> unlearn it to learn tradspel (traditional spelling).  However,  

>> IBM's Writing

>> to Read method, as test by ETS with over 6,000 k-1 kids, found  

>> that learning

>> to write and read phonetically not only improved learning, but the  

>> effect

>> lasted through transition to tradspel.  Truespel need not be  

>> unlearned.

>> There are now dictionaries using truespel (truespel dictionaries  

>> books 2 and

>> 3) so one need never forget it, especially when future translation  

>> guides

>> use it.

>>

>> Note that phonemic awareness is enhanced teaching truespel, and  

>> that is the

>> key ingrediant they found for successful readers.  In light of  

>> this, England

>> is switching its early reading system (based on studies with 300  

>> kids) to

>> "synthetic phonics" which is a phonemic awareness method.  Thus,  

>> the concept

>> of teaching phonetics first is proven.  I believer truespel would  

>> be good

>> for this application.  No other phonetic spelling systems are  

>> really user

>> friendly enough to do this.

>>

>> So thanks for your input.  Truespel is a tool awaiting many uses.   

>> It's

>> dictionary is over 60,000 words and faily complete.  It's free to use

>> through the converter at truespel.com.  Of interest is that once a  

>> text

>> passage is converted, if you convert it back you'll see all the  

>> homonyms

>> (words pronounced the same).

>>

>> I'll gladly support any application.  Some interesting ones is  

>> that an

>> animator is using it for mouth movements and a chip maker says  

>> that his

>> voice chip works best with truespel based voice modeling.

>>

>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL4+

>> See truespel.com and the 4 truespel books at authorhouse.com.

>>

>>

>>

>>

>>

>> >From: Bonnita Solberg

>> >Reply-To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion

>> >List

>> >To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion

>> >List

>> >Subject: [EnglishLanguage 927] Re: Help with pronunciation issues

>> >Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 10:38:17 -0800 (PST)

>> >

>> >Tom and Colleagues:

>> >

>> >I am very interested in a system of pronunciation that makes  

>> spelling easy

>> >for adults learning English as a second language with the wide  

>> range of

>> >education backgrounds, or lack of it, in the immigrant population  

>> we serve

>> >in public schools.  I have investigated a lot of systems with the  

>> hope of

>> >finding one that students can easily use and have not found one  

>> that is

>> >effective for both pronouncing a word and spelling it, so I am in  

>> the long

>> >process of developing a system that includes both.  Naturally I was

>> >intrigued by "truespel".  I think it would work for a student  

>> with a solid

>> >education background, who could decode well and intellectually  

>> confront the

>> >system.  It is also a good guide for pronunciation for teachers  

>> who have

>> >little or no background in phonics/linguistics, and in that venue is

>> >extremely valuable.  I would recommend it to the teahers I train  

>> to teach

>> >in the ESL classroom.  It is not a system I would teach to  

>> students because

>> >it does not pair spelling with

>> >  pronunciation.  Based on past experience with similar  

>> strategies, the

>> >conversion process would be confusing and take an enormous amount of

>> >classtime to teach the students we serve.

>> >

>> >I did find some problems with the system in my short  

>> investigation.  For

>> >instance, and this may be my west coast accent, in number 30  

>> ("sh" sound)

>> >of the phonemes, the word "precious" is given the truespel  

>> conversion of

>> >"preshis".  Rather than the "is" sound at the end, I would  

>> pronounce it

>> >with an "us" sound as in "nut" or "us".  In the tutorial about  

>> the fox, the

>> >word "jumped", the final "d" is given the sound of "d", whereas I  

>> would

>> >pronounce it with a "t" sound.  My computer rendition of the  

>> introductory

>> >paragraph displayed some grammar and punctuation problems that  

>> may be due

>> >to the format on my computer.  Is this system under still  

>> construction?  It

>> >is an admirable undertaking and one I would like to see at its  

>> completion.

>> >Thanks for making this available to us.

>> >

>> >  Bonnita Solberg, Teacher on Special Assignment

>> >Oakland Unified School District

>> >

>> >Tom Zurinskas  wrote: A simple phonetic guide for USA

>> >English is at truespel.com.  Click the

>> >converter button and go to the converter page.  The first  

>> converter is the

>> >URL converter.  The entire internet can be converted to truespel,  

>> the

>> >world's first pronunciation guide spelling/writing system.

>> >

>> >Further down the page is the text converter.  Paste passages into  

>> it and

>> >click convert to see it respelled phonetically in USA English  

>> accent.

>> >

>> >The model for the pronunciation is the spoken words of the American

>> >Heritage

>> >Talking dictionary and m-w.com.  This is standard USA accent.

>> >

>> >Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL4+

>> >See truespel.com and the 4 truespel books at authorhouse.com.

>> >

>> >

>> >

>> >

>> >

>> > >From: Paul Rogers

>> >

>> > >Reply-To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion

>> > >List

>> > >To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion

>> > >List

>> > >Subject: [EnglishLanguage 921]  Help with pronunciation issues

>> > >Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 12:52:37 -0800 (PST)

>> > >

>> > >Concerning teaching pronunciation, I have written a series of  

>> texts that

>> > >include pronunciation lessons for beginning Spanish speakers, with

>> > >vocabulary spelled two ways: normally and "phonetically". These  

>> lesson

>> >have

>> > >proven to be very effective and, I believe, assist the student  

>> in an

>> > >overall way in learning English.

>> > >   For more information, go to my web site: PUMAROSA.COM.

>> > >   Paul Rogers

>> > >

>> > >Kathryn Quinn  wrote:

>> > >           Martin:

>> > >   I know exactly how you feel.  I was facilitating an English  

>> program

>> >with

>> > >a number of SE Asian students.  One very diligent student from  

>> Viet Nam

>> > >came for advisement at the end of the semester.  She'd taken a

>> > >pronunciation class and kept saying what sounded like "I  

>> failed.  I

>> > >failed."  I kept trying to encourage her telling her that she  

>> hadn't

>> >failed

>> > >but she was working hard and making some progress.  If she took  

>> the

>> >course

>> > >again, she'd do better.  Only to find out that what she was  

>> trying to say

>> > >was "I passed.  I passed."

>> > >   Use mirrors!  Have them look at themselves in the mirror as  

>> they say

>> >the

>> > >sounds, in initial position as well as word final.  Help them  

>> speak

>> >slowly.

>> > >  Have them look at you as you mouth words with stops.  Have  

>> them listen

>> > >for the sounds and identify when they hear them.  Have them record

>> > >themselves to see if they can hear them when they've said  

>> them.  And in

>> > >pronunciation class, don't pretend you can understand them  

>> clearly when

>> >you

>> > >can't.

>> > >   Best wishes.

>> > >   Kathryn Quinn

>> > >     ----- Original Message -----

>> > >   From: Martin Senger

>> > >   To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List

>> > >   Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 2:31 PM

>> > >   Subject: [EnglishLanguage 917] Help with pronunciation issues

>> > >

>> > >

>> > >   Pax et bonum all! (peace & goodness)

>> > >

>> > >   I am an adult ESL teacher in Erie, PA. I am looking for  

>> information on

>> > >teaching pronunciation skills to SE Asian students, who seem to  

>> have a

>> > >particular problem with stops sounds ([p], [b], etc.). Any  

>> suggestions

>> > >would be greatly appreciated!

>> > >

>> > >---------------------------------

>> > >

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