Hi all,

I have been reading all the postings with great interest.  At my program we have tried several of the approaches suggested.  Most are excellent.  However, we have found that it is often necessary to offer longer lessons to provide more intense practice and repetition.  We often use PRONUNCIATION PAIRS by Baker and Goldstein but we vary the order of the presentation.  Or we use the information from the text to develop our own stories for lower levels.  Each chapter includes a list of words and spellings for the sound.

We proceed this way;
First, the teacher read a text focusing on a given sound (start with a simple consonnant sound).
Ask the students: which sound?
They may not hear it right away.  Read again with more emphasis on the particular sound.  Ask again: Which sound?
Once the students have identified the sound, divide them into pairs or triads.  Students have the task of finding all the words with the particular sound and write them on a list.  The only way to do this is for them to read the text and/or words multiple times.  It provides an opportunity for discovery and repetition without the teacher asking for it.  After a while, tell them how many words there are.  Most likely, they do not have them all.  More practice, repetition, discovery, etc.  At this point, students often ask for the teacher to say a particular word because others may have it or not.  Great for awareness and discrimination.  Students can compare with each other.  I usually make cards with the given words.  They can be used for checking the number of words or for isolated practice.  Students are usually engage manipulating language for about 45 minutes.  I end the first segment of the lesson for that day at this point.  From there, at another time, you can have students make oral sentences with words on cards or have them read the text which is often a dialogue.  You can expand by having them write a story with 5 words from the cards and have them read the story aloud.  You can do the minimal pairs exercises from the book and other types of practice.  You can do a dictation and so on.  I have used this methodology with success at all levels.  The book is fine for SPL 5 and up.  Don't forget to start from a whole text.

I hope this helps.

Nicole B. Graves
The Center for New Americans
Amherst, Greenfield, Northampton, MA
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Luri Owen 
  To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List 
  Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 3:56 PM
  Subject: [EnglishLanguage 920] Re: Help with pronunciation issues


   Happy New Year!

  Check out Learner English:  A Teacher's Guide to Interference and Other Problems by Michael Swan and Bernard Smith (Cambridge) and Pronunciation Contrasts in English by Don L. F. Nilsen and Alleen Pace Nilsen (Waveland). 

  Learner English describes difficulties in English that speakers of various languages are likely to have.  Pronunciation Contrasts provides lots of lists of minimal pairs so that you don't have to think them up off the top of your head in class.

  I would suggest that you incorporate pronunciation segments into your regular classes without spending too much time (not more than about 10 minutes) at a time on it, and I would probably start with recognition for a few classes before encouraging production.  For a minimal pair practice, I would distribute 2 differently colored index cards to each student and ask them to hold up one color when they hear /p/ and the other color when they hear /b/ {push/bush, tap/tab}--Pronunciation Contrasts will give you lots of examples of these and other sounds in initial, medial and final position.

  Also, unless students' difficulties with these sounds greatly interferes with their communicating successfully in English, I wouldn't worry too very much about it!  Judy Gilbert's Clear Speech is student textbook that will be helpful, as well.  Good luck!

  "Faith is not just loyalty to tradition, but a readiness to become something new."  Peter Manseau

  Luri Owen
  Bayfield & ESOL Coordinator
  The Adult Learning Center, Inc.
  Phone 970-884-7765

    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Martin Senger 
    To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List 
    Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 12:31 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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