More PronPack in class today. I’m just making a quick note of a follow-up activity I did – worked well. I used ‘Stress Jigsaw’, a cool activity for raising awareness of contrastive stress. It involves matching questions with the correct… Read More ›

pronunciation
Using PronPack
I’ve been using PronPack a bit in class recently. I was going to review it, but I think it’s more interesting to write about how I’m using it instead. I’ve just taught my teen classes the phonemic chart and we’ve… Read More ›
Lesson idea: Kahoot! for word stress
Just a quick idea for using Kahoot! here. I found I was using it for the same purposes – grammar meaning/form checking, gap fills, consolidation at end of lesson, etc. I wanted to branch out. Turns out it works well… Read More ›
Correcting pronunciation errors from Thai speakers of English
There are plenty of posts online explaining typical pronunciation errors from Thai speakers of English. Most seem accurate, and are a good starting point if you don’t have a copy of Swan’s Learner English to hand.
General ideas for teaching pronunciation
(This is a follow-up to my post on phonology-based activities. I’m sharing it now because some of our teachers are about to begin training for the Trinity DipTESOL. Phonology/pronunciation features quite a bit on that course, so I want to… Read More ›
Teaching pronunciation: contractions
Contractions often come up as a pronunciation point in our Elementary level lessons. My students don’t have much trouble with ‘I am’ becoming ‘I’m’, but contractions with ‘you are’, ‘we are’, etc seem a bit harder to produce. I feel… Read More ›
Word stress – footballs and sticky balls
I like teaching word stress. I have various ‘go to’ activities for noticing and practising word stress – stuff like this: Using Cuisenaire rods Humming the stress pattern Fist pumping when you say the stressed syllable Building vocab based on… Read More ›