5. A Review of an Online Resource "Pronunciation Tips"

“Pronunciation Tips” by BBC Learning English offers a variety of resources, including videos, quizzes, activities and downloads. It is appropriate for everyone who likes to learn about and enhance English pronunciation. The URL for the Pronunciation Tips is http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/. Interestingly, Pronunciation Tips provides a series of videos presenting pronunciation of each sound represented by a particular phonetic symbol with example words in which the sound exists and the difference between a long and short sound. Also, it gives the audio recordings of the words for learners to practice differentiating the contrast in the two sounds different in length. Teachers may use this function in demonstrating that the same sound can occur from different spellings. What is more, it supplies interactive and downloadable exercises on other features of English pronunciation, including sounds and spelling, schwa, connected speech and voicing together with the explanation in detail. Teachers can print these exercises and hand them out to the students for them to increase their understanding of these elements of pronunciation. The answers for these exercises are given. There are five quizzes about sound symbols, similar sounds, spelling, pronunciation and listening for sounds from easy to medium level. The quizzes are printable and the recordings for the print version of the quiz are downloadable.

4. A Review of an Online Resource "Rachel's English"

Rachel’s English is a website comprising a series of video recordings presenting pronunciation of American English sounds. It is appropriate for everyone who likes to improve American English pronunciation. Through the video recordings giving credible, detailed explanation by a native speaker of American English, TESOL teachers, especially non-native English teachers, can learn not just how each sound is created but also how to explain the sound production to their students. The website is well-designed, so it is easy for the web users to navigate through all sections of the website. There are a series of videos thoroughly explaining the place of articulation of each sound. In such video recordings, as a presenter is pronouncing a particular sound, there are the drawings of the articulatory organs on the presenter’s face to illustrate the anatomy of the mouth together with a description of how the sound is produced and the movement of the articulatory organs. It is highly helpful for teachers to use these videos in teaching their students the place of articulation. The videos teach how to pronounce individual sounds, covering consonants, vowels and diphthongs, accompanied by example words and stressing of the words. A video text or transcript of a video is provided under the selected video.

3. A Review of an Online Resource "Phonetics Focus"

Phonetics Focus created by Cambridge English Online offers a wide range of fun, free phonetics lessons and games specifically designed for all ages. It provides a variety of enjoyable, interactive resources helpful for learning and teaching English pronunciation and the knowledge of phonetics. The website can be accessed via the following link given “http://cambridgeenglishonline.com/Phonetics_Focus/”. With its stylish, innovative design, the website is attractive, showing the icons of the features, through which the users can simply access the interested lessons provided. Every activity has clear instructions. This is a heartily recommended website to English pronunciation teachers, as well as learners, as it presents a more entertaining style of English phonetics learning, including phonemic chart, phonemic chart quiz and many various, creative games. Teachers may embark on using the interactive phonemic chart, showing the active phonetic symbols with audio recordings and example words where a particular sound exists before allowing the students to enter the phonemic chart quiz. After going through the phonemic chart, the students will become familiar with all the phonetic symbols and the English sounds they represent. Then teachers may pick one of the games to reinforce the students’ better understanding of phonetics and sound production. Another interesting function teachers may find useful is “Flashcard Maker”.

2. Critical Evaluation of a CALL Software Package

Issues in English is a very interesting, interactive CALL software application as it allows students to learn English language through eight topical issues concerning animal rights, discrimination, euthanasia, gambling, the environment, smoking, growing old and public transport. The software program has emphasis on assisting students in enhancing their vocabulary, grammar, speaking and writing. The current review will thoroughly discuss the usefulness of such a software package in promoting the development of the speaking and listening skills. A main navigation menu has four different levels of language difficulty from the fundamental to advanced level, one of which student can select. Getting started to learn English through the program is simply straightforward by selecting the level and moving the cursor onto an icon representing an issue. The pronunciation of each issue is automatically activated as soon as the cursor is moved onto its icon. Each issue is presented in a video clip in which a person shown only his or her face in the video shares a story related to the issue. Every issue has the option ‘Getting started’ that provides students with comprehension questions, clozes, spelling drills and dictation which I find very challenging but absolutely useful. By doing dictation exercises, students can practice listening, spelling and writing. Students can choose to watch a video with or without a script, in which some words can be activated to show their definitions. Some words show their meanings by photos representing their meanings. Students can listen to the recordings of all the sentences in the script. It always has a help icon and clear instructions for the exercises.

In the speaking exercises at all levels of Issues in English, students can record their pronunciation of words and sentences and compare it with the recordings of native pronunciation of English. Learning pronunciation by listening to and imitating the pronunciation of native English speakers is an effective way of improving pronunciation. In the listening exercises available in only the first and second level, there are two types of exercises. One is matching spoken and written words. The other is matching a picture and spoken sentence. Listening exercises are interesting and impressive as the software program will give an immediate encouraging response to the answer.

All in all, Issues in English Version 1, I find it productive and useful for English language development, especially speaking and listening skills as it provides pronunciation of words and words in contexts. It is suitable for self-learning and classroom practice. Teachers can use the topics in Issues in English to encourage conversation and discussion in the classroom. Its strength lies in presenting English language in contexts. Its weakness lies in the way all videos are presented is the same. Different ways of video presentation will help promote students’ interest.

1. A Review of a Coursebook

English Pronunciation in Use Advanced by Martin Hewings (2007) is appropriate for advanced learners of English. It is cleverly designed to fit into self-study and classroom use as it is well-organized and has the lessons which promote step-by-step English pronunciation development. It is suitable for classroom use and highly helpful for effective pronunciation instruction. It starts with a good warm-up for the latter part of the book by introducing learners to accents in different varieties of English, how to make use of dictionaries and online resources to improve English pronunciation and how slow and fast speech are different. Having a sound start with segmentals, the following section deals with pronunciation in words and phrases, including consonant clusters, stressed and unstressed syllables and pronunciation of foreign words. The third section is about pronunciation at conversation level, including how intonation leads to meaning, features of connected speech and use of thought groups to organize information in conversation. In the forth section of the book, pronunciation in formal settings, such as making effective business or conference presentations, is provided. Its supplementary section provides fun, creative exercises to allow students to further practice phonemic symbols, consonant clusters and word stress. Also, it gives a further reading list and a glossary of technical terms I find very useful.

The book comprises 60 units, each of which has two pages. The left-hand pages give explanations and examples of key pronunciation features and the right-hand pages provide a range of enjoyable, various practice exercises. All the examples and exercises are recorded and available on the accompanying, five, audio CDs. As students have many opportunities to listen to the authentic recordings with not just a British accent used as a clear model for students to listen and repeat but also different accents of English, they are able to improve not only their pronunciation but also listening skill. The phonemic symbols students of pronunciation should know are provided. However, as example words are given or found on the recording, students will feel comfortable when they encounter phonetic symbols.

All in all, English Pronunciation in Use Advanced is a thoroughly good book from start to finish. Its strengths lie in teachable, various, inventive practice exercises with authentic recordings embracing the essential pronunciation features, especially suprasegmentals students need to know for intelligible communication. Additionally, it has efficient, smooth organization that makes the book easily accessible and clear activity instructions. Its weakness lies in rather few illustrations which will help promote students’ interest.

Reference: Hewings, M 2007, English Pronunciation in Use Advanced, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Reviews: A Software Application "Tense Buster"

"Tense Buster" is a interactive CALL software package. It is reasonably easy to start using and navigating through. We evaluated the lower intermediate level. We found that although the software offered immediate feedback to tasks, the tasks themselves failed to make full use of multimedia modes, such as sound and video. Further, the readability of the feedback was too formal. Overall, this package provides a means of learning for students. However, in our opinion, it offers little more than a comparable textbook would. Alternative software packages that address the same learning areas are much more engaging. For this reason, we fail this particular software package.

Pop Panupan Sookyoy, Akio Hibino, Esra Nelvi, Nicholas Nicolaou, Brian Marthick*

* Brian held significantly different views and those views may be viewed at his personal Blog site.

Reviews: "Who Is Oscar Lake?"

Who Is Oscar Lake? is a software that enhances your communicative English language skills, including vocabulary, listening and reading through a puzzling mystery that you are challenged to solve in a story.