Tips for

Pronunciation
Practice
 Contents
• Introduction
• Tips
1. Record yourself
2. Be aware of how your mouth
moves
3. Break down into syllables
4. Flowing speech
5. Online Videos
6. Apps
7. Games
8. Self-assessment
• Final thoughts
 Introduction
• This guide was put together to help you practice
your pronunciation skills outside the classroom.

How to use these tools?

• You can either pick one of the tips or try all of them.
Follow the instructions and make sure you use the
questions at the end of this presentation to reflect on
the outcomes.
 Record yourself
• Listening to yourself can prove to be a good way of
analyzing your speech, and identifying possible
issues to help you improve.
Using your cell phone, record yourself reading a text from the
book, or from a website.

Tip! Try to find a text

that has audio, so you can
compare your recording
with the original one.
 Record yourself
• Listen to your speech and answer the following
questions:
What do you notice about your speech?
Where do you pause or hesitate?
Is there any word or sound that is difficult for you to produce?
How are your recordings different from one another?
 Be aware of how your mouth moves
• How you move your mouth and lips affects how you
pronounce a word. This is why, it is important to be
familiar with what goes on in your mouth.
1. Use a mirror: This way you can check if your lips are making
the correct shape.
2. Put a finger in front of your lips and don’t move it: As you
speak, you should feel your lips moving away or against your
finger.
 Tip! Become
familiar with the
different organs
involved by working
with a diagram of
the articulators.
 Break down into Syllables
• Turning words into parts can make them easier to
pronounce and to locate the stressed syllable.
To identify a syllable, try looking for vowel sounds which behave
as the core (nucleus) of the syllable.

(Or go to: http://www.howmanysyllables.com/ )

 Flowing Speech
After mastering the individual sounds, you have to start
thinking about putting sounds and words together
naturally. To do this you can…

1. Stress the content words (most of the time)

Tip! To work with stress,

use a rubber band to help
you visualize the pattern.
Stretch it longer for every
stressed word in a sentence.
 Flowing Speech
2. Pay attention to the rhythm.

3. Use the appropriate intonation to match the intention of

your message.

Tip! To work with

rhythm, try
clapping or tapping
whenever you
encounter a
stressed word.
 Online videos
• Online videos can help you identify intonation patterns and serve
as instructional material, since they provide good models for you
to follow.
For this course, we have selected a list you can visit to practice.
Go to your Virtual Assistant (Chamilo) and click on “Links”.
Then, use the “Guidelines for Links” presentation for activities .
 Cell phone Apps
• To know about phonetic symbols proves very helpful
when checking dictionaries for pronunciation.
• It is a useful tool even when a word is unfamiliar.
Download pronunciation apps onto your cell phone.
Our recommendation is: SOUNDS – The Pronunciation App
 Games
• If you need further support, these games address
different pronunciation issues such as sound
discrimination, phonetic symbol identification, among
others.
IPA Hangman

http://www.academic.muohio.edu/the233/hangman/
Phonetic Pelmanism

http://www.cambridgeenglishonline.com/Phonetics_Focus/
 Self-Assessment
• This will help you identify the items you have got to
work on to improve.
• It will foster your learning autonomy, as well.

Use the Self-Assessment document to track your achievements.

Check the box that best describes your progress for every topic
covered in the course.
The self-assessment sheet looks like this and it is found in
Chamilo
 Final thoughts
• After working with some of these techniques,
answer the following questions:

How did you feel doing the activity?

In what ways has the activity helped you?
Have you noticed any improvements?
What’s the next step?