Pronunciation Of Use

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas The market for ESL teaching books is very large and all the major publishers have some form of involvement in the production and selling of these resources. There are many different types of books and resources that are used in ESL teaching and we will consider three main categories.1) General teaching theory books2) ESL book series3) Activity resource books General teaching theory books ESL book series Activity Resource books Are you ready to teach English as a foreign language? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! As an ESL teacher unless you spend your entire career teaching kindergarten, you are going to have to teach English grammar. There are many books that cover this well and you...  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!   "For" and "since" are prepositions used when talking about time. Let’s look at the difference between the two words.   For and Since are prepositions. Let’s look at the difference between these two words.   "For" is used with a period of time. This is often a number plus a time word. "For" is used when we measure the duration of something or how long it lasts. It has a start point and an end point and can be used in different tenses.   "Since" is used with a starting point or a time or date. It refers to something that started in the past and continues until now. "Since" is mostly used with the present perfect and perfect progressive tense. For example:   Register now & get certified to...  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Knowing when and when not to capitalize is an important part of writing correct English. Most students quickly learn that you always capitalize the first letter of a new sentence, but what are the other rules?   Although mistakes with capitalization do not generally have a big affect on the readability of your written English, it is important to get it right when writing formally for work or study purposes. Fortunately, the most common rules above are quite clear and straightforward to learn. Below are a few more capitalization rules you should be aware of. Capitalize family relationships when used as proper nouns. Capitalize “Uncle Brian,” and “Grandma Betty”. Do not use capitals when referring to a person’s...  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! This infographic explains 10 modal verbs and their usages with useful examples.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! This, that, these and those are demonstrative pronouns. We use them to point to specific people or things. Demonstrative pronouns are used in place of a noun. We can use same words as demonstrative adjectives.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences It is not a secret that pronouncing English sounds easily and correctly is a big challenge for non-native speakers. Of course, the complexity of English pronunciation consists not only of particular sounds but also of several other aspects such as intonation, stress, rhythm, and timing. I would like to analyze one of the biggest and most obvious pronunciation problems for Ukrainian speakers of English which, in my opinion, is sound differences and the way of pronouncing sounds. Sound System Articulation Aspiration Are you ready to teach English abroad? Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Hanna H. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. There are a number...  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!   The words "neither" and "either" are often confused by English learners around the globe. The word "either" sometimes has a similar meaning as the word "neither" but they are often used incorrectly. Below, we take a look at the differences so you can use (and teach!) these words correctly and with confidence.     When both words are used as adverbs the meaning is almost exactly the same: neither (adverb) used to show that a negative statement is also true of somebody/something else, for example:   “She didn’t remember to bring an umbrella and neither did I.”   A: “I don’t like mushrooms.” B: “Me neither.”   either (adverb) used after negative phrases to state that a feeling...  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Here are some great synonyms for the word "angry" that will make your writing and essays more interesting.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!   Let's take a look at how to correctly use "whom" and "whose" in English.   Whom is an object pronoun like  ‘him’, ‘her’, ‘us’, etc. We use WHOM to ask which person receives an action, for example:   Whose is a possessive pronoun like ‘her’, ‘his’, ‘our’, etc. We use WHOSE to find out which person something belongs to, for example:   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! In general, the apostrophe s (‘s) serves two functions: to contract words and to indicate possession. Let's take a look at this closely in the infographic below.   The apostrophe s (‘s) serves two functions:     Only add ‘ (just the apostrophe symbol) to a plural noun:     Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! In English, "very" is used extensively as an adverb to emphasize that something is of a high degree or intensity. However, there are many single words that can be used to say the same thing more effectively.   When speaking or writing English you can make better use of the language and impress the listener/reader by using individual descriptive words rather than using “very” to show a high degree or intensity. For example: Instead of saying “My friend and I took a ride on the roller coaster and we were very afraid” Say “My friend and I took a ride on the roller coaster and we were terrified”   Instead of saying “I was very nervous about taking my English exam” Say “I was apprehensive about taking...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Motivating students is always a challenge and can, in fact, be one of the most difficult parts of education. There are countless ways to either encourage or intimidate a student into completing their work or participating in class but these external motivators have a limited effect. Encouragement and praise may only motivate a student while they are seated in the classroom. A teacher expressing disappointment on an uncompleted assignment may only encourage the student to avoid the subject or course work altogether. One of the best ways I have found for motivating students is to find a student's internal motivation. Finding Students' Future Goals Setting Up The Responsibilities Individual Learning Plan My Own Experience Are You Ready to Teach ESL...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Teaching Ideas Growing up, hearing the word games in the classroom was almost always associated with a lack of concentration on the students' side or maybe just a side note on activities to be done during recess. Today, especially after taking this course, I have come to see just how essential academic games could be! From young learners to mature scholars, everyone always goes back to a classroom at some point and the fact that classrooms are now evolving makes the learning process more and more interesting. Classroom Games Importance Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Brianna C. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT....  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! This is a fun board game where the students have to make a sentence with the word they land on.     Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

  In this video we'll be looking at the international phonemic alphabet and how it's used in the classroom. There are other phonemic alphabets but this is the most popular and the system, which is most widely used. You may have seen some of these symbols before as any good dictionary will supplement standard English spellings with the phonemic spellings to aid in pronunciation practice. Here we have a situation where we have what are called phonemes and each phoneme represents a sound within the English language. How is this helpful? Well, what it does is help students understand how to say words rather than simply relying on the often archaic English spellings. To illustrate this point let's for a moment put ourselves in the shoes of our students when trying to understand how to say...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Every learner of a foreign language may face pronunciation problems now and then. Languages that belong to one language group have more in common in phonics and are usually easier to learn to pronounce correctly. But such languages as English and Chinese are so different, that Chinese learners (and I bet English speaking learners of Chinese too) often have many difficulties in pronunciation. State of the problem Common pronunciation errors How to correct pronunciation problems Learn how to teach pronunciation effectively! Related Articles: Listen to this blog post: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Evgeniya S. I have been working in China as a teacher for more than six months now. When I arrived in this country, I hardly knew...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Each student faces their difficulties when it comes to English pronunciation depending on their country of origin. This essay will focus on the pronunciation difficulties facing ESL students in France and will also propose some solutions to help students overcome these difficulties. French Sound System IPA Difficult Sounds The Dark /L/ Sound Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Kerri M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The number of English vowel sounds greatly outnumbers those found in the French language. As such, French students will have to produce sounds that they have never produced before....  [Read more]

  Whereas stress is typically concerned with one individual word, intonation is generally concerned with the variation in volume and pitch throughout an entire sentence. Intonation carries the message of a sentence. It's particularly important when questioning or agreeing, disagreeing and confirming statements. It's also very important when expressing emotions and feelings. The normal pattern for intonation is the rise-fall. Few examples would be ?I haven't seen him for a week,? or a simple word as ?okay?. With the falling intonation, we?re indicating that we're finished speaking. Again, ?I haven't seen him for a week? and ?okay?. A few more examples would be ?I'll see you at six then,? or a question of information ?How do you spell rough?? These are straightforward statements that...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas The purpose of my essay is to outline some of the most frequently occurred pronunciation mistakes made by Russian learners and share some of the teaching ideas based on a few sources and my own experience of teaching and learning English as a foreign and second language. State of the Problem Russian Phonetics vs. English Phonetics Choice of Activities Vowel Sounds Are you ready to teach English to ESL students? Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Olga R. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Teaching English phonology and pronunciation for Russian learners is always challenging as there are a great number of differences rather than similarities in the...  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Are you writing about Halloween? Here is a list of descriptive words verbs & nouns you can use when writing about scary subjects.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! When writing emails to coworkers and clients at work, it is essential to use the right lingo. Below we have compiled the most useful, polite and professional email phrases you can use at work.   There are six key components to properly structure a business email in English. These will help you to clearly express your ideas and improve your communication with coworkers and clients: The subject line should be clear, concise, and meaningful. It should summarize, not describe and should not consists of a single word, e.g., Important, Help, or Urgent. You should always use the addressee’s name and title if it is a formal message. However, casual business communications do not always need a formal greeting - they can often just...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas ESA is a common methodology that teachers use when teaching students another language. It is also a large part of your TEFL certification course. By using the layout of the ESA method to plan your lessons, they will be more structured, organized and effective. Listen to this blog post: What is ESA? The Engage Phase The Study Phase The Activate Phase Benefits of Using the ESA Method Are you ready to teach English abroad? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! This post was written by our ITTT graduate Casandra L. ESA stands for engage, study, and activate. By using ESA, it gives teacher's the flexibility to conduct a classroom in an organized and productive way. ESA is extremely important when it comes to...  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Improve your English writing skills with these alternatives to 16 boring verbs people use all the time!   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas "Learning is not a game, although you learn by playing" 1. Useful Method 2. Students' Needs 3. Rapport Between Students 4. Way of Evaluation 5. Encouragement Listen to this blog post Are you ready to work with ESL students abroad? Related Articles: When we teach it is not only a matter of writing on the board and expecting the students to absorb all the information and knowledge we have, it's a matter of thinking and sharing what we know with the students. The best way of doing this is by connecting with them through games. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Juan G. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. As a teacher, I believe that games bring you a methodology for teaching...  [Read more]

  A better way to go about imparting how to make sounds or what sounds are utilized in a word, is this international phonemic alphabet. Now we have as mentioned one symbol being used in all the words which share that same sound. Now once we get a little bit more familiar with our phonemic alphabet we can also show how different our different sounds can be as in this symbol for ?ooh?, this symbol for ?ow? and this symbol for ?uh?. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the...  [Read more]

  The next thing we should look at is how our consonants are arranged for the top two rows we have P and F at the left side of our chart and G and J at the right side of our chart. They're arranged this way because if we analyze the way we speak we're using the front of our mouth to use these sounds as in ?p? and ?f? and I'm using my lips and my teeth to produce those sounds and as we move to the right on the chart slowly but surely we're making those sounds it towards the back of our mouth. We can use the examples of ?g?. The sound ?g? is produced further back in our mouth than ?p?. The next thing we'll notice about our chart is that some of our symbols are shaded. Notice that none of the symbols in the vowel sections are shaded but only a few are in the consonant section. The...  [Read more]

  Here we have a set of five words, which all share one sound: the ?oh? sound, as in ?go?, ?show?, ?dough?, ?note? and ?boat?. They?re five different spelling patterns to tell our students so they can identify when to make the ?oh? sound. We can have a simple letter ?o?, ?ow?, ?ough?, ?o? with the magic ?e? which turns our vowel into what we knew as long sounds and the ?oa? as in ?boat?. Now, for a non-native learner, perhaps they can handle something like this. They remember that these spelling combinations help to produce the ?oh? sound and they can go about their business looking at the words and memorizing this knowing that these spelling patterns will produce the sound ?oh?. Now that?s okay until we get to a situation where we can also have words like ?to?, ?cow? and also...  [Read more]

Luciana Campos Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas In today's world, it is essential for young adults to learn proper pronunciation to communicate effectively and confidently. Proper pronunciation helps others understand what we are saying. It is crucial for successful communication, especially when speaking English. Traditional methods of teaching pronunciation can be time-consuming and stressful for students. However, pronunciation is an essential component of language acquisition. So, there's no way to run! Gamification as a means for learning to pronounce Tips on Pronunciation Last Remarks Related articles Ready to teach English as a Foreign Language? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! I guess you expected me to start by providing...  [Read more]

  Connected speech is also an important element of phonology and it's involved in joining words together in an effect to make our speech more efficient. Some might say it's a product of being lazy but nonetheless it's what we all do and we want all of our non-native speakers to speak as naturally as possible, so we have to be aware of these things. Here are a few of the more common examples. We have linking, dropping, changing and extra lettering. An example of each would be with linking, we link our words together so that they almost in effect become one word. Instead of saying ?What do you want to do,? we typically will say ?Whatdoyou want to do?? Then, we can also have dropping. Rather than pronouncing each and every consonant, we can sometimes, especially in certain accents, drop...  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!   The four expressions "many", "much", "a lot of" and "lots of" are widely used but often confused. Let's take a look at their differences and when to use which expression correctly.   The word "many" is used with countable, plural nouns in questions and negative sentences. Example Sentences   "Much" is used with uncountable nouns to indicate a large quantity. It is mostly used in negative questions or sentences. Example Sentences    A lot of means a large number of amount. It can be used for countable or uncountable nouns (negative, positive and question). Example Sentences   "A lot of" and "lots of" have the same meaning and they can be used interchangably; "lots of" means a large...  [Read more]