Poems for Pronunciation

Reading short poems is a really good way to develop your vocabulary and reading skills and even your pronunciation. Poems are also good because many are quite short so you can read them quite quickly.

Today's activity will show you how to get a new poem each day from Every Day Poets and how you can get help with the pronunciation of the words and then record yourself saying the poems.

Task:

• The first thing you will need to do is to go to: http://www.everydaypoets.com/ This site publishes a new poem everyday. If you add your email address to the subscribe box you will then receive a new poem everyday in your email.

• When you receive your poem, or using the one on the website, try to read it out aloud. You can check the pronunciation of any new words by using http://www.howjsay.com/ just type in any word you are unsure of and you will hear someone saying the word.

• Once you are sure that you can read the poem and pronounce all the words, then go to: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Here you can download a small piece of software that you can use on your computer to record and listen to yourself.
• Once you have downloaded the software, simply open it, make sure you have microphone ready and then click the red 'Record ' button and read your poem. As you read you will see a sound wave being created.
  

• Once you have recorded the poem press 'Stop' and then listen to yourself by pressing the greeen 'Play'. If you are happy with the poem save it, if you want to try to record it again and make it better, click on the X to delete the file and record again.

• Be sure to save your recordings and come back and listen to them again a week or two later. As your pronunciation improves you might want to record them again. You can save the recordings by going to the File menu then clicking on 'Export As WAV'.

I hope you enjoy this activity and record a new poem everyday. Here you can find more Pronunciation Activities

Related links for teachers:

• Dictation goes Web 2.0
• Phonology can be fun and free
  
• Subtitling your video clips
• Transcribed Videos for EFL ESL
• Soundscapes from SoundTransit
• Text to Speech for EFL ESL Materials
• Multimedia Vocabulary Website
• Listening Dictation Puzzles for EFL ESL
• Text to Speech for EFL ESL Materials

Best

Nik Peachey

Record Yourself Reading a Poem

Reading poetry can help your to develop your reading skills as well as your speaking and pronunciation skills. This can be especially useful if you record yourself and listen.

You can do this in a fun way using a simple free software program called Flipz TV. You just download the free program, install it on your computer and then you can record yourself and created an animated talking head to send to your friends or put on your website.

You can find a list of poems at the Poetry 180 website

Task:

• Go to: http://www.flipz.tv/ and go to 'Downoad' to download the free software.

• Install the software on your computer (PC only. Sorry MAC users)
  

• Find a suitable poem that you want to read from the Poetry 180 website and prctice saying the poem out load.

• Copy the text of the poem and use it to create your animated talking head like the one above.

• This video shows you how to record the audio FlipzTV Tutorial

• Listen to your peom once you have recorded it. You might want to try it 3 or even 4 times to get it right.

• When you are finished you can save the file to your computer and watch your talking head, like the one above.

If you post your poem to your blog, then be sure to send us a link.
You can use this tool for recordinbg other texts too. It doesn't just have to be a poem.

Hope you enjoy this activity and come back for more ESL EFL activities tomorrow.

Best

Nik Peachey