National Institute for Literacy
 

[EnglishLanguage 939] Re: Help with pronunciation issues

Yeo Jay A yeoj at LVCCLD.ORG
Mon Jan 8 14:59:49 EST 2007


I find that "Pronunciation Pairs" by Cambridge University Press is a
wonderful book for teaching pronunciation and spelling. The author lists
the spelling variations for each sound at the end of the unit. It is
very easy to use. We have created pronunciation "workshops" and have
found it to be very successful. Jay

-----Original Message-----
From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Bonnie Odiorne
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 3:57 PM
To: 'The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List'
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 933] Re: Help with pronunciation issues

Thanks, Mikal, This is very helpful. In my university there are a good
ma"hidden' ESOL students, whose spoken language can be almost
accent-free, but whose difficulties manifest in many ways in writing. I
have an ESOL college student who's perfectly fluent in spoken English,
but her spelling tends to be random and phonetic; even with the
correctly spelled word in front of her she'll misspell it, unless she
really concentrates. She doesn't seem to able to auto-correct
independently, though when writing while I'm there she'll consciously
try to spell words correctly and chances are, does. I used to have a
book I really liked, Structures in Spelling, which I really liked, which
basically gives word patters and possible ways of pronouncing them,
which I found so helpful I lent it to a student and never got it back.
She claims that she just "didn't pay attention" in high school (she''s
been here for quite some time),but I'm wondering about some The student
in question is Russian, and there could be some kind of alphabetic
"first language interference." Otherwise I'd say learning disability,
but as we know that's terribly difficult to diagnose in ELLs. If anyone
has any suggestions , please send them along.
Bonnie Odiorne, Ph.D. director, Writing Center, Post University

________________________________

From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Steinbacher,
Mikal
Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 6:40 PM
To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 928] Re: Help with pronunciation issues

I have put together a document that I share with my classes that helps
some .. it is s combination of the pronunciation keys from several
dictionaries ... and the different spellings of sounds letters and
letter combinations have.

I'll attach a copy for a look to see if it works for you .. I spend ~ 45
min - and hour going over it and also connecting combinations like "ea"
with the different sounds they make ... hard a, hard e, soft e, ir, etc
.. As you can tell from the document's title, I initially designed it to
help students look words up in the dictionary but is also a good tool
for pronunciation ... I do tell them that the dictionary is their best
"how do I pronounce it" tool, but sometimes that's hard to do ... if
they don't know how to spell it1 I suggest that they keep a copy of
this document in their dictionary for reference!

If you come up with a system .. I'd be most interested. Good luck!

________________________________

From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of Bonnita Solberg
Sent: Fri 1/5/2007 10:38 AM
To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 927] Re: Help with pronunciation issues
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 <truespel at hotmail.com> 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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