Thursday, November 13, 2008

Reflection 1 "Websites that might help"

I would like to comment about two students, because they both have the same problem: PRONUNCIATION. I will call them B and E.
B and E have almost the same problems in pronunciation, but I think that one is more advanced in terms of use of English than the other. We should consider that they have not been in US for many year. One of them has been here for 1 year and the other one for a couple of months.
B and E have had an excellent progress, considering that they did not know English language, and actually they can get across their ideas, but sometimes it is not clear because of the pronunciation.
The idea is loof for some webpages that could be useful for this students for improving their pronunciation. The things I found on the net are simple, considering their level of English.

http://www.manythings.org/pp/ This is the first page I found, and I think that minimal pairs is one of the best ways for producind sounds correctly. Besides, there are other activities in relation to poems and songs.

http://www.english-online.org.uk/ Despite this webpage is for practicing British English, it provides good exercises not only about listening, also about grammar and other porpuses. What I like most about this webpage, is the fact that there are level (beginners, elementary, intermediate and advanced)

http://www.sunburstmedia.com/PronWeb.html This is a nice webpage, but it is a bit "messy". Students should be careful, because the first impression is not good about it. However, it has several exercises about pronunciation.

Considering these three webpages (especially 1 and 2, because 3 is more about theory, but also it provides some practice), I think that the effect in the students should be possitive, but students have to be persistent and dedicate themselves to this objective.

1 comment:

Gina Petrie/CALE/ESLG said...

Felipe,
It's good that you were able to note some issues so soon in your time at the school. The websites that you chose look very promising as well.

Gina