How To Pronounce Problem

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Once I arrived in Vietnam to teach the English language, I realized that poor pronunciation is common in Vietnamese students as well as teachers. These mistakes are similar, as it was obvious the Vietnamese teachers passed them to the students. In this essay, I am going to deliberate on the causes of the problem and suggest a few solutions. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Mohammad E. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. First, we will start with the problem origin. The Vietnamese language is monosyllabic. Vietnamese people are familiar with pronouncing monosyllabic words, thus it is considerably hard for them to pronounce...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences As defined through the units of the course and through many linguistic books, pronunciation is to say a word in a language in the correct way. Although the correct pronunciation of words and even the correct intonation in sentences in English, is thought through course books all over the world and thanks to media students are exposed to the natural and correct pronunciation, numerous mistakes are observed inside the classroom and outside. The reasons for the problems in pronunciation might vary depending on the country. I have been teaching English in Turkey for a while and have witnessed many problems with the students which will be explained through this essay. This post was written by our TEFL certification...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas The origin of many non-native English speakers can be recognized by their accents. For instance, Indians, French, and German people are easily identified by their accent. However, there are accents that are not easily recognizable, and one of them is the Brazilian accent. We can recognize Brazilians while he or she speaks English by 6 mistakes in the pronunciation that only Brazilians make. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Monica D. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. First, one thing that Brazilians do in many words that is so unique to Brazilians is to add the sound of “ie” in English words that there is not “ie” in the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences One of the most important problems encountered while learning a foreign language is undoubtedly pronunciation. Knowing a language fluently may not always be enough. Fluency level may be open to discussion if an accurate pronunciation is not used. Therefore as teachers, we must teach our students how to use the correct pronunciation. However, pronunciation can be a nightmare for some students, especially for young learners. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Selin K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. There are some languages, in particular, no matter what language they speak, we understand where they come from by hearing their...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Brazilians are learning English all over the country, for various reasons and with diverse goals. In this text, I would like to approach some very common deviations to standard English dialects, such as General American and Received Pronunciation, by Brazilian speakers. I have chosen to address some problems in phonetics and pronunciation that are the most frequent in my classes. I also give attention to some problems in word linking that generate tough challenges for English teachers. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Linecker M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The country's official language is Portuguese. As a result of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I did not realize how difficult English is until I became fluent in Spanish. I am currently studying French and I am pretty good at French. I have a basic knowledge of Esperanto. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Wayne K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. I will just touch on each of these since a book could be written about each of these. Also Read: Teaching Young Learners vs. Adult Learners - The Differences You Can Expect I have found many poems(1) and articles on the internet discussing the insane way English is spelled and pronounced. On the previously sited website(ibid) an English instructor states that he has very often...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences A learner's mother tongue has a profound influence on verbalization of the second language. The absence of some sounds in the learner's first language, and the difference in intonation, word, and syllable stress between the learner's native language and English are some of the many factors that often lead to an incorrect pronunciation of English words. In order to address these issues, a teacher needs to have a basic understanding of the student's native language. This essay will briefly explore the most common pronunciation problems for Egyptians learners of English and some suggested solutions to tackle these problems. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Salma O. One of the most prominent...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Pronunciation is an essential part of the English language. Clear and cohesive speech can create meaningful conversations, meanwhile incorrect pronunciation can lead to misunderstandings. Every, non-native English-speaking country has pronunciation problems. One of the countries which come across with pronunciation errors is my homeland Azerbaijan. It is a lovely country, with nice traditions and people. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Narmina M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. There are many different nationalities that live in my country. People speak various languages. Our official language is Azerbaijani; however, the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas As an aspirant teaching English to Chinese children, I chose ‘Pronunciation problems of Chinese people’ as the most attractive and the most useful topic for my summative task at this moment. As resources of this joyful and useful research on the internet, I have used three videos on Youtube made by the three experienced teachers of the English language. Only one of them works with children. And only one of them (accent coach from London, Luke Nicholson) gave a lot of live examples of the flaws in pronunciation that Chinese people, in general, make when speaking English, by showing the interviews with the Chinese actor Jackie Chan who sometimes manages to confuse his experienced interviewers. This post was...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences Difficulty with pronunciation is likely something that every EFL teacher will face at one point or another in their career. Every language in the world has different ways of pronouncing different words/ letters. In addition to this, most speakers of other languages have heavy accents that can make pronouncing English words very difficult. This can be a challenge when teaching English as a foreign language. It can be especially challenging because not all learners around the world will face the same problems. Students in Vietnam will likely have different pronunciation problems than students in Kenya and students in Brazil will likely have different pronunciation problems than students in Morocco. For this essay, I will...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Each student faces their difficulties when it comes to English pronunciation depending on their country of origin. This essay will focus on the pronunciation difficulties facing ESL students in France and will also propose some solutions to help students overcome these difficulties. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Kerri M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The number of English vowel sounds greatly outnumbers those found in the French language. As such, French students will have to produce sounds that they have never produced before. The short ‘ɪ’ used in ‘bit’ does not exist in French. In this case, they will...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences As a developing country, Vietnam currently has an urgent need for the international language English to attract foreign investment and to promote the economy, especially after becoming a member of the World Trade Organisation (Nguyen T.T, 2007). With this growth of international trade and an increasing number of foreign tourists, the ability to communicate in English has become a passport to a better job for many Vietnamese. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Stuart B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. English is taught in schools, universities and foreign language centers across the country. There are now more teachers and...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas First and foremost I'd like to address why phonetics issues very early piqued my interest in teaching English for foreigners. Ever since childhood, I was surrounded by people with substantial articulatory and auditory phonetic problems, not so much with the acoustic ones. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Asbiorn B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Firstly, those auditory problems were inherited biologically by people around me and couldn't be helped much before the very sophisticated miniature hearing aids just recently were introduced. However, some foreign students can't afford these rather expensive items and subsequently...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Learning a second language can be difficult and depending on the learner’s mother tongue, it can present challenges unique to a certain group of people. More specifically, there are several unique challenges for Japanese native speakers who are learning English and vice versa. English can be difficult for Japanese native speakers for various reasons such as difficulty distinguishing certain sounds, the use of katakana to teach English words, and drastically different sentence structure. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Justin W. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. When speaking English, it is vital to be able to distinguish...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Throughout high school and college, I mainly focused on learning how to speak Japanese as my second language. Unlike English, Japanese is a fairly phonetic language. Two of its three writing systems, hiragana and katakana, are phonetic. This makes it easy for foreigners to learn because each syllable, also known as sound clusters in some circles, is almost always said exactly how it is spelled. The third writing system, kanji, is not and, as such, is much more difficult for foreigners to learn because kanji are essentially pictures that describe their meaning. They are much more difficult to learn and use in everyday speech. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Nicole H. Please note that...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Throughout the world, different countries have difficulty pronouncing other sounds from different languages. For many native English speakers learning Mandarin, pronouncing the “x”, “sh”, “q”, “ch”, and “z” sounds are not easy obstacles to overcome. Based on my own experience it takes plenty of repetition to master how to pronounce each of these sounds. Chinese students have a similar problem when trying to pronounce certain sounds in English. The three sounds that come to mind are “th”, “v” and the difference between “r” and “l”. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Jonathan A. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Troubleshooting is part of the teaching experience. A typical ESL lesson always presents problems. But, other problems arise when the teacher has to face particular situations. A good ESL teacher should be capable to diagnose these usual problems and work to fix them properly. Being a new teacher isn’t easy and regardless of how trained and skilled a teacher is, facing a classroom for the first time can cause nervousness. One of the hardest parts of being a teacher is to establish a rapport student/teacher and in the case of a new group, between the students themselves. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Daniela F. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences People from different countries inevitably face problems when they are trying to learn English. Russia is no exception. Let’s have a quick look at some typical problems that my fellow countrymen face. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Sergei S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. As you may know, Russian is written using the Cyrillic alphabet, and some may think that it can cause problems. In reality, the Russians are fine with understanding the Latin alphabet and can easily pronounce each letter. However, the Devil is in the details. When it comes to speaking it becomes problematic to pronounce [θ] and [ð] sounds properly....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas The Vietnamese learners of English share with those of other nationalities almost every difficulty in learning English. However, there are several issues in learning English that can be viewed as particularly perceived in the classrooms in Vietnam. Those particular issues may have originated from the country’s specific culture and language. It might be useful to point out several typical difficulties and their causes, and propose a couple of techniques for an EFL teacher to tackle them. Below are two groups of difficulties, one is psychological, the other is more or less physical. Although they are very common in Vietnam, those issues are by no means unique to that country and therefore can be seen elsewhere, at...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Stefania F. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. English teachers from other countries may think that it is a topic to be skipped or only briefly introduced to students, but it is one of the most important subjects and it should be an integral part of an English course. As a matter of fact, the full understanding of a language and good communication actually depends, to a certain extent, on how correctly words are pronounced. Also, it is not only a matter of pronunciation but intonation. Every language has its own intonation and stress on words, so an English learner could find it difficult to...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences According to the EF English Proficiency Index, in the year 2017 Italy ranked last - among European countries - in English proficiency skills. Being an Italian myself and having studied foreign languages up to my Master's Degree, I have progressively grown aware of the main factors which cause Italy to perform so poorly. Other than grammatical gaps, which are not to be analyzed in this context, I have noticed how the extremely limited exposition to spoken words can affect not only the students’ ability to understand and follow conversations or arguments, but even the possibility for them to be understood when trying to speak. This post was written by our ITTT graduate Gaia O. During my university years, I have...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences There are several pronunciation problems that students of English will face in Japan; however, I will focus on two. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Brandie K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The first of these problems they face is the fact that Japanese doesn't have some of the same sounds in its' alphabet as English does. For example, Japanese does not have a hard R sound; instead, it has a sound that is a mix of R and L. So, when students from Japan go to say rice, for many it will come out sounding more like lice. This can cause some confusion as not everyone will understand that this is due to a lack of having this...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas The important of English Education is a must especially it is an International recognize language. But not all countries have a benefit or luxuries to learn as others did. Some Asian countries like Vietnam though students start to begin their English education very early at school, yet they find themselves helpless when it comes to speaking English. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Rosemarie B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. These are some problems of learners in Vietnam. The evaluation of students through the ability to pronounce/communicate is much more difficult when the classroom is too large. Also, with the thin...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences In the last years, English has become more and more popular worldwide. In most countries, children start learning a second language at an early age. Also in Turkey, the number of schools, universities and language centers where it is possible to learn English has increased significantly. Nevertheless, despite all the efforts and a considerable presence of foreign teachers, it seems that Turkish students find the English language extremely difficult to learn. Turkish students consider the education system the major cause of their school failure because it is too obsolete. I had the opportunity to work as a language teacher in Turkey for several years. This experience helped me to understand why in Turkey...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Teaching English pronunciation to students of other languages is always a big deal. English teachers from other countries may think that it is a topic to be skipped or only briefly introduced to students, but it is one of the most important subjects and it should be an integral part of an English course. As a matter of fact, the full understanding of a language and good communication actually depend, to a certain extent, on how correctly words are pronounced. Also, it is not only a matter of pronunciation but intonation. Every language has its own intonation and stress on words, so an English learner could find it difficult to get used to a new way of pronouncing words in another language. This is true for...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences In recent years, the most popular destination for EFL teachers all over the world has been China. China is the country welcoming many foreign teachers, native and non-native, and is probably the country with the most rapid development of the English teaching industry. Online teaching has become just as important as face to face teaching and has been a teacher for an online company for a long time, I have experienced a variety of students, levels, and groups. Therefore, in this essay, I will write about the most common problems Chinese students face and some ways of dealing with them. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Aleksandra Đ. If you are ever in China, you will notice that you will...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences It is not a secret for anyone that native speakers of any language always easily identify “non-native” when they hear at least a few words spoken by them. Often native speakers are able to fairly accurately determine the country from which the person came, based on his pronunciation. This happens due to the fact that it is common for all of us to use the sounds of our native language in the pronunciation of words of a foreign language, as well as to use articulation models we know from childhood the position of the organs of speech (lips, tongue, etc.). This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Mariia L. We pronounce words with stress characteristic of the native language and speak with intonations...  [Read more]

  This video covers the difference between 'overdo' and 'overdue'. As these two words have a similar pronunciation and spelling, their usage is often confused. 'Overdue' describes something that is past a due date or past a scheduled time, for example: I need to pay all my overdue bills to avoid a late fee. 'Overdo', on the other hand, is used when speaking about doing something to an excessive degree, for example: Don't overdo the salt in this recipe or it will taste bad. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences The country of choice I would like to speak about is China. I have been teaching in China for about a year at all levels. Several problems face English learners in this country ranging from the use of prepositions, modal auxiliary and the male and feminine pronouns. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Mandella Elorm A. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. ESL learners especially adult learners happen to have a persistent problem with the use of he/she, most students start speaking about a male character and then midway start using she to represent this male character and this happens interchangeably during oral lessons but never...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Japan is a country continuously changing at a rapid pace largely due to globalization and marketing. With its growing popularity and necessity, difficulties are sure to arise for people learning English and specifically, in Japan. To fully understand all the problems learners face in Japan, it is important to realize why English is so widely being studied in the first place. Firstly, students must study English for 6 years throughout primary and high school. As well as being part of the Japanese schooling system, the advantages of being able to speak English are endless. The benefits of finding a job or being able to communicate whilst abroad are common motives. However in Japan specifically, more so than western...  [Read more]