Free interactive English pronunciation chart

Do check out this wonderful free resource: http://www.onestopenglish.com/skills/pronunciation/phonemic-chart-and-app/

Stress Timing In Spoken English

Stress Timing in Spoken English

Saying every word clearly leads to poor spoken English!
Good speech comes from stressing the right words - this is because English is a time-stressed language. This may be very different to your first language!

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Here's How: 

Spoken English focuses on specific stressed words while moving quickly over the other, non-stressed, words. 

Stressed words are usually important information words: Nouns e.g. kitchen, Peter, verbs e.g. visit, stand, adjectives e.g. beautiful, interesting,adverbs e.g. often, carefully 

Non-stressed words are usually grammar words: e.g. the, a, am, were. before, of, but, they, she 

Read the following sentence aloud: The beautiful mountain stood alone in the distance. 

Read the following sentence aloud: He can come on Sunday if he doesn't have to do any homework in the evening. 

Even though the second sentence is approximately 30% longer than the first, the sentences take the same time to speak. This is because there are 5 stressed words in each sentence. 

Stressed words are spoken with a higher pitch and more slowly than non-stressed words. 

The vowel sounds in non-stressed words often change to /”shwa” /. Listen to the vowel sound in “can” in “He can come on Sunday ...”. Compare the vowel sound in “man” with “postman”.

When listening to native speakers, focus on how those speakers stress certain words and begin to copy this.

IELTS Academic Writing

The IELTS Academic Writing module measures your ability to write in clear, formal English, as is generally demanded in an academic study context. (There are two writing tests – Academic & General Training) You are assessed according to the following criteria:

    Task Response - how accurately you address the task

    Coherence and Cohesion - how organized your writing is

    Lexical Resource - the accuracy and range of your vocabulary

    Grammatical Range and Accuracy - the accuracy and range of your grammar

You have one hour to complete two writing tasks. It is recommended that you divide your time in this way:

    Task 1 – 150 words – 20 minutes

    Task 2 – 250 words – 40 minutes

IELTS ACADEMIC WRITING - TASK 1

In the first task, you must write a report based on pictorial information. This means you may need to describe a graph, chart, or diagram. It may be a bar chart, pie chart, line graph, or some other graphic representation. You might be asked to describe the process illustrated by a diagram. This involves describing the data, noting all key features, supporting main points with relevant information and pointing out the main trends. 

To understand how to answer this type of task, it helps to read through the model answers provided in IELTS guidebooks. 

IELTS ACADEMIC WRITING - TASK 2

In this task, you need to write an academic style essay on the single topic given. You may need to offer a solution to a problem, express an opinion or comment on ideas or arguments presented.

Your essay should be about four or five paragraphs in length, with an introduction, body and conclusion. It should not be a list of bullet points, but a properly organized essay, written in full sentences. You need to state your thesis, provide evidence or reasons to support your argument and write a strong conclusion. Use topic sentences to clearly identify the main theme in each paragraph.

Official IELTS website from which test information and practice materials are available: http://www.ielts.org/default.aspx

Intonation

Improving sentence intonation is one of the key elements in your English pronunciation.  The four basic types of word stress that lead to proper intonation in English are:

    * tonic stress

    * emphatic stress

    * contrastive stress

    * new information stress

Tonic Stress

Tonic stress refers to the syllable in a word which receives the most stress in an intonation unit. An intonation unit has one tonic stress. It's important to remember that a sentence can have more than one intonation unit, and therefore have more than one tonic stress. Here are some examples of intonation units with the tonic stress bolded.

He's waiting

He's waiting / for his friend

He's waiting / for his friend / at the station.

Generally, the final tonic stress in a sentence receives the most stress. In the above example, 'station' receives the strongest stress.

There are a number of instances in which the stress changes from this standard. Here are short explanations for each of the changes with example sentences to illustrate.

Emphatic Stress

If you decide to emphasize something, you can change the stress from the principal noun to another content word such as an adjective (big, difficult, etc.), intensifier (very, extremely, etc.) This emphasis calls attention to the extraordinary nature of what you want to emphasize.

For example:

That was a difficult test. - Standard statement

That was a difficult test. - Emphasizes how difficult the test was

There are a number of adverbs and modifiers which tend to be used to emphasize in sentences that receive emphatic stress.

extremely

terribly

completely

utterly

especially

etc.

Contrastive Stress

Contrastive stress is used to point out the difference between one object and another. Contrastive stress tends to be used with determiners such as 'this, that, these and those'.

For example:

I think I prefer this color.

Do you want these or those curtains?

Contrastive stress is also used to bring out a given word in a sentence which will also slightly change the meaning.

    * He came to the party yesterday. (It was he, not someone else.)

    * He walked to the party yesterday. (He walked rather than drove.)

    * He came to the party yesterday. (It was a party not a meeting or something else.)

    * He came to the party yesterday. (It was yesterday not two weeks ago or some other time.)

New Information Stress

When asked a question, the requested information is naturally stressed more strongly.

For example:

Where are you from? - I come from Seattle, in the USA.

What do you want to do? - I want to go bowling.

When does class begin? - The class begins at nine o'clock.

Use these various types of stress to help improve your pronunciation and understandability.

Try wrapping your mouth around these fun "Tongue Twisters"

PRONUNCIATION PRACTICE : TONGUE TWISTERS

Try reading with a friend – QUICKLY ! Who can read fastest with fewest mistakes ?

“One-one” was a race horse.
”Two-two” was one too.
”One-one” won one race.
”Two-two” won one too.

I saw Susie sitting in a shoe shine shop.
Where she sits she shines, and where she shines she sits.

I thought, I thought of thinking of thanking you.

I wish to wash my Irish wristwatch.

He threw three free throws.

Fresh fried fish,
Fish fresh fried,
Fried fish fresh,
Fish fried fresh.

The great Greek grape growers grow great Greek grapes.

A proper cup of coffee from a proper copper coffee pot.

I bought a bit of baking powder and baked a batch of biscuits. I brought a big basket of biscuits back to the bakery and baked a basket of big biscuits. Then I took the big basket of biscuits and the basket of big biscuits and mixed the big biscuits with the basket of biscuits that was next to the big basket and put a bunch of biscuits from the basket into a biscuit mixer and brought the basket of biscuits and the box of mixed biscuits and the biscuit mixer to the bakery and opened a tin of sardines. -A test for radio announcers: To be read clearly, without mistakes, in less than 20 seconds (from Coronet Magazine, August 1948).

Our cat's opinion of textbooks

 

Well, that's what our cat thinks of textbooks :). What's your view?

Writing Practice

You can practice writing in many ways.

Some people like to keep a Journal or Diary in which they write about whatever they like, whenever they like. Journals are wonderful, private places to express your all your dreams, plans, reactions, observations, fears or anger, successes or happiness ... and they are fascinating to read again after 10 or 20 years! Free writing of this kind helps develop fluency in both writing and speaking, as you practice "thinking in English".

Another great way to practice writing is by starting a blog. Take a look at this interesting blog written by Alsu, a student in Russia: alsu04.wordpress.com . If you start a blog, you can connect with other bloggers and comment on their posts.

You can also take part in online forums on all kinds of topics, join Facebook or Twitter, or use text chat to make friends and exchange ideas with people around the world.

You can have plenty of fun and make valuable connections using English online.

Why it's important to read and listen widely

It is essential to read and listen to English from a wide variety of sources. Of course, it should be standard English as it is used by native speakers.

Why is this important?

If you wish to achieve a high level of spoken and written English, you need to expose yourself to a wide range of grammatical structures and vocabulary. You need to look beyond textbooks, which provide only limited language "input".

You also need to see how native speakers use structures and vocabulary, especially less commonly used words and idiomatic usage. These are best understood and illustrated in authentic language contexts.

Mantras for Relaxation and Meditation

Some people like to use mantras to relax and meditate. Even if you don't wish to learn to meditate, you will probably find that watching and listening to one of these short videos before you start a study session will help you to relax, re-energise and focus.

Top 10 Little Mantras. With videos + lyrics.

Go to: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/07/top-10-little-mantras-with-videos--lyrics/ for the short videos.