NEW WAYS TO LEARN ENGLISH ONLINE

There are plenty of ways to learn English, in which we will focus is an online form in which you aren't the only person who learns in solitary. The system is as follows: you have to register in a website, where people can learn other languages ​​with others. In addition to learning a language online, you teach your own language to the person who is teaching you English (and you can even learn other languages, don't only english). It is a type of online and totally free video call with someone else in the world, both undertake to chat and to teach every man his native language in exchange for company, time and entertainment. Totally disinterested. In short, Are "social networks" in which learning exchange, specifically, language.

Teaching spot: Dictionary game

DICTIONARY

This game’s objective is learning new words. We just need a dictionary. The first player looks up in the dictionary an unknown word and pronounces it aloud. The player with the dictionary will take the roll of the "reader."

The other players , in pairs, write down in a piece of paper the hypothetical definition of this vocable (it doesn’t matter if there is no relationship with the real meaning, but the definition has to look real).
All the definitions are given to the "reader", who reads them aloud to be voted.
After a minute thinking about the definitions, each team vote the option which they think is the real one (they can’t vote their own definition).
Then we look for the most voted one.

The points will be given as follow:

- 5 points for the most voted definition if it is not the true one and 10 points for the "reader" because his chosen word wasn't rightly guessed.
- If the word has been successfully guessed, 10 points will be remove from the “reader’s” account.

The team that gets the highest score is the winner.

Some examples of words can be rack, crank, switch...

CALL (computer assisted language learning)

Author: Graham Davies

© Professor Graham Davies

Abstract

An introduction to Computer Assisted Language Learning, including a brief history and mention of more recent trends (CD-ROMS, DVDs, the Web) and professional associations dedicated to CALL.

HOW TO READ ALOUD

Trabajo Previo

Lectura comprensiva
Preparación del texto
Corrección de fonemas aislados
Trascripción fonológica

ARTICULO COMPLEMENTARIO: Tipos de textos

TEXTOS

DEFINICIÓN:

      Los textos se pueden clasificar desde diferentes puntos de vista, aunque su finalidad principal es la de transmitir información. La presentación de la información depende del tipo de texto. 

TIPOS DE TEXTOS 

Lesson notes "Main Mistakes and Errors"

Written communication

How do correct?

·         Find out “main mistakes”

·         Models for correction

·         Creating your “table”

Lesson notes 9th October - 16th October

WRITTEN COMMUNICATION

v  HOW TO CORRECT?; MOST COMMON ERRORS AND MISTAKES

-          Main mistakes/ errors in writing are:

1.      Mistakes: lack of concentration. Ex: “-s” 3rd person. Mistakes need concentration and revision by students. Teachers should give them the chance to self-correct. We consider it negative.

2.      Errors: lack of knowledge (they don´t know but they should know) It needs remedial work by teachers. We consider it negative.

3.      Attempts: taking risks trying, experimenting.. Attempts should be value as something positive.

Teaching Spots: Creating a poem

Ø  Class activity: to create a poem

·         ¿Qué queremos que el niño trabaje?

                 Por ejemplo; los sentidos, tanto lo real como lo irreal del sentido.

                 I see, I hear, I touch, I smell, I taste…

·         Se escriben palabras en la pizarra que los niños vayan diciendo aleatoriamente;

                Knights, dragons, rules, food, games, music, things…

·         Unimos uno de los  sentidos con una de las palabras;

I hear knights.

I smell dragons

I touch rules

I taste food

I see games

I touch music

I see things people don´t see…

Ø  We use a poem (written by one of us) for the following activity

First Day at University

This first day seems as yesterday

This first day of hopes and fears

I´m meeting new people, new friends,

new teachers, new places, new thoughts…

This first day that should change my life.

·         Después de una lectura correcta, de manera implícita vamos a hacer que nuestros alumnos mejoren su léxico haciendo preguntas sobre el poema.

a.       Is he/she a student?

b.      Is he/she a teacher?

c.       Who is he/she  meeting there?

d.      Is he/she sad? 

e.       Why do you think so?

f.        Is he/she happy?

g.       Why do you think so?

h.      Is it a new place for her/him?

i.         Has he/she been here before?

TEACHING SPOT: Correction symbols

CORRECTION SYMBOLS

This method consists of marking the line where the mistake/error is and putting the symbols which describes what type of mistake/error is.

Teachers have to design a common “symbol table”. This method will be used by the teacher since the first correction (the early years of primary) so students get used to it.

With this methodology students think about their own compositions and correct the mistakes/errors to be right.

V -> Verbal tense X -> Remove/change a word M -> Missing words O -> Spelling ¿? -> Not understood/Change expression S-P -> Coordination subject and predicate =D -> Excellent =) -> Good =/ -> Think twice =( -> Ohh!

For example:

Hi Mary! Today I’ve been my first day of class in the college. At 8 o’clock I’ve haven my first subject. My teacher is Antonio Garcés. He was my teacher of the other subject, the pass year, so I knew him. He is a good teacher and he knows english so much. I’m sure that I will learn english with him. For this reason, I’ve chosen this major, because I want to learn english because I will be an English teacher in the future.     =)

Lesson notes: Unit 1 [NNTT]

Hymes: was a linguist, sociolinguist, anthropologist, and folklorist who established disciplinary foundations for the comparative, ethnographic study of language use. His research focused upon the languages of the Pacific Northwest. He was one of the first to call the fourth subfield of anthropology "linguistic anthropology" instead of "anthropological linguistics". The terminological shift draws attention to the field's grounding in anthropology rather than in what, by that time, had already become an autonomous discipline (linguistics). In 1972 Hymes founded the journal Language in Society and served as its editor for 22 years.

DESCRIPTION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM

DESCRIPTION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM. APPROACHES ANDTECHNIQUES TO PRONUNCIATION TEACHING: PERCEPTION, DISCRIMINATION ANDPRODUCTION OF SOUNDS, RHYTHMS AND STRESSES. PHONETIC CORRECTION.

The aim of this topic is to study the English phonological system. In order to do so, the topic will be divided into four different parts. 

The first part of the topic will describe the phonological system, both segmental (vowel and consonant systems) and suprasegmental features (stress, rhythm and intonation). Next, I will introduce the importance of a model of pronunciation. 

Then, I will focus on how to teach and learn pronunciation, considering, on the one hand, perception and discrimination, and, on the other, production and

assessment. Finally, the importance of phonetic correction is exposed and the main ways to achieve it.

In order to introduce the topic, I will define the concept of phonetics and phonology, and then I will establish the difference between these sciences.

 Phonetics is the science concerned with the study of speech processes, from both an acoustic and a physiological point of view. By contrast, the main aim of phonology is to discover the rules that organize sounds into a language system. "Phonetics gathers raw material, phonology cooks it"

¿Cómo enseñar inglés a niños pequeños?

¿CÓMO ENSEÑAR INGLÉS A NIÑOS PEQUEÑOS?

1

•Poner énfasis en que el niño escuche y hable en inglés y NO en que lo escriba

•No utilices el idioma nuevo para enseñar conceptos que los niños desconozcan

2

•Procura hablar lo más posible en inglés, para que los niños puedan escuchar el ritmo y para que vayan entendiendo poco a poco

•Diseña actividades para que todos puedan tener éxito.

3

•Utiliza mucha repetición; los niños necesitan hacer las cosas vez tras vez; eso hace que se sientan cómodos y les ayuda a aprender.

•Las clases deben ser divertidas; solo así van a aprender. Su motivación para aprender el inglés es para poder participar en los juegos y canciones.

•Presenta actividades cortas y variadas, para mantener su interés y para cambiar el ritmo de la clase. Las actividades movidas se pueden utilizar si están perdiendo el  interés y las tranquilas si necesitan calmarse, sobre todo al final de la clase.

•Sólo utiliza la lengua materna cuando se necesita para explicar un juego o para la disciplina.

4

•Empieza cada clase con una señal visual, para que los niños sepan que ahora empieza  una hora especial, cuando se habla en otro idioma.

• Utiliza canciones; el vocabulario, el ritmo del idioma y la gramática se aprenden con facilidad mediante canciones. Además, cantar es divertido.

5

• Utiliza juegos para motivarles a aprender y para hacerlo divertido.

• Utiliza cuentos; a los niños les encantan y si se repite un cuento muchas veces, los niños se acostumbran al vocabulario y la gramática y al ritmo del idioma. Después de un tiempo, ellos mismos pueden contarlo.

• Utiliza muchos recursos visuales, para que los niños puedan entender el significado antes de conocer la palabra.

Comentario

Como docentes, tenemos la idea clara sobre la enseñanza de la L2, ante todo la fonología de las palabras y poner más énfasis en que el niño escuche, hable y conozca la cultura inglesa y NO en que lo escriba. Ser creativo y motivarles a aprender a través de un aprendizaje productivo. 

Descripción del sistema fonológico de la lengua inglesa.

Descripción del sistema fonológico de la lengua inglesa. Modelos y técnicas de aprendizaje. Percepción, discriminación y emisión de sonidos, entonaciones, ritmos y acentos. La corrección fonética. 

1.         INTRODUCTION

In this topic we are going to get in deep into understanding that acquisition of the phonetic/phonological component in a second language is a complex and dynamic process which is influenced by the context and conditions in which the language is learned. Affective and social factors as well as individual aptitude have been seen as possible predictors of second language phonetic performance (Flege, 1987; Schneiderman, Bourdages & Champagne, 1988). The ability to mimic and contact with native speakers have also been reported as having a significant influence on second language pronunciation (Suter, 1976; Purcell & Suter, 1980; Thompson, 1991). Specific phonetic training has generally been found to be positively associated with phonetic development in a second language (Neufeld & Schneiderman, 1980; Cenoz & G.Lecumberri, in press) whereas other factors such as attitudinal and motivational variables have sometimes -though not always- proved to be influential (Thompson, 1991).

As a first step we should define what do we understand by English segmentals and suprasegmentals present important differences as compared to Spanish. The Spanish vowel system includes a much smaller number of phonemes and Spanish learners of English tend to neutralise some of the distinctions amongst English vowels (Flege, Munro & Fox, 1994; Fox, Flege & Munro, 1995). The English consonant sounds and suprasegmentals also present difficulties for native speakers of Spanish (Flege & Eefting 1987; Flege & Bohn, 1989). Finally we will overlook some of the differences and techniques between both languages and teaching the Fl phonological units.

2.         PHONETICS & PHONOLOGY

Phonetics is the linguistic discipline that studies the sounds of a language in themselves without considering the relation they have with a linguistic meaning.

Phonology studies the sounds from the point of view of their working in the language, it invistigates the phonic difference with difference in meaning and the rules according to which these are combined to form significants.

·         We can divide the accents of English into two rough groups:

·          Non-rhotic accents such RP and some other types of British English, Australian, New Zealand and South African English, where r does not occur unless a vowel follows. Thus the word 'farmer' is pronounced a:

·         Rhotic accents such as Scottish, Irish, American and Canadian English, and the south-western accents of English, where r can occur without a following vowel. Thus the word 'farmer' is pronounced /ar/

Traditionally European universities teach to types of English pronunciation; RP or the so-called received pronunciation – often called British English (BE). And on the other hand General American (GA) in other words AE

RP “Received Pronunciation”           BE

GA “General American”                   AE

There are as well a great number of other types of standard English pronunciation such as Irish English or Scottish English and therefore Australian, Jamaican, Southafrican... In other words as many varities as countries –communities of native English speakers- around the world; but in this essay we should be dealing with the most prominent ones; RP and GA – focusing our attention on the former because Spain as most European countries is in the geographical area of influence of British English -.

• Scottish English

• Irish English

• Australian English

• Jamaican English

But there is another type of English that is becoming more and more important in the world today, we can call it INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH –that English as a world language (Lingua Franca ) is pushing up as the most spoken varity in the English language and that well known authors such as Crystal, Rushdi, consider to catch up BE and AE in next decade –

International English             Spanish, France, German  + International English

It is the language that L2 and EFL speakers use in their communication daily. It is now spoken by as many people as the ones who speak English as their first language –mother tongue – and old Eastern countries; Russia and China citizens are not included yet. Once these countries adopt English as the first option in their educational system INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH may become the languageof instruction in FL classrooms and therefore American; British or other varieties of English will be spoken in their geographical territories. An International English corpus is being developed in prestigious institutions sucha as Santa Barbara LA University and University of London -www. Ling.mq.edu.au-

RP (or BE, "British English")

"RP" stands for "Received Pronunciation", the traditional name for the standard British English accent. "Received" really means "accepted in good society", which shows the prescriptive social character of the original concept. Today, "RP" is used to refer to the pronunciation usually taught to foreigners -unlike the other English accents it is not associated with any one georgraphical area, and can be heard spoken as a prestige accent thoughout the British Isles. Phonemes: Vowels + Consonants: A difference

Phoneme versus speech sound

According to Jones a PHONEME may be described as a family of sounds consisting of one important sound of the language . the most frequent of the family – together with other related sounds –allophonemes – which take its place in particular sound sequences or under particular conditions of length, stress or intonation. A phoneme is defined in terms of its differences from other phonemes in the same language –minimal pair –

Car                              ship/sheep

Live/leave

Cup                             cat/cut

Cap

A speech-sound is any phonetically distinct unit od sound. Any unit of sound produced by the speech organs that can be distinguished by the phonetician from all other units of sound produced by the speech organs

Vowel versus Consonant

Every speech sound belongs to one or other of the two main classes known as vowels and consonants. A vowel is a voiced sound in forming which the air issues in a contonous strem through the pharynx and the mouth. In the production of a vowel there is no obstruction and no narrowing such as would cause audible friction. All other sounds are called “consonants”, and they are formed when we interrupt th passage of air through mouth.

The distinction between vowels and consonants  is that the former can be heard at a greater distance, when pronounced with the same length, stress and pitch.

2.1  VOWELS

How do we describe vowels?

We can define the vowels of human language with these three parameters:

·         Front Versus back

·         Close/High VersusOpen/low

·         Long/Tense Versus Short/lax

Other important features:

·         Rounded/ Non narrow lips Versus Non-rounded/narrow lips

·         Open jaws/ Non open jaws

The method usually used is to set up an imaginary "vowel space" and define vowels by their position in the space. We imagine a cross-section of the human head looking to the left, and define the vowels according to the position of the HIGHEST POINT OF THE TONGUE for each vowel. We symbolise this vowel space on the vowel chart in this way

What does "LAX" “SHORT” mean?

Lax vowels are also called short vowels: Generally speaking, they are shorter than tense (long) vowels.
(As we shall see, tense vowels have more variable length.)
Another characteristic of lax vowels is that they are always checked: that is, they do not occur alone at the ends of words, but always need a following consonant.
What does "TENSE"”LONG” mean?

Tense vowels are also called long vowels; this name is slightly misleading because, in RP English at least, the tense vowels have variable length; they can be much longer than the lax vowels, but under certain conditions they become “clipping”, or shortened to roughly lax vowel length. Tense vowels, then, have more variable length than lax vowels. Tense vowels can be unchecked; that is, they can occur at the end of a word.

ROUNDING
Another feature of vowels is ROUNDING: in English, front vowels are unrounded, i.e the lips are spread (FLEECE, DRESS, TRAP etc.) while back vowels tend to have rounded lips (GOOSE, THOUGHT etc.) In other languages, front vowels can be rounded and back vowels unrounded. On the following Vowel Chart

OPEN JAWS

wide opening of jaws: car / narrow opening of jaws : seat

Description of vowels

SEAT / si:t /

Close

Front

Spread lips

Narrow opening of jaws

Reference word in Spanish: hilo

Spellings: Most frequent: tree; green; tea/seat

Quite often: Key/receive/police/piece

Sit / sit   /

Half- Close

Front

Neutral lips

Narrow to medium opening of jaws

Reference word in Spanish: See graphic: half way between Spanish i and Spanish e

Spellings: Most frequent: sit/tip/rich; city/pity/belly; ladies/bodies (Ojo!!! Non-stressed ei syllable)

Quite often: pretty/pocket/wanted/sunday/bussiness/women/minute

Bed /bed /

Half-Close and Half-open

Front

Slightly spread lips

Medium opening of jaws

Reference word in Spanish: similar to Spanish e

Spellings: Most frequent: bed/leg/men

Quite often: dead/head/many/any/said/friend

bird /b3ːd /

Half-Close and half-open

Central

Slightly Spread lips

Narrow opening of jaws

Reference word in Spanish: Very different: longer and central NON-FRONT

Spellings: Most frequent: bird/first/; church/turn; search/early; WORK/WORLD

Quite often: term/personwere (strong form); journey

Man /mæn /

Half open

Front

Neutral to narrow lips

Medium to wide opening of jaws

Reference word in Spanish: Try to pronounce a Spanish (a) but pronounce an (e).Remember Front and tongue behind teeth

Spellings: Most frequent: man/cat/sad/cap

cart /  kɑːt  /

Open

back

Neutral lips

Wide opening of jaws

Reference word in Spanish: aaaahhhh. Rember Back and wide open mouth

Spellings: Most frequent: cart/car/hard

Quite often: glass/pass/grass/aunt/laugh/heart/past/bath/can`t

cup /kʌp /

Half open

Central

Neutral lips

Wide opening of jaws

Reference word in Spanish: Similar to Spanish (a) but a more closed mouth and slightly to a Spanish (e) sound

Spellings: Most frequent: cup/nut/hut/uncle; mother/glove/some

Quite often: country/blood/flood/does/young

Harry Potter /spot /spɒt    /

Open

Back

Slightly Rounded lips

Wide opening of jaws

Reference word in Spanish: Try to pronunce a Spanish (a) but with the tongue bach and slightly wider open mouth

Spellings: Most frequent: Potter/hot/spot/pot/ree; green; tea/seat

Quite often: was/becauseknowledge

Porter /’pɔːt¶/

Half open and half close

Back

Rounded lips lips

Wide opening of jaws

Reference word in Spanish: Oohhh. Remeber slightly more back

Spellings: Most frequent: porter/sport/pork; ball/tall/fall

Quite often: salt/law/daughter7war/warm/four/door/before/George

foot /fʊt/

Half Close

Back

Slightly rounde lips

Medium opening of jaws

Reference word in Spanish: humo. Remember Spanish (u) is more rounded and closer mouth

Spellings: Most frequent: foot/good/book; put/sugar

Quite often: could/would/should/woman/wolf

food / fuːd /

Close

Back

Fully rounded lipsSpread lips

Narrow opening of jaws

Reference word in Spanish: uhhhh.Remeber a more rounded lips and longer sound

Spellings: Most frequent:food/moon/soon; new/pupil/; suit/fruit

Quite often: blue/who/do/shoe/soup

mother /´mLdə/

Half Close and half open

Central

Neutral lips

Narrow opening of jaws

ALWAYS UNSTRESSED

Reference word in Spanish: gutural sound. relax mouth and tongue (e)

Spellings: Most frequent: mother/father/nation//about/organizationletter...

Weak vowels

Mother /SCHWA/: THE MAIN WEAK VOWEL IN English is schwa. These vowels are always weak and unstressed. Since there are usually more unstressed than stressed syllables in connected speech –schwa- is by far the most common vowel in English.

 

2.2  DIPHTHONGS

The lax and tense vowels we have looked at so far are monophthongs, sometimes called pure vowels. This is because the tongue and lips are relatively stationary while these vowels are being pronounced - the vowels do not move around in the vowel chart. Diphthongs, on the other hand, move through the chart as they are pronounced: they start at one vowel-position, and move towards another. The word di-phthong is from Greek: it means "two vowels", and we write them as two vowels.

Diphthongs are tense vowels; they can be unchecked, and are subject to clipping like the "pure" tense vowels - they can be long or short.

It's useful to distinguish between rising and centring diphthongs

In English diphthongs there is always a strong vowel –where the stress lies – and a glide (decreasing diphthong)

English diphthongs are shorter than Spanish diphthongs

No diphthongs before the phoneme /n/ except in a speech chain: my own car

Rising diphthongs

Gate / geɪt /
e.....to i

Reference word in Spanish: ley)

Spellings: Most frequent: plate/came/gate; plain/wait/rain

                        Quite often: eight/they/great

Know/so / naʊ /
Schwa........u

Reference word in Spanish: relax position of articulatory organs and a glide to u

Spellings: Most frequent: so/old/know/no; road/boat/coat

                        Quite often: shoulder/soul

time / taim /
a............to i

Reference word in Spanish: (hay) but without stressing on the (i) sound

Spellings: Most frequent: time/write/nice; try/fly/sky

                        Quite often: die/lie; either/neither/; eye/buy/guy

house /haʊs/
Reference word in Spanish: causa....but no stressed on the (u) sound
Spellings: house/pound;town/brown

point / pɔɪnt /
between long (o) and short (o) and glide to (i)

Reference word in Spanish: voy

Spellings: Most frequent: oil/boy/enjoy

Central diphthongs
near / nɪəʳ /
Reference word in Spanish: hacia...but slightly (e) at the end

Spellings: Most frequent: near/dear;beer/cheer/deer

                        Quite often: here/theatre/idea

Care / kɛəʳ /
From (e) to schwa

Reference word in Spanish: fea but slightly more relax at the en and just a sound

Spellings: Most frequent: care/stare;fair/bear/hair

                        Quite often: their/there/were (weak form)

sure / ʃʊə(r) /

Reference word in Spanish: púa But slightly (e) at the end and just one voiced sound

Spellings: Most frequent: sure/pure; fuel; dual

                        Quite often: jewej/fewer;furious/curious

The alternative (door) /     / diphthong

door / dɔːʳ /
From (o) to schwa

Spellings: Most frequent: door/four/more

MOST FREQUENT THIS DIPHTHONG IS SUBSTITUTED BY THE LONG (O) VOWEL /    / AND IT SIS THEREFORE NOT INCLUDE WITHING THE GROUP OF ENGLISH DIPHTHONGS

 

2.3       CONSONANTS

A '''consonant''' is a sound in spoken language (or a letter of the alphabet denoting such a sound) that has no sounding voice (vocal sound) of its own, but must rely on a nearby vowel with which (''con'' = Spanish language for "with") it can sound (''sonant'').  Some consonants can function like vowels (in that they occasionally occupy the nucleus of the syllable), like Czech [r] in ''krk'' 'neck' or English [m] in (disyllabic) ''prism''.  The sounds [j] as in English ''yoke'' and [w] as in English ''woman'' are sometimes called Semivowel|semivowels, because although they function as consonants in some languages (e.g. English or Latin), phonetically they are vowel-like, or to be more exact, are very short realizations of [i] and [u] respectively.

Consonant letters in the Latin alphabet are BCDFGHJKLMNPQRSTVWXZ.  The letter Y stands for a consonant in ''yoke'' but for a vowel in ''myth''.

Consonants are distinguished mainly by manner of articulation, place of articulations, and being voiced/voiceless ([g]/[k]). 

Approximants are sounds between consonants and vowels.

Manner of Articulation  

How the air stream is modified by the vocal tract to produce sounds:
 

Oclusives/Stop/Plosives, Fricative, affricate, Lateral/nasal, Semivowel 

Oclusives/Stop/Plosives:

Sounds made by obstructing the airstreams completely in the oral cavity. They are as well called plosives because of the so-called “explosion” it is produced after the release of the airstreams

English sounds: p/b, t/d, k/g:  pet/bet  tart/dart  coat/goal

Similarities/differences Spanish system: Apparently there is a direct relationship between English stops/occlusive/plosives and Spanish ones but these similarities are only in appearance. Truth is quite opposite:

Spanish voiced plosives turn in Fricatives in any position but initial or after “m”-abuelo-

English plosives maintain their difference voiced voiceless in any position

In English we may find plosives consonants at the end of utterance. This never occurs in Spanish –web-; or web page ( in this case the occlusive “b” loses its time of “release” and just takes the occlusion time –stop-

 /p/ In English is always aspirated except after “s”. In Spanish it is never aspirated

Spellings: pin/happy/pneumonia (mude)

/b/ In English it is always occlusive in any position. In Spanish is Fricative in intermediate position.

In initial position the “b” is very close to “p” occlusive but not aspirated

In English the phoneme /b/ represents the grapheme “b”. In Spanish it may represent b/v

Spellings: bit/lobby/climb(mode)

/t/ It is occlusive and alveolar. Remember that in Spanish is occlusive and dental

Spellings: tin/Potter/stopped/castle;listen(mude)

/d/ It is occlusive and alveolar. Remember that in Spanish is occlusive and dental

Spellings: do/ladder/loved

/k/ Quite frequent at final position. Never in Spanish

Spellings: keep/pick/cake/accord

/g/ In English is always plosive. In Spanish it turns to fricative in intermediate position.

Spellings: Girl/egg/sight/light (mude)

  

Fricative: sounds made by forming a nearly complete stoppage of the airstream. English sounds: f/v, / , s/z, /  

Voicedless fricatives are pronounced more energetically than their voiced peers

Fun/van  sun/zoo  think/the  very  shoe/vision  house  

/f/ In English is very similar to Spanish, but in Spanish it never occurs in final position

Spellings: fall/affair/leaf

/v/ In English it is differnt from “b”. It is the same phone in Spanish. Be aware of pronouncing labiodental and fricative and never plosive

Spellings: van/event/give

/ /think: Its grapheme is always “th” but not all “th” graphemes are pronounced /   /. Similar to Spanish zapato

Spellings: think/method/health

/ / the.There is no similar phoneme in Spanish. It occurs as allophoneme of “d”. Students should be careful in initial position –this/that-

Spellings: this/that; brother/bathe/with

/s/ Andalucian students should be aware of pronouncing “s” as a voicedless alveolar fricative and non “ceceo”. Mistakes are often as well when occurring in final position

Spellings: simple/Sunday/Spain/pencil/cats

/z/ There is no similar phoneme in Spanish. We may find it as an allophoneme in –mismo-

Spellings: zoo/thousand/husband/rose/hands/puzzle

/ / shoe. With “s” and “z” they conform the group of silbant sounds. It is a new phoneme for Spanish speaker that they confuse it and assimilate it to the CH- and s- sounds.

Spellings: ship/shoe/shop/bishop/spacial/position/dish/cash

/  / vision. There is no similar phoneme in Spanish.

Spellings: gigolo/vision/usually/measure/decision/rouge/prestige

/r/ run. Slight vibration of vocal cords – not “perro” but “pero”. When occurring in final position after vowel, the “r” enlenghthen the last vowel –car -

Spellings: garden/rock/mirror/sorry/-a poor old man-try

/h/ In Spanish it is always mude. In English is aspirated.

Spellings: house/behave/who/whose/hour-honest(mude9: night (mude)  

  

Affricate: sound made by briefly stopping the airstream completely and then releasing the articulators slightly so that friction is produced (the combination of stop and fricative). There is a soft passing from stop to release phase.

Two sounds in English: / / church- /tʃ3ːtʃ / John

/ / ship. Very similar to Spanish –ch- chaval. Bur remember that English one is palato-alveolar and its place of pronunciation is closer to the front than Spanish one that is palatal

Spellings: church/chicken/picture/match/coach

/  /John.Very similar to Spanish –conyuge-Be aware when pronouncing at the end.

Spellings: John/jug/danger/suggest/bridge/orange

Nasal 

Nasal: when the velum is lowered, the air stream can escape out through the nasal cavity. Three sounds in English: [m][n] [ ] man/no/song

/m/ In English is very similar to Spanish. Some problems may occur when pronounced in final position. Avoid pronouncing a “n” sound

Spellings: make/mood/summer/lemon/game/seem

/n/ It has different allophonemes: anthem –interdental- in Malta; think /guttural n/

Spellings: nurse/near/snob/annoy/wonder/melon/oven/listen/

/ / song. Similar to –manga- tanque-

Spellings: song/punk/single/ringing/stronger/finger/think/sunk/donkey

Lateral

Air stream is released through lateral sides of the mouth. Vocal cords vibration 

[l]: resting the tongue on the alveolar ridge with the airstream escaping around the sides of the tongue. Spelling: lip/lot/really/colour/feel/spell

Very similar to Spanish “l”. Just the allophoneme –milk-

Semivowels
 

Glide: made with only a slight closure of the articulators close to vowels if the vocal tract were any more open. English sounds: wind/you [w][j] 

/  / pupil . Departure point –pronunciation of vowel /i/ and- then going through the next vowel. It creates a flase diphthong –pupil-Similar to Spanish -hielo- 

 Spellings: yes/young/year/you/university/tune/few/new/feud/europe/beauty/

/   / wool. Departure point – pronunciation of vowel /u/ an then going through the next vowel. There is nos similar phoneme in Spanish, but as an allophoneme in diphthongs –huevo-.

It may occur preceding long /u:/.Students should round their lips slightly more but without a total stop.-wool-

Spellings: wet/wait/when/where/queen/language/one/once/choir/write –(mude)

            Twice/quite/twelve

Place of articulation

How the different articulatory organs place themselves within the mouth or which ones are in use?

Bilabial 

Sounds made by bringing both lips closer together. 

English sounds: [p] [b] [m] [w] [ ] as in  pa, bat, mat, with, (where) 

Your examples?

Labiodental 

made with the lower lip against the upper front teeth. 

English sounds: [f] and [v] as in fat and vat

Your examples? 

(Inter)Dental 

made with the tip of the tongue between the front teeth.  

Think about how YOU say “think” and “the”.

Alveolar 

sounds made with the tongue tip at or near the alveolar ridge

English sounds: [t] [d] [s] [z] [n] [l] as in tab, dab, sip, zip, noose, loose,

Post-alveolar

/r/

Palato-Alveolar
 

Sounds made with the tongue near the hard palate (hard part of the roof of the mouth) (these sounds often called past-alvelor or palato-alvelor sounds because they are made in the area between the alvelor ridge and the hard palate) 

English sounds: shoe/vision/curch/john

Palatal 

Contact between the front of the tongue and the hard palate.

[j] 

Velar 

Sounds made with the tongue near the velum.  

English sounds:  [k] [g] [ ] as in kill, gill, sing.

Glottal 

Remember the space between the vocal cords is glottis.

English has one glottal sound [h]

Voiced vs. Voiceless 
The space between the cords when they are open is known as the glottis.The vocal cords can be relaxed so that the flow of air coming up from the lungs passes through freely (voiceless) or held close together so that they vibrate as air passes through (voiced). Check this difference with your Adam's apple.

Voicedless: p,t,k,f,-think-,s,h,-shoe-church

Voiced: b,d,g,v,-the-,z,r,-vision-john-l,m,n,-song-,j,w

Vowels are voiced in English

It is important to distinguish between voiced VERSUS voicedless in terms of pronouncing regular past and plurals.

Like-d   /t/                              cat-s   /s/

Live-d   /d/                             dog-s  /z/

Permit- d   /id/                        house-s /iz/

Nasal VERSUS Oral

Nasal vs. oral sounds: The velum functions as the guide of air either to the oral or the nasal cavity.

Consonants vs. vowels: In producing consonants, the flow of breath is temporarily obstructed or blocked. Vowels are produced with a relatively free outward flow of breath. All vowels are orals in English.

3        SUPRASEGMENTAL FEATURES

      We may talk about phonetic features as they apply to single phonetic segments, or phones.  Phonetic features can also apply to a string of several sounds, such as a syllable, or an entire word or utterance. The study of phonological features which apply to groups larger than the single segment, such as the syllable or the word, are known as suprasegmental features. The study of these features is known as prosody.

suprasegmental features: Main ones:length, pitch, tone, stress

                                               Other ones: Pause; voice quality  

The most obvious prosodic feature in language is the syllable. Let's briefly discuss the notion of syllables. 

Length 

Length is a phonological term while “duration” is  a phonetic term used to describe the time parameter in speech

Stress 

Stress is a property of syllables: an increase in the respiratory muscles and in the activity of the laryngeal muscles . Word Stress and Sentence

contraDICtion/Update/examiNAtion/Export/exPort

I THOUGHT you would eat it (you have eaten it)

I thought you would EAT it (you have not eaten it)

Functions 

to indicate the categorial information

noun verb distinction

    Ex) an insult vs.  to insult, an overflow vs. to overflow, a record vs. to record, etc.

b. noun adjective distinction

    Ex) blackboard  vs. black board, white house vs.  White House 

3.1       WORD STRESS: WEAK VERSUS STRONG VOWELS

English words can be stressed on any syllable. The short and long vowels and diphthongs we have revised so far are called STRONG vowels, occurring in stressed syllables. In unstressed syllables we usually (not always) find weak vowels. The process of stress/unstressed syllables within a word and the process of sentence stress and sentence unstressed is called GRADATION.

3.2       SENTENCE STRESS: WEAK FORMS

In English stresses occur at fairly regular intervals, no matter how many unstressed syllables there are between them. We say that stress in English is ISCOCHRONIC. So that to occur we need to divide isolated utterances (words) between those ones which have a strong and a wek form and those one which only possess a strong form. The process of stress/unstressed syllables within a word and the process of sentence stress and sentence unstressed is called GRADATION. Within a sentence level of production students need to determine which ones –taking into account the context and the semantics of the word, are going to be stressed and which ones not.

Words that change their strong vowel to schwa and therefore become WEAK FORMS

Prepositions: at, for, from, of ,to

Aux verbs: am: are;can;do; does; had,has,must,shall,should,was,were,will,would

Adverbs; conjunctions; articles: a,an,the,as,but,that,that

Pronouns: her, them,us,you,your

Words which change to /i/

He,be,him,she,we

H-dropping: had;have,her,him,he,his. Except at the beginning of utterance

Words that do not change into a weak form: Lexical words (active verbs, adverbs, adjectives, nouns)

How to assign sentence stress

Lexical words: nominal clause: nouns, adjective –depending on the nominal clause-

                        Adjective clause: adjectives

Adverbial clause: adverbs

Predicate: (lexical verbs: of action, thought, feeling..etc)

3.3       RHYTHM:

Languages with an ISOCHRONIC sentence stress are said to be Stressed-timed. In contrast Spanish is syllable timed. The more syllables in a word, the longer time they take to pronounce. We also say that in English the stressed syllables all have strong vowels, while the weak syllables are likely to have weak vowels

We have seen that the vowels in unstressed syllables can suffer reduction usually to /schwa); then to /i/ and rarely to /u/. But in connected speech because of English rhythm –time stressed rhythm- short structural words are often completely unstressed:

1,2,3,4,5

1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5

1 and then 2 and then 3 and then 4....

1 and then a 2 and then a 3.......

WE CALL THIS WEAK FORMS

Structural words which do not have weak forms:

Negatives are always strong /not/

How,if,in,on,off,then,they,up,what,when,where

3.4       PITCH /INTONATION

Pitch changes because of variations in laryngeal activity (the tension of the vocal cords): if the vocal cords are stretched, the pitch of the sound will go up. In English, we call it “Intonation”

Intonation

If pitch varies over an entire phrase or sentence, we call the different pitch curves by the term intonation.  Intonation conveys the speaker's attitude or feelings.  In other words, intonation has a deictic function in discourse: questions; or a connotative function:  anger, sarcasm, or various emotions.  Intonation can also convey purely syntactic information, as when it marks where a sentence ends.

Intonation types

Falling

Rising

Rising/falling:

Pause

Presence or absence of pause can provide grammatical information which can help listeners decode meaning: Two types: breathing pause and syntactic pause.

Breathing pause: Any pause that comes after a meaningful clause –nominal/verbal -. It differs from speaker to speaker depending on its fluency.

Syntactic pause: it si marked by syntactic marks: pause, comma, parenthesis.....

Syllable juncture: Segments which could be attached to one of two syllables: linkages

Ex. Look out/ I got it – Direct objects related to transitive verbs; prepositions to verbs; articles related nouns/ adjectives and nouns/ adverbials and verbs....

4          SPECIFIC TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR TEACHING ENGLISH PRONOUNCIATION

Recently as English teaching has moved to language functions, and communicative competencies, a new urgency for the teaching of pronunciation has arisen (Celce-Murcia, 1987; Morley, 1994; Gilbert, 1994). When speaking English, with very little or poorly trained pronunciation skills, they have problems either making themselves understood or understanding others.

 For teaching and working with pronounciation we have to distinguish among:

a) Auditory phonetics: deals with the perception and discrimination of sounds and phonetic elements by the students

b) Articulatory phonetics: Provides techniques to help the students to pronounce and produce English sounds, words, sentences and texts. Some types of these activities are presented in section

c) a Plural Aural-Articulatory Approach

4.1       PRONOUNCIATION: PERCEPTION AND EAR TRAINING ACTIVITIES IN AUDITORY PHONETICS

Discrimination of sounds:

 Minimal pairs: sit / seat

As well we have to bear in mind: the problem of dropping final consonants while students are speaking. In Spanish, there is no CVC structure ( consonant + vowel + consonant); consonants would never appear at the end of the word. This is quite different from English. Influenced by Spanish, students omit final consonants while speaking and this result in semantic misunderstanding with each other

Choosing the right sound

Game “One or two”

Marking the right sound

Tick or write the symbol

Grouping similar sounds

Pronounciation BINGO

Listen and read

Discriminating stress and intonation

Listen and pronounce (stress/rhythm)

Listen and repeat (Intonation)

Listen and write (Intonation)

Rhymes. To avoid boring students with continuous practicing and drills, use rhymes with a regular beat and the same vowel sound. This will lead students to master the target sound unconsciously. For example, we take /e / sound into rhymes. Ask students to snap their fingers, clap, or tap on the desks to keep the beat and read aloud the rhyme:

                Pretty birds don't fly away

                Stay with me all the day

                You can sing while I play

                So, pretty birds don't fly away

                (Tay, 1986, p.28)

Tongue twisters. Tongue twisters are also an interesting way to practice and contrast similar sounds and have fun at the same time. But there is a huge challenge for the teacher and students to do it well. Teachers should tell students at first not to feel upset at making mistakes because even for native speakers, it is difficult. Examples for practicing / e / , /  / and /æ / are below:

             Henry, age eight, etched the letter h on the edge of the desk.

Role play. A brief role play puts students into a realistic and communicative situation and will allow the sounds to be spoken more naturally and necessarily

Song lyrics. Teachers can ask students to read some popular song lyrics aloud to practice final consonants. In our classes, students omit final consonants often or pronounce them too lightly to be heard. For example, they pronounce student as "studen". Therefore, we ask them to read the marked song lyrics of "Silent Night" in which the final consonants in each sentence have been underlined, and then to listen to the song to notice how the singer produced final consonants.

            Silent night, holy night. All is calm. All is bright.

Numbers. Besides song lyrics, numbers can be a good aid in helping students put final consonants on. For example, teachers can set up some particular numbers to have students practice final consonants.

 
            A: What is your telephone number?

            B: 215-8186.

Rhymes. Apply the rhythm of nursery rhymes to the rhythm of ordinary sentences. The reason for this is that students can easily learn nursery rhymes and catch their rhythm without too much effort. Practicing this way helps them to maintain the rhythm patterns in sentences unconsciously and naturally.
 

HICKory DICKory DOCK The MOUSE ran UP the CLOCK

Jazz chants. A Jazz chant is a fragment of authentic language presented with special attention to its inherent natural rhythm (Graham, 1992). It has a very clear and strong one-two-three-four beat, so it is easy for students to practice the sentence rhythm through Jazz chants. To establish the tempo, students can count out the rhythm by clapping, finger snapping, or tapping on the desk.

Although we will, as teachers, primarily be concerned with listening for contení, there is no doubt that practice in cióse listening to (and production of) specific sound sequences ¡n English is still important, so that what we can cali "ear-training activities" may, then, be helpful. What Rivers and Temperley noted in 1978 is still relevant today (Rivers and Temperley, 1978)

The student must be trained to recognize:

a) recurring sound sequences

b) intonation

c) really significant segments

d) words/morphemes likely to cause confusión

Perhaps the most important of .all listening ear-training activities for the younger learner are those which practise the discrimination of discrete elements of pronunciation: sounds, stress and intonation. We should remember that Oral presentation of new input;  pre-listening activities (exemplifying models, explaining vocabulary, introducing and justifying the activity, etc.) are most important.

4.2       PRONOUNCIATION: PERCEPTION AND EAR TRAINING ACTIVITIES IN ARTICULATORY PHONETICS

Most of the English sounds should be practiced discretely and in variety context, since we know their articulation poses difficulties for most learners. However some articulatory exercises are quite successful when comparing similar graphemes in both languages but quite different in their articulation  such as T or D or B and V in English

Some activities:

Mouth diagram: Traditionally, teachers will model the sounds and then students repeat them or teachers show a facial diagram which allocates various sounds positions in the mouth to enhance correct pronunciation

Elatic bands: some minimal pairs to practice these similar word sounds in sentences to reinforce the pronunciation. One student is speaking the sentence and the other is operating the rubber band according to what he/she heard from the partner

Mirrors. In addition to rubber bands, mirrors are a strong self-correction tool for students to modify or imitate sounds. Teachers can ask students to take out mirrors to do peer-correction or self-correction while approaching some problematic sounds.

Mother tongue. This is an added bonus if students find some way to apply their mother tongue to some English sounds. For example: / i: / sound can be applied to Spanish “hiilo” in an expressive situation. Examples can be found successfully in class or in students' notebooks.

Figures: Stress and Rhythm

 
Their problems with the word rhythm of English are that they often misplace the stress and give each syllable, whether it is stressed or unstressed, the same length; thus, the vowels in the unstressed syllables are not reduced.

Stress

 
        It is important for our students to know the different rhythmic patterns of Chinese and English. The teacher can show them a visual contrast between the two languages to indicate that Chinese is syllable-timed while English is stress-timed.

 A. Stress-Timed Rhythm                                     B. Syllable-Timed Rhythm

               

Word Stress

 
        (1) Visual effects. Emphasize the stressed syllable by using visual effects: thicken, capitalize, underline, circle, or color the stressed syllable. In addition, the teacher can put a dot for unstressed syllables and a line for the stressed one under the word to indicate that the stressed one needs to be lengthened; or he can put a small dot for unstressed syllables and a big dot for the stressed one under the word to indicate that the stressed one has a stronger beat. Using visual effects can help students notice the place of stress in each word and avoid misusing word stress.

 Examples: today toDAY today today today today

Tapping, clapping, or playing simple rhythm instruments. Give a strong beat to the stressed syllable and weak beats to the others by clapping, tapping on the desk, or playing simple rhythm instruments like tambourines or toy hammers. It helps students to be aware that unstressed syllables have weak beats and so their vowels need to be reduced.

Stress matching game. Have students work in groups. One member in the group taps or claps the rhythm of a word from the vocabulary list, and the others have to find out which word has the same rhythm as they hear.
 
            Examples:     artist     manager     secretary     musician

                                politician     cashier     photographer

Finding content words. First, introduce the basic emphasis pattern of English to students to let them know that content words are usually emphasized.

 The basic emphasis pattern of English :
 

Content Words  (emphasized)	nouns  (cat)	main verbs  (runs)	adverbs  (quickly)	adjectives  (happy)
question words
(who, what, where, when, why, how)
Structure Words  (de-emphasized)	pronouns  (he, she)	prepositions  (of, to, at)	articles  (a, an, the)	“to be” verbs  (is, was)
conjunctions auxiliary verbs  (and, but) (can, have, do, will)

(Gilbert, 1993, p.72)

                  Then, have students circle or underline content words in a sentence and give these words extra emphasis when speaking the sentence. At the same time, students can tap, clap, or play simple rhythm instruments to produce strong and weak beats in the sentence.

 Example: He wants to be an actor, and he wants to live in Hollywood.

       

Linking

          One of the essential characteristics of spoken English is that the words in a thought group are linked together (Gilbert, 1993). Mortimer (1977) also talked about the importance of linking: to pronounce English fluently, it is necessary to link words together as a native speaker of English normally does. Spanish students often fail to do this because they pronounce one word at a time in English just as they do when speaking Spanish. Therefore, linking needs to be taught in order to help students to speak English more fluently as well as to improve their comprehension of English native speakers’ normal speech. Following are some teaching techniques.

Curved lines. Use the curved line “ ” between the last and first letters to indicate they need to be linked together. It provides a visual image to remind students of linking words.

4.3       PRONOUNCIATION: A PLURAL AURAL-ARTICULATORY APPROACH:

Approaching to the question of teaching pronounciation in Primary is a difficult and complex matter. Firstly because of the double Acquisition/learning processes that take place in the same stage. Therefore conscious and uncounscious learning do take place. It is not the same therefore encouraging pronounciation to a 7 years old child than to a 11 years old one. As a genearl rule language should show up in contextualized communicative events and we should try as much as possible divert attention from phonetics to varied task. Highlighting Auditory or Articulatory phonetics will depend therefore very much on the age of students and to the new input to be introduced. Sometimes we may decide to emphasize and auditory method for instance to show difference in length in vowels but others we may need to emphasize aural phonetics to work on rhythm or sentence stress for instance. Teacher departing from a concrete classroom reality should decide a plural aural-articulatory method of encouraging phonetics with no fear on mising techniques or activities from both systems suggested

5.         COMPARISON WITH THE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEMS OF STANDARD SPANISH

Most of the major languages of the national languages of the world have a STANDARD dialect, which most people consider to be the "correct" way of writing and speaking. When we talk of English, Spanish, French, Russian or Vietnamese, we are usually referring to Standard English, Standard French, Standard Russian and Standard Vietnamese. The standard dialect of any language is the one, which is written, taught in schools, and has a generally higher prestige than other dialects. For comparative purposes and following the title indications we will compare The English phonological system with standard Spanish in our region.

• Some vowel phonemes do not act as phonemes in Spanish. Sometimes we may find an allophoneme in Spanish which becomes closer than the natural phoneme –but not exactly the same -. When possible this have been discussed when describing vowels earlier in this essay. Examples: cup /   /; god; cat; sit. Do not act as phoneme in Spanish. However seat /  / do act as allophoneme in the Spanish word (hilo)

• Spanish vowels tend to be shorter than English peers

• Spanish speakers tend to short English long vowels and long English short vowels

• Spanish students tend o introduce an inexistent /e/ vowels before silbant phonemes when appearing at the beginning of utterance: e-Spain

• Spanish speakers tend to stress the (r/ sound instead of elongating the preceding vowel when appearing: car

• English short /o/ tend to be pronounced with rounded lips and medium to narrow opening jaws instead than wide opening narrow and slightly rounded lips

• Spanish speakers tend to pronounce just strong forms and do not pronounce weak vowel /schwa/. Therefore their time stressed rhythm becomes syllable stressed and natural speech is confusing.
• Assimilation process: Spanish speakers tend to assimilate English phonemes to those close ones to their Spanish phonological system. This assimilation process provokes that Spanish speakers do produce with equal manner of articulation and place of articulation phonemes that do look graphically the same but phonetically are pronounced quite different: for example /t/d/ , these phoneme are oclusives in both languages- with slightly differences- but in Spanish they interdental and in English alveolar ones. Spanish speakers however because of this process of assimilation produce both of them Oclusives+interdental and therefore the quality and sonority of these two prominent consonants vary. Other examples: p/b/v/k/g/h/j/r/s/z/…etc

·         Syllable juncture: Segments which could be attached to one of two syllables: linkages Ex. Look out/ I got it – Direct objects related to transitive verbs; prepositions to verbs; articles related nouns/ adjectives and nouns/ adverbials and verbs....

6.         CONCLUSIONS

Teaching English to Spanish pupils, the teacher must first be well acquainted with both phonological systems and know where the difference lie. It is essential that he should also be able to point these differences out to the pupil in a clear way. He must draw attention to those sounds, which exist, in Spanish and not in English and vice versa. The English vowel system frequently causes difficulty to Spanish students accustomed to only five main vowels instead of twelve as in English. Pupils must be taught to give correct values to the English vowels and to avoid pronouncing them like the Spanish vowels they resemble orthographically. We should avoid assimilation processes as much as possible where all CUT CUP CAT phonemes become assimilated to a single Spanish /a/

7.         BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cenoz, J. and García Lecumberri, M.L. (in press) The effect of training on the discrimination of English vowels. International Review of Applied Linguistics.

Chryshochoos, N. (1991) Learners' awareness of their learning. In C. James & P. Garret, Language awareness in the classroom. London: Longman.

Flege, J.E. (1987) A critical period for learning to pronounce foreign languages? Applied Linguistics 8: 162-177.

Flege, J.E. and Eefting, W. (1987) Production and perception of English stops by native Spanish speakers. Journal of Phonetics 15: 67-83.

Flege, J.E. & Bohn, O.S. (1989) An instrumental study of vowel reduction and stress placement in Spanish-accented English. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11: 35-62.

Flege, J.E.; Munro, M.J. and Fox, R.A. (1994) Auditory and categorical effects on cross-language vowel perception. Journal of the Acoustic Society of America 95: 3623-3641.

Fox, R.; Flege, J.E. and Munro, M.J. (1995) The perception of English and Spanish vowels by native English and Spanish listeners: a multidimensional scaling analysis. Journal of the Acoustic Society of America 97: 2540-2551.

Hyde, M. (1994) The importance of language awareness in the phonology component of a teacher training programme. Language Awareness 3: 141-150.

Neufeld, G.G. and Schneiderman, E.I. (1980) Prosodic and articulatory features in adult language learning. In R. Scarcella and S. Krashen, Research in second language acquisition. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House. 105-109.

Nunan, D. (1988) Learner-centered curriculum design. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Purcell, E.T. and Suter, R.W. (1980) Predictors of pronunciation accuracy: A reexamination. Language Learning 30: 271-287.

Sanchez Benedito, Francisco (1995): Pronunciación Inglesa comparada con la española. Alhambra Longman.

Schneiderman, E.; Bourdages, J. and Champagne, C. (1988) Second-language accent: the relationship between discrimination and perception in acquisition. Language Learning 38: 1-19.

Stevick, E. (1982) Teaching and learning languages. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Suter, R.W. (1976) Predictors of pronunciation accuracy in second language learning. Language Learning 26: 233-253.

Thompson, I. (1991) Foreign accents revisited: the English pronunciation of Russian immigrants. Language Learning 41: 177-204.

Wenden, A. (1986) What do second language learners know about their language learning? A second look at retrospective accounts. Applied Linguistics 7: 186-201.