Students of English learn to add -s to nouns to form the plural early on, but English has many irregular plural forms that can trip students up. Help is here—our NEW Regular & Irregular Plural Nouns lesson has charts and exercises that provide plenty of practice for common irregular plurals in English! (more…)
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!
Many students view pronunciation as the biggest obstacle to overcome when learning another language. I often remind my students that the goal is not to get rid of their accent completely, but rather to speak clearly and comprehensibly. Accents are beautiful! But it frustrating when others can’t understand what you’re trying to communicate. Phonics lessons can help language learners improve their pronunciation so that they will be understood by everyone.
One tricky area of pronunciation is plural endings. Our three-page Plurals lesson helps students learn when to pronounce the endings /s/, /z/, and /ez/. This lesson shows which endings follow which consonants, and includes fun drawings that engage students while they practice. It is also great for practicing numbers and counting! (more…)
