Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified in Vermont? Are you interested in teaching English in West Rutland, Vermont? Check out our opportunities in West Rutland, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English in your community or abroad! Teflonline.net offers a wide variety of Online TESOL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Here Below you can check out the feedback (for one of our units) of one of the 16.000 students that last year took an online course with ITTT!
Teaching Pronunciation & Phonology is something I've been able to focus much more on in my second year of EFL teaching than in my first, and I've certainly noticed a difference in my students' abilities to pronounce words near-natively.
One method I've used is like the "boxes" method of drawing stress on the black/whiteboard. I draw different sizes of dots over words, so students can compare the sizes of the dots and adjust the stress accordingly. I haven't done an exercise like the "He didn't mean to kick the dog" sentence, though. I'd like to try something like that with my young students to get them thinking even more about stress.
Teachers I've worked with have drawn diagrams to try to help students with different sounds (like the difference between R and L, for example). I've always found those to be incredibly confusing, so I was glad to see the explanation in this unit.
Similarly, I've always been weak when it comes to phonetic writing found in dictionaries. I've been self-conscious of that several times when students have turned to dictionaries for pronuncation helps. I printed out the guides from this chapter and created an outline of the different kinds of sounds we make. Those kinds of charts make quick teaching aids, when I'm thinking of ways to compare/contrast one sound with another. More than just as a teaching aid, I'd like to be able to use these lingusitic terms comfortably when talking to other EFL teachers.
As a final fun note: I've given tutoring students of mine the "Hints on Pronunciation for Foreigners" poem, which has goven over very well. Students try to read it once themselves, listen to me read it slowly, then at native speed...and then they practice and practice (usually at home between sessions) to work up to gaining speed. I love that poem!
