voice it

BECOME INTELLIGIBLE • PRONUNCIATIONMAGAZINE

1

NO. 1 • $5.00

Voice It

Articles by experts

st

EDITION Includes teaching materials

10 WAYS TO IMPROVE PRONUNCIATION Teach your students how to make sounds and become fluent in English

GAMES AND ACTIVITIES Because learning sounds doesn't need to be boring and repetitive

YOU ARE WHAT YOU SPEAK It's time to be understood!

CONTENTS VOICE

IT

MAGAZINE

|

DECEMBER

2019

|

VOL

1

ISSUE

1

TO THE READER

04

03

GUESS WHO?

BINGO

08

05

CHINESE WHISPERS

09

SLAP IT!

11

SNAKES AND LADDERS

13

FOUR IN A ROW

16

SING ON IT

MEMORY

20

18

RUN, FIND, TAKE

SOUNDS RACE

21

THE ART OF IMPROVING

22

PRONUNCIATION AT HOME

STAFF

| Â 03

24

PAGE 03

TO THE READER Dear reader,

The following activities and games are intended to function as an ally in your pronunciation class, and to expand your knowledge about modern and innovative ways of teaching. As we always want to offer the best for our readers, this magazine also includes original teaching materials that you can cut and use in your class.

We highly recommend you to read the article "The Art of Improving Pronunciation at Home" to learn about different techniques that your students can use to enhance their pronunciation skills. Don't forget to tell your students to combine those methods with daily practice to get good results. As the great philosopher Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit of practice.”

| 03

FEATURE

PAGE 04

Guess Who?

VOICE IT

1

Target Sounds Connected speech: Does he/she...?

Is he/she...?

Stage

2

Communicative practice

Objective

To make students practice connected speech and how sounds tend to be joined in English

Materials

Guess Who? boardgame

3

After having explained the theory behind connected speech, the teacher gives students the boards to play Guess Who? Then, he or she explains the dynamics of how the game is played, and hands them the question prompt "does he/she ...?", "Is he/she...?" illustrating how the two sounds tend to be connected. For instance, "does she have black hair?"

The student who guesses their oponents' character will be the winner.

PAGE 05

Target sound: /ɛ/ and /æ/

Stage:

Listening and driscrimination

Materials Bingo cards below

Procedure 1. Divide the class in 4 teams and assign each team a bingo card

2. Say a word out loud and have your students highligh it in their To get students to distinguish cards between the phonemes /e/ and /æ/.

3. The first student to have five Objective

words highlighted in a row (vertical, horizontal, diagonal) PAGE 8 yells ‘Bingo’, and wins.

BINGO

PAGE 06 BAT

TAMP

GUESS

MAN

VET

SAT

BAND

DAD

FAST

BEND

FLESH

TEMP

TREK

SHALL

BEG

VAT

TAMPER

TRACK

NET

TEMPER

LENT

PAT

FEST

LAND

PET

DEAD

PET

TAMP

MANNED

SET

VAT

MARRY

MET

TEMP

VAT

BET

FLASH

BAG

MAT

GAS

GNAT

SHELL

MERRY

PAT

END

AND

MEND

END

AND

MEN

BACK

TAMP

REBEL

PECK

FLASH

MAN

TECH

GEM

SHALL

LAG

TAMP

GUEST

TEMP

LEG

SHALL

MANNED

LETTER

LEFT

BLAND

HAD

JAM

BLEND

GASSED

PACK

TACK

HEAD

TEMP

DEAD

PEN

BECK

VAT

SAID

SAD

PAN

FLECKS

DAD

FLAX

RABBLE

FLESH

LATTER

SHELL

BEG

LAUGHED

VAT

SPEND

BAG

SHELL

MEN

SPANNED

Do you want to create your own bingo cards? visit https://myfreebingocards.c om/bingo-card-generator

MEND

PAGE 07

CHINESE WHISPERS

She sells seashells by the seashore.

Susie works in a shoeshine shop. Where she shines she sits, and where she sits she shines.

// Guided practice

Target Sound: Ęƒ Stage:

Objective:

To practice the production of the target sound through repetition Materials: Tongue twisters

STEPS

The teacher asks the students to divide themselves into two teams and assigns each team one tongue twister.

The students are asked to form two lines. The teacher whispers the tongue twister to the first student of the line, and he or she proceeds to whisper it to the next one. When the last student receives the message, he or she says what he or she understood out loud.

The team with the most similar message to the tongue twister wins.

PAGE 08

PAGE 09

SLAP IT! Objective: Target sound: /i/ and /I/ Stage: controlled practice Materials: Set of words below that contain the /i/ and /I/ sound

To help students understand the difference between the phonemes /i/ and /I/ and pronounce them correctly.

Procedure: 1. Split the class into two groups and have each group line up in front of a table 2. Put two cards in the table. One with the /i/ sound and the other with the "I" sound. For example it and eat 3. Say one of the two words out loud 4. The first students in the line must try to slap the correct card as soon as they can 5. The student who slaps the card first must pronounce the word and use it in a sentence to obtain one point. The team with the most points wins

PAGE 10

WORDS

WITH/I/

SEAT

SIT

HEEL

AND

/i/

FEEL

FILL

HILL

CHEAP

CHIP

SLEEP

SLIP

FEET

SHEEP

SHIP

LEAVE

LIVE

BEEN

BIN

WHEEL

WILL

BEAT

BIT

REACH

RICH

FIT

VOICE IT PAGEÂ 11

TARGET SOUNDS

/I/ /i/ STAGE

Communicative practice OBJECTIVE

To check students' progress in pronunciation and practice target sounds /i/ and /I/ MATERIALS

Dice Snakes & Ladders board (see next page) Snakes & Ladders cards Avatars

SNAKES PREPARATION

1

The teacher prepares one question regarding the target sounds per board box (26).

The questions can be asking them to read a word, identify a sound in a sentence, etc.

&

THE GAME

HOW TO PLAY IT

2

The teacher divides classroom into teams.

LADDERS

3

the

The participants of each team take turns to throw the dice

The boxes of the board are numbered from 1 to 26, depending on the box the are on, the team will receive a question.

Along the board there are ladders and snakes. When the team falls into a ladder, if the answer is correct, they can go down the stairs and advance. On the other hand, if they fall on the head of a snake and the answer is incorrect, they must go back to where the tail is.

VOICE IT

PAGE 12

FOUR IN A ROW

Target sound: Diphthongs

Stage: Controlled practice Materials

Set of words below

Objective

To check and assess students' understanding of diphthongs

Procedures: 1. Divide your class in teams of three or four students 2. Give each team the set of words below, and ask them to arrange the cards in set of four words that have the same diphthong PAGE 8

3. The first team to arrange all the sets correctly wins

PAGE 13

PAGE 14

DIPHTHONGS

MISTAKE

BUY

SNOW

ANNOYING

POUND

PAPER

STATION

WEIGHT

CLIMBING

NIGHT

SMILING

COAT

THROW

JOKING

OIL

TOWEL

DESTROY

OWL

SPOILED

MOUSE

Do you want to create your own cards? visit https://www.kitzkikz.com /flashcards/

PAGE 16

Stage

S I N G

Controlled practice

I T

1

Objective

Practice target sounds production with students in an interactive way

The teacher chooses a song with the target sounds.

2

The teacher either prints the lyrics of the song with the target sounds pointed out, or creates some text to the students send by phone.

3

The teacher plays the song and the students sing along paying attention to the pronunciation.

Materials Worksheets with song lyrics Let's be green! Use online texts or images with song lyrics

O N !

PAGE 17

PLAYLISTS JUST THE WAY YOU ARE Bruno Mars Target sound: /ŋ/

HALO Beyonce Target sounds: /ʊ/ and /aʊ/

SAY A LITTLE PRAYER Aretha Franklin Target sounds: /eɪ/ and /ɛr/

SPEED OF SOUND Coldplay Target sounds: /s/ and /z/

IRONIC Alanis Morissette Target sounds: /t/, /d/ and /ɪd/

MEMORY Target sound:

/æ/ and /ʌ/

Stage: Controlled practice Materials Cards with the phonemes /æ/ and /ʌ/

Objective: To help students differentiate the phonemes /æ/ and /ʌ/ and pronounce them correctly.

Procedure:

1. Use the set of cards below or create your own cards with the phonemes /æ/ and /ʌ/.

2. Mix up the catds and have students take turns to turn over two cards, and pronounce them.

3. If the words have the same phoneme, the student can keep the cards. If not, the student should turn them back over.

4. the student with the most cards wins

PAGE 18

PAGE 19

/æ/

and

/

ʌ

/

BUT

BAT

CAP

CUP

CAT

CUT

MATCH

MUCH

BEGAN

BEGUN

DRUNK

DRANK

HAT

HUT

SANG

SUNG

BATTER

BUUTER

FAN

FUN

RAN

RUN

BAG

BUG

PAGE 20

Run, find,

TAKE! The teacher writes different minimal pairs with the target sounds in many post its.

1

He or she places them on either the whiteboard or the wall.

2

The students form two teams, and they compete with each other one student per team at time.

3

The teacher reads one of the words on the post its, and the studnt proceed to look for it on the wall.. The team with more post its wins.

4

TARGET SOUNDS /ĂŚ/ and /É›/

OBJECTIVE To make students differenciate the two target sounds

STAGE Listening discrimination

MATERIALS Post its Markers

PAGE 21

SOUNDS RACE

TARGET SOUND /É‘/ STAGE

Guided practice

MATERIALS Whiteboard Markers

OBJECTIVE To evaluate students' understanding of the phoneme / É‘ /

1. Split the class into two teams and have each team line up in front of the whiteboard

2. The first person on each line has to write a word in the whiteboard that contains the phoneme /a/ as quickly as possible, and then, they have to pass the marker to another team member.

3. The first team to write the most words in 2 minutes wins

THE ART OF IMPROVING PRONUNCIATION AT HOME

Learning pronunciation is commonly associated with the monotonous activity of being in a two-hour class, repeating what the teacher says over and over again.

However, the twenty-first century brings with it several interactive techniques and resources that can be used to improve pronunciation at home. Some of them are as simple as just speaking in front of a mirror to analyze and monitor the movements of the mouth. And others require a little more effort like saying tongue twisters to practice words that are phonetically similar and to exercise the muscles involved in speech to get a more precise pronunciation.

Firstly, learners can do shadowing, which consists of watching short video clips and repeating the dialogs of the person who is speaking. To put this technique into practice, learners can visit englishcentral.com, which offers a wide variety of short videos with their corresponding transcription and allows people to record themselves after every dialog. In addition to that, learners receive a grade and a small report with the words they mispronounced.

Alternatively, learners can visit ted.com to watch different conferences of great speakers while reading the transcription, and that permits them to see the word and listen to its pronunciation at the same time

SaborĂ­o, N. / October 25th, 2019 One of the most advantageous strategies people can do is using their interests, such as songs, poetry, or books to feel more motivated to learn and to be exposed directly to the language. For instance, they can listen to their favorite songs repeatedly while singing along, and in that way, their brains will subconsciously start picking up a lot of pronunciation patterns. In addition to songs, learners can visit buttonpoetry.com, where they will find countless videos of spoken poetry with subtitles to practice intonation, rhythm, and connected speech. Furthermore, learners can read books or comics out loud and record or film themselves to hear how they sound and see their mouth movements.

PAGE 22

The current technological era allows people to obtain information from the comfort of their homes just by exploring YouTube, websites, or different applications. To give an example, learners can visit the YouTube channel Sounds American, which teaches about the International Phonetics Alphabet. In addition to that, they can use an amazing tool called The Color Vowel Chart, which teaches vowel sounds through colors and keywords. Another great way to practice pronunciation is by talking to native speakers; for this, students can use the Cambly application that allows them to connect with native English teachers through video calls. And lastly, there are websites such as Voki or Vyond in which users can record fun animations that allow them to practice pronunciation by speaking and listening to themselves.

Finally, as the great philosopher Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit of practice.� people will not enhance their pronunciation just by wanting it; they have to practice every day. For that reason, the article has covered a vast territory, and it has proven that practicing pronunciation is not necessarily monotonous. In fact, it can be fun if combined with technology and creativity. Finally, many of the ideas mentioned before can be easily changed, improved, and adapted to the personality and learning style of the reader.

PAGE 23

PAGE 24

f f a t S

Nickole Saborío Mejía and Luijhoana Acuña Hernández are advanced students of English Teaching and Translation at the Latin American University of Science and technology, the best private university in Central America. Both students have taken phonetics and teaching pronunciation courses, which has given them the necessary knowledge to carry out this project. This magazine would not have been possible without the help and supervision of Professor Starling Aguilar.