Pronunciation skills: Glossary, bibliography and activities

Pronunciation skills articles and lesson plans

• Pronunciation skills: Syllabic l

  Author: Jonathan Marks Level: Intermediate, Upper intermediate, Advanced Type: General lesson plan

  This lesson practises the pronunciation of syllabic l. Normally, a syllable contains a vowel, but sometimes l can form a syllable without any vowel sound, as in people, with the second syllable consisting simply of the sounds /p/ + /l/, with no vowel between them. Syllabic l occurs in a lot of words with the spelling ‘consonant + le’. It also occcurs when the contraction ‘ll occurs after a consonant sound, as in that’ll do.

• Pronunciation skills: Stress in compound nouns

  Author: Jonathan Marks Level: Intermediate Type: General lesson plan

  This lesson by Jonathan Marks focuses on a typical stress pattern in compound nouns. Students form compounds to fit definitions and then practise the compounds by asking questions.

• Pronunciation skills: Adverbs of frequency

  Author: Jonathan Marks Level: Intermediate Type: General lesson plan

  Adverbs of frequency such as always and sometimes are a familiar teaching point. But there are plenty of other commonly-used adverbial phrases expressing frequency, and these tend to have fixed stress patterns. This lesson by Jonathan Marks practises some of these phrases with a particular focus on their stress patterns.

• Pronunciation skills: Sound and spelling

  Author: Jonathan Marks Level: Pre-intermediate, Intermediate, Upper intermediate, Advanced Type: General lesson plan

  The relationship between spelling and pronunciation in English can be confusing for a number of reasons. This lesson plan by Jonathan Marks focuses on homographs and homophones, as well as other pairs of words whose pronunciation learners tend to find confusing.

• Assimilation and elision

  Author: Jonathan Marks Type: Article

  This comprehensive article by Jonathan Marks explains the most common types of assimilation and elision, gives examples, and considers the significance of these two processes for learners and teachers.

• Can intonation be taught?

  Author: Gerald Kelly Type: Article

  In this article from the archives of English Teaching professional magazine, Gerald Kelly discusses the issue of teaching intonation.

• Pronunciation skills: bibliography

  Author: Jonathan Marks Level: Pre-intermediate, Intermediate, Upper intermediate Type: Reference material

  A bibliography of sources for further study and classroom exercises.

• Pronunciation skills: destruction as creativity

  Author: Jonathan Marks Level: Pre-intermediate, Intermediate, Upper intermediate Type: Reference material

  Focus on reading aloud and text chunking.

• Pronunciation skills: glossaries

  Author: Jonathan Marks Level: Pre-intermediate, Intermediate, Upper intermediate

  Glossaries of terminology for teaching: homophones, rhotic and rhythm.

• Pronunciation skills: How many syllables?

  Author: Jonathan Marks Level: Pre-intermediate, Intermediate, Upper intermediate Type: Reference material

  This lesson by Jonathan Marks focuses on plural nouns and 3rd person singular verbs which are spelt with the ending -es. It helps students to develop an awareness of when this ending represents an additional syllable (e.g. age / ages) and when it doesn't (e.g. behave / behaves).

• Pronunciation skills: what is it called?

  Author: Jonathan Marks Level: Pre-intermediate, Intermediate, Upper intermediate Type: Reference material

  Focus on pronouncing stress patterns in compound nouns.

• Pronunciation skills: who does what?

  Author: Jonathan Marks Level: Pre-intermediate, Intermediate, Upper intermediate Type: Reference material

  Focus on pronouncing stress in compound nouns.