Hello, everybody!
I know that a lot of members here on EC would like to improve their spoken English. The most determined learners are already doing it right now on Rajesh’s Virtual Classroom. They follow Gabriel Sowrian’s Study Sessions devoted to pronunciation. They learn everything about English sounds: how to read phonemes, how to read transcription, how to pronounce sounds. Study Sessions are organized in a logical way: the sound, the word, the sentence, the short paragraph, tongue-twisters and so on. After learning the given material, learners should do the audio assignment and record their answers. If you don’t know how to record your answer, this is the link to Gabriel Sowrian’s blog “ Make your voice heard”.
http://my.englishclub.com/profiles/blogs/make-your-voice-heard
Now I’d like to describe all the steps of practicing the given material. I’ve already told some learners about it, but there’re new people who join the group. If you think you can do all the tasks all by yourself, the way you see it, you’re mistaken and you won’t get any result. So, there’re some steps:
- Try to listen attentively the explanation of Alex and other native speakers ( video).
- Try to practise as much as possible in pronouncing the sounds and the words.
- After that try to do the audio assignment: read the task attentively and translate all the words.
- If you don’t know the pronunciation of some words, try to read the transcription and listen the pronunciation of the word using the online 'Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary'.After you’ve learnt how all the words are pronounced, you can start to practise the sentence, the paragraph, the tongue-twisters. First of all, you should listen to the way native speakers pronounce it. How can we do it? Personally I use Audiopal for it ( there're some other tools ). We can also use Audiopal for recording our voice, but you can use any other tool for it as well. Audiopal has such option as Text To Speech ( TTS). You can hear any text, you paste there. It's very important to do it as you'll practise proper English intonation as well.This is a short video how to use Audiopal:
After listening and repeating several times your audio assignment, you can record your voice.
If you regularly do these exercises, you’ll acquire good near native pronunciation.
This is the link to Rajesh’s Virtual Classroom. There you'll find the link to all Gabriel Sowrian's Study Sessions:
http://my.englishclub.com/group/virtual-classroom
This is the link to Gabriel Sowrian's latest Study Session 5:
This is the link to the blog about the importance of good pronunciation "Pigmalion, My Fair Lady and the Importance of good pronunciation".
Happy learning and speaking!
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Dear friends, Gabriel Sowrian left such a valuable comment in the comment box that I decided to paste it into the blog. These are his words:
Hello, my fellow EC members!
English spelling is non-phonetic, unlike Spanish spelling. “What do you mean by non-phonetic?” You may ask! You see, the thing is, the sound and the spelling is not always the same in English. You’ll be muddled to see that there is an inconsistency in the letter and sound relationship. Some letters or combination of letters can have many sounds. This is a real headache for non-native speakers of English. For example:
| sound | /saʊnd/ | ou | = | /aʊ/ |
| soul | /səʊl/ | ou | = | /əʊ/ |
| souk | /suːk/ | ou | = | /uː/ |
| sought | /sɔːt/ | ou | = | /ɔː/ |
| southern | /ˈsʌðən/ | ou | = | /ʌ/ |
The letter combination 'ou' doesn't sound /aʊ/ as in 'round' /raʊnd/ all the time, does it? It can make five different sounds! This is merely just one example. There are many other letters and combination of letters which are multi-valued (having more than one sound). How are you going to overcome this complication and perplexity? Is there a workable solution or approach? Think about it!
Now, if you could give me ‘totally effective’ answers to the following three questions whereby all your pronunciation problems would be solved, I’ll stop posting any more study sessions and keep my mind on my offline commitments. I promise! :-)
Your questions are:
Your answer ……………………
Your answer ……………………
Your answer ……………………
Now, if you ask me the same questions, these would be my answers.
Question 1. Who? – The phonetic symbols in my dictionary!
Question 2. How? – I’ll check the phonetic symbols in my dictionary!
symbols in my dictionary!
The answer is same, phonetic symbols, for all the three questions! It worked for me and will work for you too! What is your next move? I rest my case here. Thank you!
~* GS *~
Comments
Dear Ganila and Gabriel,
Thank You So Much!
Good Luck!
Bimal
thank you very much teacher Galina and Ganila for this important lessons
Thank you very much dear Teacher Ganila and Gabriel, this is really the useful guide for all beginner members want to improve pronunciation skill in English include me. Through all the lesson of Gabriel teacher, I have some problems with pronouce. so, I find this is very helpful with audiopal, via this, I can hear different accents and practice in the right way to pronounce. Thanks again teachers.
Dear Selma, you know pretty well how much your opinion is valuable for me!!! I'm aware how much you're dedicated to everything connected with spoken English. I even may say it's your passion! So, thanks a million for your super supportive words! They're very important for me. And I'm happy if you find this blog helpful!!! Happy speaking ( for all of us)!!!
Wow! It's a miracle, Robbie! I'm so pleased to see your comment here!!! Is it really helpful for you? Then I'm on cloud nine!!! Robbie, ( I'm serious now) your pronunciation is super! I watched your videos and I can assure you that your spoken English is great! But I respect you a lot for understanding that we should practise it as often as we can. That's why we should know how to do it.
Ok, as for your question about English dictionary, I discussed this question with Gabriel Sowrian, and he recommended the following two, because the phonetic transcriptions are given for all the words. I comletely agree with him. This is his suggestion:
The following two dictionaries are a good buy. Make sure you purchase one that comes with a CD-ROM :-)
with CD-ROM (includes Oxford iWriter)
Paperback: ISBN: 978-0-19-479902-7
Hardcover: ISBN: 978-0-19-479904-1
Recommendation 2 (Very Good!)
with CD-ROM
Paperback: ISBN: 9780521712668
Always brilliant quality ! Thanks Galina,
What would be a recommended English dictionary that I can keep handy while I'm not online? : )
Hi Galina,
Great blog post! I am really impressed with your dedication to help MyEC learners! This is very educational for me because I myself, get bit entangled by my pronunciation. How I wish I have plenty of time to join in your class. It would be wacky, for sure he he he..... And I love your humour which means it would never be a dull moment while learning English here.
Thank you for sharing this practical blog post!
Regards,
Robbie
Gabriel, I've found your comment so informative and important that I decided to paste it into the blog. Thanks for your valuable information. I think it will be very helpful for all learners.
Sakshi, my dear, you really was the first one,to whom I advised to use Text To Speech option to practise paragraphs and tongue-twisters. Before using this option you had some problems. Your sounds were good but your intonation was very slow and non English at all. But your next audio assignment was absolutely different. You did it using this option Text To Speech and immediately you got a great improvement! Now I really enjoy listening to your voice recordings. Your English gets better and better every day! Thanks for being such a good learner and thanks for the nice comment.
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