Speaking and Pronunciation

Online Pronunciation Guides and Practice Activities

• Word stress in English, including rules, practice and a quiz
• Sentence stress in English, including rules, listening activities and a quiz
• Word linking in English, including consonant to vowel and vowel to vowel
• Pronouncing “the” in English – “the” or “thee”?
• Tongue twisters in English focusing on minimal pairs and difficult sounds
• Okanagan University College – listening and pronunciation practice activities for minimal pairs in English
• English is stress-timed language – focus on intonation and stress

Speaking Skills

• Telephone skills: including key vocabulary and phrases for making appointments, ordering pizza, taking a message, etc.
• Key vocabulary and phrases for conversation starters and making small talk at bus stops, parties, offices, etc.

Pronunciation/Phonology: For students

• Accent Reduction
  This website helps students focus on accent reduction so they can communicate with confidence, clarity and accuracy.
• Better Accent Tutor
  This website provides audio-visual feedback of students’ stress, intonation and rhythm patterns. It includes an on-line workbook as well as over 300 utterances by native speakers against which students can compare their own pronunciation. A demonstration unit is offered on the website free of charge.
• Centre for Independent Language Learning
  This website includes sound clips to help students improve their pronunciation.
• The Phonetic Chart
  An interactive phonemic chart where students can click to hear the English sounds.
• Sounds of English
• Word Stress in English
  This website focuses specifically on word-stress in English.

Pronunciation

• 20 Pronunciation lessons to help you:
  understand the systematic differences between English and Cantonese pronunciation; monitor your own speech and become aware of ways in which you can improve the intelligibility of your own spoken English; become aware of the rhythm of English in contrast to that of Chinese; use stress (strong and weak syllables) appropriately in both words and sentences; make use of transcription in dictionaries. Each lesson introduces an aspect of English pronunciation and many include short tasks for practice. You can expect to finish a lesson in 15 minutes
• Authentic American Pronunciation
  a list of words that students can listen to in order to determine the correct pronunciation. real player is needed.

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