Showing posts with label pronunciation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pronunciation. Show all posts

Learn About Science in English

Learning English can help to make knowledge available to you in so many fields of study, especially science. So today's task looks at how you can learn more about science and improve your listening, reading and vocabulary at the same time.


This is quite a challenging task, so I'm also going to include a link to a dictionary site called Ninjawords which will help you.

Task:

  • Choose one to listen to. Here are some suggestions.
  1. The Myth of Multitasking
  2. Movie Magic (Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs), Part 1
  3. Fish Shrink to Beat Heat
  • Get a pencil and some paper ready, turn up your volume and click the small button to play the audio. As you listen try to make notes about some of the facts. You can listen two times if you are finding it difficult.

  • Now scroll down the page and you will see the text that you heard. Read it and check how much of the information you noted down was correct. It may also help to listen again as you read.



  • Once you made notes about the new words listen to the podcast once more and this time try to read along copying the pronunciation of the speaker if you can.

If you are really interested in science and you found this activity useful then you can subscribe to the podcast using i-tunes or download the audio to your computer and print a copy of the text. This will be useful for revising the texts in a few days time.


Spending just a few minutes each day doing this activity will help to improve your listening, reading and vocabulary, so why not give it a try?

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Nik Peachey
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Understanding Different English Accents

It is great that English is spoken by so many people around the world, but this can make it very difficult to understand, because there are such a range of different accents.

In today's activity we use a website called The Speech Accent Archive to listen to different accents and compare them.

Task:

  • Your first activity is to listen to this audio file and try to write down what you hear. This speaker is from the UK and has an accent from around Oxfordshire.
  • Once you have listened a number of times and written down the complete text you can check here to see if it is correct. You will see both the written text and phonetic transcription.
  • Now you can listen to the same text again spoken by a variety of other nationalities. Listen to each one and try to decide what nationality they are:


1.

2.

3.

4.

5.


Now click the links below to check your answers.

Now if you go to the link to the Atlas, you can try to find the same recording of an English speaker from your country. Atlas link


Just click on the atlas to go to the continent you come from, then click on the flag which is closest to you.

You can then listen to the speaker from your country and compare the accent to one of the other countries. You might want to see if you can hear important differences between the accent from your country and the accent of a country you want to visit. You can compare the phonemic script too and try to spot the differences. here's the script of a man from the UK.


I hope you find this activity useful. Be sure to listen to some of the other accents too and try to record your own accent and listen to the differences. You don't have to change your accent, but being aware of differences can help you to understand more.

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Nik Peachey
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Learn from English Song Lyrics

There are many great reasons to study song lyrics, not least because you enjoy listening to the song. You can learn new words from them, singing along helps with your pronunciation, reading as you listen helps with listening and reading skills.


So today's activity uses a site called Lyrics.com where you can find loads of song lyrics as well as music videos of people singing the songs.

Task:
  • Go to: http://www.lyrics.com/ think of a song in English that you like or a singer who sings in English.
  • Type their name or the song name into the search field and find the song or singer.


  • If you can't think of a song just select one of the popular ones from the home page


  • You will then see the lyrics and on most songs you can also find a video. Play the video, listen and follow the lyrics.


  • You can either just listen or you can try to sing along. Doing either one or both will help with your listening reading and pronunciation.
  • Try to listen to a new song each day, or select one song and try to memorise the lyrics by singing along a number of times.
I hope you enjoy this activity. Here you can find more music related activities.

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Nik Peachey
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Read a Film Script for Pronunciation Practice

Reading is a great way to improve your vocabulary, but it can also be a good way to improve your pronunciation, especially if you can hear what you have to read.

Today's activity uses the IMSDB (Internet Movie Script database) and explores how you can use film scripts as reading to improve your pronunciation.

Task:
  • Find a movie in English that you like and which has good dialogue. If you don't have any English movies you may be able to find some at: http://quicksilverscreen.com/
  • Then go to http://www.imsdb.com/ and try to find the script.
  • There are lots of scripts on the IMSDB, but also a lot of advertising so be careful where you click. You can either search for the movie you want or browse by alphabet or genre.
  • Once you find the page with your movie on look for 'Read [movie name] script' and click on it. This will show you the movie script.

  • Here's an example of the script for the first Shrek movie which many people may have.
  • Once you find the script you want print up a few pages from it. Now find the movie and watch it. Try to follow the script and listen to the intonation of the speakers.
  • Intonation is the change in pitch and it usually either falls or rises at the ends of sentences or at commas just like punctuation in writing.

  • Try to mark on the script where you here the intonation rise or fall. Then try reading the script and trying to imitate the actors. try to copy their emotions and accents.
  • Read along while watching the the movie. You don't have to do this for the whole film, but trying to imitate small chunks will help to develop your pronunciation and your ability to hear and understand the changes in emotion that it conveys.
I hope you enjoy watching and reading movie scripts. Here you can find more activities to improve your pronunciation.

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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

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Finding Out About People

The Internet is a great way to find out more about people from other countries, their lives and their culture. Understanding these things can make it much easier to understand the language and the things that people talk about.


Today's activity is based around materials from the New York Times and you are going to listen to ordinary people from New York talking about their lives and the kinds of things they do.

This will also help you develop your listening skills and your ability to understand a range of different accents.

Task:
  • Think about the things that you do each day and make some quick notes about your daily habits and routine.
  • Now go to: The Type A Teenager


  • Here you will hear a teenager from New York talking about her daily habits. Listen and compare them to your own.
  • The text is about 2 mins long and you can also watch the images of the girl. Think about how you would tell her about the differences between your life and her life. You can pause the audio if you want to make notes.


  • Write a message about the differences in your life. If you want to you can post the message on the website and read other people's comments at: One in 8 Million - Omika Jikaria
  • If you want to post your comments you will need to register on the site.
  • There are many more people on this part of the websites talking about their lives, so if you enjoy this activity have a look and a listen to the lives of some of the other New York people.
I hope you enjoy finding out more about people in New York. Check out more Daily English Listening Activities

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Improve Your Pronunciation

Pronunciation is a vitally important aspect of learning any language. However good your grammar and vocabulary is, if you can't pronounce words and sentences well, then people will struggle to understand you. One aspect of pronunciation that people often forget is 'intonation'. Intonation refers to the rise and fall in pitch of the voice.

Today's activity uses a site with some interactive activities from CUP to help you improve your intonation.

Task:

Go to: http://tinyurl.com/4d59se click on 'intonation'. You can then listen to some short conversations. The conversations are animated so they show you where the intonation goes up or down.
Listen to them and then try to copy them. Pay careful attention to the intonation. You can get more practice at developing your intonation using clips from movies. Find a clip of a movie you like and try to copy the rises and falls in intonation of the speaker. You can find lots of film clips on YouTube.

You can also try some of the other activities on the site that deal with word stress and sentence stress and learning the phonemic alphabet.

Hope you enjoy these exercises and try some more EFL ESL activities tomorrow.
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Learn How to Pronounce New Words

It's very important when you learn what a new word means, to also learn how to pronounce the word, so today's activity use a very simple website which gives you models of how to pronounce words.
The website is called 'HowJSay' and all you have to do is type a word in to the search box and click on the submit button.

You will then see a list of words that have a similar spelling. The word you want will be highlighted in pink.

Task:
  • You can use this tool whenever you find new words that you want to use, but to get some practice, let's learn some quotes from Shakespeare. Go to Shakespeare quotes
  • Try to learn 4 quotes. Check the pronunciation of any words you don't know using 'HowJSay' .
  • You could also go to the BBC news site at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/and look for words there that you can't pronounce. After you hear the words try to pronounce them.
I hope you enjoy this activity and come back tomorrow for more EFL ESL activities.

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Learn English with Pictures

Today's activity is to help you build up your vocabulary and pronunciation of new words. The activity uses the Learning with Pictures and Audio website and that is what you will do.

The site has a collection of 34 word lists and each of these has 16 words. You can find a complete index here: Word Lists


Each word has a picture that shows you what the word means and then you can click through to get an audio to hear how the word is pronounced.

Task:

  • You can use this site in two ways. You can work through one list each day, listening and pronouncing the words or you could use it as a dictionary resource when you find words that you don't know.
  • My advice is to try to look at one list each day and then go to the list again the next day and see if you can remember how the words are pronounced. Say the words to yourself and then listen to the words to see if your pronunciation is the same.
  • Start by going to the list of A words: http://www.my-english-dictionary.com/list1.htm
  • Listen to the A words and hear how the A at the beginning of each word is pronounced differently. Try to note down the words that have a similar pronunciation of A.


  • Example: Abacus, Apples and Avocados all have the same A sound at the beginning, but in 'Air conditioner' the A is pronounced differently.
  • Try to do the same thing for all the other words. Look for similarities and differences in the pronunciation. This will help you to remember the words and pronounce them well.

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

This task was sponsored by the Maltalingua English language school


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Pronouncing New Words

Reading a is a great way to develop your vocabulary, but it can be hard when you see a new word that you want to use to guess how it is pronounced.


Luckily there are websites like Forvo to help you.

Forvo collects the pronunciation of words from a wide range of different languages, so that you can listen and learn how the words are pronounced. If you register, you can even download the pronunciation of the words as Mp3 files.

Task:
  • You will see a list of 30 words. Choose 10 and listen to them and try to pronounce them.
  • If you would prefer to learn words about a specific topic, click on 'Categories' and then choose from the list at the side.

Well I hope you have learned some new words. Perhaps you could also help out on the site by providing some words from your own language.

More EFL ESL activities next week.

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Learn a Song in English

Learning a song in English can really help with your pronunciation and listening skills.


Karaoke Party has lots of songs with the lyrics and videos of the original singer.

Task
  • Go to the website: http://www.karaokeparty.com/en
    (You don't have to register or have a microphone, but if you do it will be more fun)
  • Find a song which you like.
  • Click on the Preview button to listen to the song, or watch the video


  • Look at the lyrics (words of the song) at the bottom of Each page.
  • Try to sing along.
  • If you register and log in, you can get a score for your singing, but you'll need a micrphone.

I hope you enjoyed this activity. If you did then try to learn a few more songs.

More EFL activities tomorrow.

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Nik Peachey

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