TESOL Courses Idaho

Teaching Pronunciation and Phonology is quite difficult for some ESL teachers as they often lack confidence to teach it methodically and others also lack the training and confidence to tackle this area. Many native English speakers find it difficult to hear certain features such as the fall or rise of speech, particularly at the end of sentences, as such, tend to ignore them because their students might not detect them either. A n effective teacher considers the teaching of pronunciation an integral part of his/her course. Skilled pronunciation teaching gives life to a class because it reflects feelings and personal reactions to different situations. Phonology deals with three areas - stress, rhythm and intonation as well as the International Phonetic Alphabet and its use i helping students to come to an understanding of the pronunciation of English. Intonation deals with the variation in volume and pitch in a whole sentence, whereas stress focuses more on individual words. The stressed word is one that bears the principal emphasis in the sentence. Techniques for indicating and teaching intonation and stress shoals be well understood by an ESL teacher so as to have control and confidence in his/her lessons.