audio

Silent ‘e’ Words: Pronunciation

Posted by on Dec 02, 2014 0 Comments

Do your students have difficulty with the pronunciation of short and long English vowel sounds? There are some spelling rules that can help young learners recognize when a long vowel sound is needed. One such rule involves the final, silent ‘e’ in a word, and this is the focus of this week’s Spotlight lesson: Silent ‘e’ Words 1.

This lesson is one of four involving four-letter words with a silent ‘e’ ending. There are 11 pages of spelling and writing practice in the first lesson, but what about audio? Listening and oral repetition is essential for a good pronunciation lesson. The teacher can certainly model the words, but it’s a good idea to have another source for listening practice too. (more…)

Halloween Costumes – ESL Listening Activity

Posted by on Oct 21, 2014 0 Comments

Halloween takes place on October 31. Will your students be dressing up for the occasion? Do they know how to respond to the standard question that people are asking kids at this time of year?

“What are you going to be for Halloween?”

Talking about Halloween costumes before the big day is useful for practicing “going to” to make simple future plans.

Listening Activity (more…)

Pronunciation of Plural Endings

Posted by on Feb 25, 2014 7 Comments

Let’s face it—English pronunciation is difficult! Where some languages have only 5 vowel sounds, English has 26. Some languages have a limited set of consonant sounds, but English has tricky combinations like /th/. (Note: When we write sounds, we enclose them in slashes / /). And don’t even get me started on diphthongs (vowel-consonant combos like /ow/). There is a lot for students of English to learn!

On top of all the vowel and consonant sounds, students need to learn the pronunciation of endings that change according to the last sound of the word. For example, the past tense ending -ed can be pronounced as /t/, /d/, or /ɪd/ depending on the last letter of the verb. The case I’ll deal with today involves plural endings. I’ll use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in this post. Listen to the audio examples at the end of this article for pronunciation practice. But if you’re still confused by the IPA symbols, leave me a comment below and I’ll give you some more examples.

Whether you’re a teacher, a parent, or a student, I hope this blog post will help you with the pronunciation of plural endings!

1. Pronounce the plural ending as /s/ following voiceless consonants. (more…)