Teach English in Paotai Zhen - Jieyang Shi

Unit 13 on ?Teaching Pronunciation & Phonology? provided a very useful and elaborate description of the basic concepts of English pronunciation and phonology, and techniques on how to teach them. Being a mother tongue English speaker I have never been confronted with the learning English pronunciation and phonology, therefore it was a very instructive unit to read. I learned a lot on how to teach pronunciation and phonology, in ways that are simplified to understand and practice for non-native speakers and to teach, for beginner teachers in the language. For example, I really liked how the section on ?Intonation? (which is an important component for expressing feeling in a sentence) was visually illustrated with colored arrows on sentences, to show the rise and fall of the intonation patterns depending on which indications you are trying to give when speaking. Whether you finished your sentence or not, or require an acknowledgment or greeting in return. The section on ?stressed words? was also, interesting to read, as word stress really does show which syllables of a word to most emphasize on, in the sentence depending on its meaning. Furthermore, I found the whole section on the phonemic alphabet and the roles of the human?s speech organs (with the role of each organ explained) when articulating, essential factors of English pronunciation teaching. This section on phonemic alphabet provided, a visual idea of pronunciation, phonemics (and how they can be found in the dictionary) and their sounds, and what happens with your mouth, tongue, and palate when you produce phoneme?s and articulate and pronoun each and every different sound. When illustrated with the diagram of a mouth, a visual support to pronunciation is given to the classroom, and students can then have a clearer idea of what should be happening in their own mouths when trying to communicate a specific sound or how to pronounce a specific word.