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ESL Skill Areas: Pronunciation

Resources

TESOL's SPRIS (Speech and Pronunciation Interest Section) has a website listing numerous resources at http://www.public.iastate.edu/~jlevis/SPRIS/ . Follow the "Speech/Pronunciation Resources" link in the left-hand frame to reach "Speech/Pronunciation Resources on the Web (collected by Donna Brinton and Chris LaBelle)"

John Higgins has created a dictionary which is searchable by pronunciation, using the Oxford Text Archive version of the OALDCE. You can download it from: http://www.marlodge.supanet.com/listers.htm#search where it is called Stirling Search Tools.

ASHA (American Speech and Hearing Association) http://www.asha.org has a section on Children and Bilingualism

There is a good section on listening/speaking, including pronunciation in Ann Stokes's links for ESL at: http://www.strath.ac.uk/Departments/ELTD/listeningandspeakinglinks.html

Commercial products

Kay Elemetrics VisiPitch has become a standard for wave form analysis which enjoyed a few years of fame at TESOL Conferences, even being the focus of a seminar on research into pronunciation using just this tool (Martha Pennington, one of the facilitators) in 19???? (I'll look it up!!). Current information is at: http://www.kayelemetrics.com/vpiii.htm

Pronunciation Power is a suite of programs utilizing wave form feedback from English Computerized Learning, http://www.englishlearning.com/introduction.html

Pronunciation programs especially for ESL by Sky Software include The Phonemic Alphabet, Stress and Rhythm, Similar Sounds and Word Stress. http://www.skysoftwarehouse.com/programs.html

Tools for TOEIC: Pronunciation in American English. http://www.amenglish.com/

SpeechViewer III is designed to help people of all ages who have a variety of disabilities, such as speech or language impairments, cerebral palsy, developmental delay, traumatic brain injury, and speech disorders resulting from a stroke. It is ideal for professional speech language pathologists, special education teachers, teachers of the deaf, English as a second language instructors, professionals working with accent reduction and others.

• More information: http://www-3.ibm.com/able/snsspv3.html
• Download a demo: http://www-3.ibm.com/able/spv3demo.html

The English Communication ToolKit from Pro-Nunciation from Australia - http://www5.zipworld.com.au/~pronunce/ is for "Innovative Language Teaching , Dyslexia, Learning Disorders, ESL, EFL,ELICOS, English Literacy" and products include (from the web site): "Word Magic(Word Builder & Word Finder) Phonetic Word Search Engine, the first of its kind in the world. A boon for mother tongue English speakers as well as for English as a second language students. Word Finder Vocabulary builder where the student can enter the sense of the word and progressively build their own associations and then save to file or print. In this manner students may develop their own Thesaurus. Develop idiomatic usage of the English language. Differentiate all the homographs, homophones, and homonyms at a click of a button. Maintenance Program Add to the word database and make phonetic adjustments to existing words to compensate for regional accents with the Maintenance program Sound Lab Train the ear to hear the sounds that are not clearly distinguishable in normal speech conversation. Especially useful for the aspirated sounds at the beginning and ending of words Mouth Exercises Learn stress, rhythm and intonation using the Mouth Exercises interface. This interface incorporates human voice digitized sound with the use of Tongue Twisters and Limericks."

Cognitive Concepts Earobics "systematically teaches the critical phonological awareness, auditory processing and introductory phonics skills required for learning to read and spell." (designed for native speaker child reading development) - http://www.earobics.com/products/

Accent Coach by Syracuse Language has been reviewed for CALICO http://astro.temple.edu/~jburston/CALICO/review/accent00.htm

The Q-Group USA series, Quickstart, Q-Connect, and Q-Review diagram intonation: http://www.qgroupplc.com

Information on the Phrase by Phrase video tape series (Marsha Chan/Sunburst Media) is at http://www.sunburstmedia.com/Phrase.html

If all else fails, read this ...

  We polish the Polish furniture.
  He could lead if he would get the lead out.
  A farm can produce produce.
  The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.
  The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
  The present is a good time to present the present.
  At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.
  The dove dove into the bushes.
  I did not object to the object.
  The insurance for the invalid was invalid.
  The bandage was wound around the wound.
  There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
  They were too close to the door to close it.
  The buck does funny things when the does are present.
  They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
  To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow  to sow.
  The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
  After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
  I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my clothes.
  I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
  How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
  I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.

( ... just joking of course)

NOTICE

This page was once a part of a project called ESL_Home, http://www.vancestevens.com/esl_home.htm

At a time before Google rendered projects such as this one irrelevant, information posted here was of some value to me and my colleagues, but the ESL_Home portal has not been update since 2007. These pages are here for historical and archival purposes only.

Please note the "Last updated" date at the bottom of this page.
Thank you for your interest but I will not respond to requests to update my work on this once-viable but now lapsed project.

- Vance Stevens (Dec 29, 2017)