Pronunciation

(You can find Mark's powerpoint slide show at the foot of this page, and an interview at IATEFL here) (Read a summary here) The concept of English as a Lingua Franca is not new, and research into ELF has

Pronunciation is not only about the mouth, but also the ears. And, with English being a global language, the ears must learn to be flexible in order to make sense of all those varieties of spoken English out there. This session is about helping learners to deal with this variety.

We looked at 8 features of pronunciation which are of particular relevance for Spanish speaking learners of English. These included vowels, spelling of vowels, consonants, consonant clusters, word stress, phrase stress patterns, tonic syllables and connected speech. Each feature was explained, contrasted with Spanish and demonstrated with an example game.