This is an example of how limericks may be used to practise pronunciation. The aim is to practise making the contrast between the ‘sheep’ and ‘ship’ vowels accurately, and to practise at different speeds. The idea is to give learners something memorable which they can practise first on their mobile device/computer and which they can […]

Murray Walker, the famous British motor racing commentator, once said in a radio interview: ‘When I consider Formula One racing now with what it was twenty years ago, it’s safer, but not completely safe.’ Click on the loudspeaker to hear all of the words he said, or click on a line to hear it on […]

I am delighted that Phonology for Listening has been shortlisted for the ELTon for Innovation in Teacher Resources. It is the third time it has been shortlisted since its publication last April. So may be third time lucky – but the competition looks fierce: Digital Literacies – Routledge (Taylor and Francis) The Disabled Access Friendly campaign […]

Richard (right)  and Charlie with the award. On Thursday 22nd May, Richard Cauldwell and Charlie Warburton (Firsty Group) received a prestigious award – the British Council ELTon for Digital Innovation. Judge’s comment: I thought this was great. I can listen at different speeds, build up, try dictation. Record my own voice trying to speak faster […]

L1 speakers and expert L2 speakers of English are generally not aware of the variety of soundshapes that spoken words have. L1 speakers understand meanings without realising that there is very often a big difference between the soundshapes that occur in the acoustic blur of speech and the citation soundshapes that words have. The acoustic […]

      Helen Ashton and Sarah Shepherd I went to a startlingly brilliant talk on accents at the British Council in London on Thursday 16th. It was given by two people who are somewhat outside the ELT professon: they are accent coaches who work with actors, and teach in schools of drama – but who also work […]

Stress timing is a term with only one legitimate use: as a shorthand term for pedagogic exercises which demonstrate the relationship between prominent and non-prominent syllables (stressed and unstressed syllables if you prefer) in isolated clauses. The term, even in this use, is misleading. It is a relic from a much discredited (but surviving, and […]

Image from here. I believe that 23rd May (next Monday!) is the due date for the publication of the new EPUB 3.0 standard for electronic publications (books read on mobile devices). I don’t speak to many people ‘in the know’ about it, but two that I do are both associated with Firsty Group who seem […]

Hi Everyone, Thanks for the comments and questions. Ray, I see the three-part metaphor being used at all levels, in ways that I hope will become clear over the next few days. I believe we need to get students at all levels familiar and comfortable with the idea that the words they know have a […]

I am working on some experimental listening materials with Sheila Thorn of ‘The Listening Business’. We have just had a very interesting disagreement about a recording, involving Randy from Montana USA. Is he saying [1] or [2] below? You will hear both the original and a slowed down  version. [1] And he was like ‘Oh […]

Image from here I promised more about squeeze zones. Here it is. The reason for my fascination with listening, and for my interest in squeeze zones, comes from reading an article about a Singaporean learner called Ying. Ying is a learner who kept a diary about her experiences while she was learning to listen. She […]

Image from here. Gillian Brown is someone whose work I am frequently returning to. I wrote a blog here recently.  I quoted this (1990:7), and do so again: the stretches of acoustic blur often not longer permit any representation on a segment-by-segment basis She is talking about ‘private’ speech between people who know each other […]

Image from here In the previous blog (6th September) I wondered whether we should keep separate the teaching of pronunciation and listening. I was considering the implications of Gillian Brown’s statements about the ‘obscure acoustic blur’ of speech. Here are two further quotations from her ‘Listening to Spoken English’ which seem to settle the question: […]

Hi Dharmendra As I said you have good ears! In my enthusiasm for the jungle, I went too far with squeezing the non-prominent syllables ‘would have asked’. I should have stuck to the task of simply demonstrating the absence of the consonant /v/ at the end of ‘would have’, but I ended up changing the […]