English Pronunciation for ESL, ELL, EFL, or ESOL Students

Common Pronunciation Problems

for students whose first language isn't English

Assimilation

Basically, this means that the pronunciation of a vowel or consistenttakes on the sound to an adjacent morpheme.

Reduction

This link forwards you to an explanation of reeducation that can also be hear as well. In the left-hand column, there are additional links to more practices and free quizzes.

Stress Patterns

This link provides a WIDE variety of stress patters, such as acronyms, compound nouns, phrasal verbs, 2-3 syllable words, homophones, sentence stress, and even unstressed suffixes. The nice part of this link is that it provides visual as well as an auditory pronunciation of many of the stress patterns. In the left-hand column, there are additional links to more practices and free quizzes.

Linguistics

basic information

Common Pronunciation Problems

This list provides some of the most common pronunciation problems for Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Taiwanese, Thai, and Turkish speakers.

Phoneme Chart

Also developed by Ted Power, the attached link explaines the English vowel and consonant sounds.

Phonetics: The Sound of American English

This is one of my personal favorite links. The University of Iowa created a site that shows how sounds are physically made. Plus, the link also breaks down each sound, movement-by-movement, to show the progression of the sound. There is also an auditory option.

Phonetics: A Course in the Basics

This link has an overview of the area of phonetics, such as the IPA Chart and some generally information about this area of linguistics. This is a helpful it shows how the sounds are physically made via an x-ray and an option to download videos of the sounds as spoken.

Chinese

Common Pronunciation Problems

This link provides 26 of the most common pronunciation problems for Chinese speakers.

Slovenian

Common Errors for Slovene Speaks - EXCELLENT SOURCE!!!

This is the best site that I have found that pinpoints specific trouble spots that speaks of Slovenian speakers have when learning English. The information is a "paper [that] examines the main differences between the English and Slovene sound systems, and discusses the influence of the observed differences on the pronunciation of Sloven." This source does an EXCELLENT job of outlining the areas that Slovenian may have!

Minimal Pairs: i: versus i

this site helps students hear the differences in the sounds i: (eat) versus i (it) and is an "American English Pronunciation Practice. MP3-encoded sound files in interactive Flash files." there are other sources that can help. But, this gives you a place to start.

Spanish

Common Pronunciation Problems

This link provides 26 of the most common pronunciation problems for Spanish speakers.

Minimal Pairs: [b] best vs [v] vest

This page has three different tests to help students develop their ear in discriminating between b and v.

Minimal Pairs - Vowels: dip/deep (explination)

This shows how the two sounds are pronounced.

Minimal Pairs - Vowels: dip/deep (list)

This is a list words to test the pronunciation of the [I] versus [i:] sounds.

Minimal Pairs - Vowels: dip/deep (YouTube)

Lesson #23 focuses on these sounds. Before using this link, read the instructions on the right-hand side of the page and check that the YouTube video is working.

Links: Language & Cultural Information

Overview - Chicky Bus

This is a blog, BUT the site is a wonderful reference about different cultures from the perspective of a traveler who works in our field! (Besides, like many of us ESL instructors, that travel bug urge is just barely below the surface!)

This is one of the coolest travel blogs because the author is an ESL professor and has visited such regions as Latin America and the Middle East. The site is slightly different than other travel links because it is "into the moment...and find yourself along the way. Discover who you are and what makes you happy via this unique approach to travel." It's a great site!

Chinese - Pronunciation Challenges

This explains some of the difficulties that Chinese speakers have with learning English.

Slovenian - Cultural info

This site provides very basic information about the culture that may be resourceful.

Slovenian - Language

This is an excellent source that provides basic information about the "language, alphabet and pronunciation" in Slovenian.

Slovenian - Phonology

This is a Wikipedia site that outlines the phonetic pronunciation of this language.

Somali - Sound System and Pronunciation

This links gives an overview of the Somali language, specifically the pronunciation and grammar. It even provides a brief explanation of the history of the writing system as well as providing a few basic Somali expressions at the bottom of the page.

Somali - Writing System

So, this isn't a pronunciation link, but it is interesting! This link provides examples and specific information about the Somali language writing system

Links: Phonetics

and other teaching resources

American English Pronuncation

This site has wonderful explications of linguistics as related to pronunciation. To access the quizzes, however, logging in is required.

International Phonetic Alphabet

There are a lot of different sources on-line that have the IPA chart, but antimoon.com has displayed the information in a clear format.

International Phonetic Association

For those interested, this is a link to the International Phoentic Association.

Phoneme Research in Minnesota - /o/

This is a research paper that studies the /O/ phoneme in various counties in Minnesota.

Resources for Studying Spoken English

This page has a LOT of interesting links and information attached. It can easily be a time-drain!

Telsur Project

The Telsur Project is designed to track and understand how language is developed and changed in North America, specifically the US. The site is really interesting!

Tongue Twister - International Database

WATCH OUT - the red background on this site will surely blind you!!! Having added the warning, there are over 425 different tongue twisters in the list. So, it may be worth the risk.

Tongue Twister - Database

This site is easy to maneuver. This is a GREAT way to make a pronunciation activity more interesting - use a tongue twister. The best part is when the instructor stumbles when saying it a few times in a row. It's a fun way to make the activity and lesson more interesting!

Vowels & Consonants

This source has a lot of information about phonetics, specifically how the vowels and consonants are physically made. The nice feature of this site is that it also includes details about other languages. The link has an auditory option in some instances.

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