english

How can students practice pronunciation outside class?

Lately, my  students have been asking me for suggestions on how to improve their English pronunciation.  I always stress the importance of good pronunciation in class by using a phonemic chart, putting phonemic symbols on the board as much as possible, drawing the students’ attention to stress patterns and using exercises and games, but how can the students practise when they’re outside the classroom, on their own? Here are a few ideas…

1) Recording themselves reading aloud

This is what we were advised to do by our French teacher at university and nobody did it because a) we felt stupid b) it seemed like way too much effort (no iPhones back then), but I tried it later on and it really does seem to work. You think you can hear yourself while you’re speaking, but is often not until you listen back that you can objectively judge your pronunciation and intonation. If you’re brave enough, you can also get your classmates to listen and give constructive feedback.

2) Working on individual sounds they’ve identified as problematic

While reading aloud can improve general pronunciation and intonation, it is helpful for students to identify their own pronunciation difficulties and work on those few sounds until they get them right. As most classes in the UK are made up of many different nationalities, this involves some one-on-one time with the students during class to help them work out where their difficulties lie and show them how to articulate the correct sounds, using drawings of the mouth/lips/tongue positions where necessary to help them remember how to make the sounds outside class. With some conscious effort, students can often correct their most problematic errors quickly.

3) Listening to natives and modelling pronunciation

I think it is really helpful for students to consciously listen to how words are pronounced and then copy the pronunciation. While watching films and listening to the radio/podcasts is useful for intonation as well as vocabulary building, the students are generally too focused on the what is being said to really pay attention to the sounds of the language.  I advise the students to listen to short bursts of speech (a few sentences at most) and then play them back several times, first repeating every word and then repeating the entire sentence.

4) Paying attention to the phonemic symbols in the dictionary

It sounds obvious, but very few students seem to do it.  I think it’s worth spending some time teaching phonemic symbols at the beginning of the course, so that the students easily recognise them and can use them to sound out new words.  Of course, there are also many online dictionaries which let you click on a word to hear it pronounced by a native, making things even easier!

These are just a few ideas I’ve had about helping students to practise pronunciation outside the classroom environment. If you have any suggestions or other ideas, please feel free to comment below.