National Institute for Literacy
 

[EnglishLanguage 951] Re: Help with pronunciation issues

Bonnie Odiorne bonniesophia at adelphia.net
Tue Jan 9 11:36:54 EST 2007


Hi, Nicole,
Thanks for the suggestions. I've also used Pronunciation pairs in these
postings, but not with this student. There might be some visual alphabetic
confusion, but I find that her problem is mostly w/ vowels, which she spells
phonetically in whatever way makes sense for her at the moment...
Bonnie

-----Original Message-----
From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Nicole Graves
Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 8:31 PM
To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 945] Re: Help with pronunciation issues

Bonnie,
Check the book Learner English which was mentioned in one of these postings.

I do not speak Russian but have had many Russian students. Russian uses a
different alphabet but some of the letters look like English but may have a
different sound. They also vary in upper case and lower case! Just a few I

remember: a lower case "g" is a [d] sound; a "m" is a lower case [t]; a "p"
is a [r], etc.

Nicole B. Graves

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bonnie Odiorne" <bonniesophia at adelphia.net>
To: "'The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List'"
<englishlanguage at nifl.gov>
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 6:57 PM
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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