High School Pronunciation Exercises

[raisedbywoolves]

I've started supplementing my lessons with pronunciation exercises. Only about 10% will actually do it correctly in my classes; the other kids will just cheat and look at one another's papers instead of Partner B orally reading info to Partner A. But it can really help the ones who make an effort, and those students are the ones I'm focusing my energy on these days. I get a lot of ideas from this site which is good for adult/teacher classes too:

http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/

[bza]

I got this idea from another teacher and used few of her ideas and adapted it with some ideas of my own.

Basically the idea is to give students a chance to hear different English accents and dialects  than the usual 'North American broadcast approach'. Since yeah, its not the only way English is spoken.

The lesson outline works like this:

Introduce the topic and explain to students that we will be talking about English accents from around the world.

Explain what an accent is and demonstrate how languages can be sound different even though the same words are being spoken through two videos.

Video #1: 'Mary had a little lamb' segment from American tounge youtube clip.

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Video #2: '21 accents' you tube clip

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After that I discuss with the students if Korea has any different kinds of accents? While in Jeollanamdo kids may clue in on this faster from their strong accent, it took a minute or two of hints to get the Gyeonggido kids thinking about Jeonam, Jeju, Busan, or other places.

Then to get them thinking more about how different English accents sound I ask the students to list all the countries that use English as a first language and ask them if they all sound the same. The answer is hopefully no.

After that I start going into the different accents of each country. While I could get more complicated it seemed that American, the UK, Canada, and Australia would be enough. I only stuck with England, and probably a standard British accent approach, since the UK could be a lesson in itself.

I started off with America, and talked about how there are generally 4 regional accents (mid-west, southern, northeastern, and west coast), and also asked students if they could name any places with particularily strong accents. Say New York or Texas.

I then show the students a few videos of American talking in different accents and some expressions from these places. Keep in mind I'm a Canadian so these were best guesses. I picked the south, Cajuan accent, New York, Boston, and southern California valley girl.

When teacher I borrowed the lesson from did the lesson she used other clips from the American tongues documentary the 'Mary had a little lamb' segement is from. You could also use clips from movies or TV shows if you can think of a good example.

For England I used the youtube clip of David Brent's akward dance from 'The Office' and they seemed to dig that.

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As you can see with the powerpoint, the same approach of video with a few key expressions and phrases are used to show how the accents sound.

I generally tried to leave about 20 minutes at the end of class for students to complete the worksheet and review the answers at the end.

So far, the response has been pretty good. It could definitely be done in different ways depending on what country you are from and what good video clips you can think of.

I also was thinking of having students making dialogues using some of the key expressiosn as well.

p.s. apologies for the weird embedding, I tried to fix it, but couldn't, should still work fine though.

[capebretonbarbarian]

http://web.ku.edu/~idea/dialectmap.htm
Link to audio files of various accents from around the world. 

[bza]

That's a great link, thanks!

[jlau]

hey i used this lesson for my class and it went GREAT!

basically i only used the first activity, so listen and repeat and then part 2 circle the correct answer.

part 3 was too hard for them and information gaps just dont work with my students. so these parts i didn't use.

instead i created my own game where i made a student come up to the front of the class and say three words like 'bed bad bed' and the class would have to guess which word is different. first, second, or third? then they will have to spell it for me. it was pretty fun and the students had a good laugh making fun of their friends for pronouncing 'bad bad bad' cuz know, korean accents....

anyways, just wanted to say thanks

[zuchinni]

Thanks for this.  My classes all really seemed to enjoy it.  I've attached a worksheet I made for the "th" sound.

[rencor27]

Got this from this website: http://international.ouc.bc.ca/pronunciation/
I changed it just a bit to fit the 50 minutes and removed some things.
This works great if your kids are good at working in pairs and take it seriously when they are suppose to speak English to each other. Each partner should have a different last page. One is A and one is B. It's a boring and traditional lesson but works well because it is broken into short sections so they never have a chance to lose interest. Lots of listening and repeating. Also have them tell you their answers. I go over each section together after we do it. Also I ask them when there is a word in each section that they don't know and then I give them a definition or explain it. Basically get them to talk as much as possible. At the end if there is time we play Bingo. But if they really take it seriously and do the partner exercise properly there may not be time for that. I emphasized that it was a secret and they shouldn't show their partner their last page. This worked well for my high school girls.

[rencor27]

Do the warm up first, then go over it together. Then follow along with the paper. Lot's of listen and repeat. Go over each section together after they do it. Have them speak as much as possible. For each section ask them what words they don't know and then tell them what they mean. They seems to learn a bit from it. This is something my students struggle with. They always want to make the s sound instead of the th when they speak (mouse instead of mouth). When they do the partner thing they should have a different paper than their partner. There of course will always be a few students who do not take it seriously and just copy. Try to discourage that with whatever works for your kids. With my girls I just tell them it's a secret to keep and they must hold their paper up so their partner can't see. They like this and enjoy torturing their partner by not letting them see even though the word my be difficult to understand. Then if there's time you can do Bingo.
I got this lesson from this website: http://international.ouc.bc.ca/pronunciation/
It has lots of lessons like this. I only changed it a bit. You don't even need the power point if you don't have technology in your classroom.

[rencor27]

First do the warm up and go over it, last one has 2 possible answers.
Then do power point.Try to choose your words carefully when talking about the different mistakes so as not to offend. For the part about mart vs mart-uh I always tell them about how I say Emart-uh in Korea but I wouldn't say it that way back home. They like that story. If I had more time I would have found more spelling mistakes because they liked that, maybe you can add some.

Then there is the game. Write all the board words on a marker board. The words sound very similar. Say them together as a class. Create two teams. One person from each team comes to the front of the room, each have a marker, different color. I say the word, they turn around quickly and try to circle it. First one to circle the right word wins a point for their team. Then they choose the next person. After they get a few points on the board you can make it interesting by taking away points if they circle the wrong word. WARNING: this game can get very crazy and physical. I have high school girls, they were practically tackling each other trying to keep them from the word. It's a lot of fun, but just make sure they have enough space to do this and watch out.

Modified this lesson from a Konglish type lesson I found on here before but don't remember the poster's name. And the game I also read about on another website I believe but again I can't remember. Sorry.

[Es]

Sounds good...

[bobranger]

Thanks

[bonnyM]

This is a powerpoint to review some of the basics of pronunciation.
Make a double sided handout for the students using slide 1 "The Sounds of English" and Slide 5.

Sounds of English
Show phonemic chart on the screen.

Can anyone tell me what this is?  What do these symbols mean?
“Sounds of English”.

These are the individual sounds that make up the English language.

In Korean do you need an extra chart for the “Sounds of Korean”?
No, because hanggeul already represents the individual sounds of the Korean language.

Where can you see these symbols? 
dictionary – shows you how to pronounce words in English

Let’s go over some of the consonant sounds together.
[students seem to have most difficulty with “f”, “v”, “z”, “l”, “r”]

Here is a copy of the chart for you to use. Keep it in your folder.

Syllables
Words are made up of parts or “beats”, can anyone tell me what we call these parts – syllables.

show screen
syllable – a word or part of a word which contains a single vowel sound





How many syllables do these words have?  One easy way to count is to clap your hands for each syllable or “beat” as you say the word outloud.


student                             ape                 ridiculous
school              bored         vacation
superstitious           family          cake

Word Stress
Word stress – the syllable in a word that has a stronger (or louder) sound than the other syllables.  The syllables that are not stressed are weak (or quiet).

Look at these three words.  Do they sound the same?  A different syllable is “stressed” in each word

How many syllables?   Which syllable is stressed?

pho  to  graph         

pho  to  graph  y

pho  to  graph  ic

There are two very important rules about word stress:

1.   One word, one stress. (One word cannot have two main stresses.
      So if you hear two stresses, you have heard two words, not one   
      word.)

2.  The stress is always on a vowel.

Why is Word Stress Important?
Word stress is not used in all languages. Some languages, Japanese or French for example, pronounce each syllable with eq-ual em-pha-sis.  In English, word stress is a very important part of the language.

show example

Let’s practice identifying word stress.  Turn over the “Sounds of English” chart.  At the bottom of the page, there are lists of words.  Look at each word and put it under the column with the correct word stress pattern.

Go over answers

Note:  Sorry, I forgot to attach the powerpoint file when I first posted this!

[speaktruth2pwr]

I have been doing a similar lesson for some time now, but I find that before I can teach any new phonics, I have to help the students "un-learn" half of of what they think they know.  The infamous Bwui (V) is a good example. 

[hypnotoad777]

are there any books you referred to for korean pronunciation problems?

[bonnyM]

I haven't referred to any books specifically, but in learning the sounds of Korean, it's helpful to know the sounds for which they don't have English equivalents (like /v/, /z/, and /f/. 

[gav72]

great idea. i did a similar lesson.
in my lesson, i visually showed my students how to pronounce the difficult sounds. how to make P/F sounds, R/L sounds,  G/J/Z sounds

[alexalexalex2000]

Hey there,

Here are some slides on which I base some activities and explanation.

Use it and abuse it as you will.
Alex

[deburateacher]

This is the first lesson plan I used this semester. I teach 1st and 2nd graders at a girls' high school that has never had a native speaker teacher before. The students' reading levels are high, but most of them speak and listen at a low level. I couldn't use any technology at first, so this is paper, pencil and board only. It's also set in the PPP lesson plan format and is practically scripted since I wasn't sure how much information my co-teacher wanted about what I was going to do.

If you can use your computer and a projector, you can also use these videos by Have Fun Teaching for lots of pronunciation practice. I taught all of the problem sounds, then used these as a review. They're ridiculously simple and cheesy, but my students loved them. I stopped them at "write an upper case L in the air!" since my students know how to write in English.
Letter L Song: http://www.schooltube.com/video/28a6d41ec5312c3321e0/Letter-L-Song
Letter R Song: http://www.schooltube.com/video/4d4d0b5441caf44953a0/Letter-R-Song

[tazzibear]

this was sucha great lesson...used it with my after school class,1st graders and 2nd graders and teachers class!LOVED it!THANX!iv been getting great feedback because of it 

[SpaceRook]

Looks great.  I'll try this with my after school class.  I've seen some "Konglish" lesson plans on this site that are quite offensive.  It's a fine line between pointing out mistakes and insulting people.