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Pronunciation and Phonology in the EFL Classroom - Phonemes

 

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 the following words.


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 next.

Unit 3 looks at various aspects of business English course development. I learnt how to carry out level-testing and needs analysis to assess students’ current language abilities and future needs. This unit was also useful in learning how to develop a syllabus that includes in-class assessment, external examinations and course evaluation.I learned about two productive skills which are speaking and writing. In speaking accuracy and fluency play an important role for language quality? Students need to be encouraged to speak a lot in English to build up their communication skills. As for writing spelling, punctuation and handwriting are the main keys for these particular skills.

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