TEFL Organ

  Place of articulation deals with the placement of the vocal organs when producing a sound. Before we can cover the particulars of places of articulation, we'll need to take a look at the various vocal organs and their locations. Moving from the front to the back we'd begin with our lips. We can use both lips in order to create a sound or we can use one of our lips with one of our rows of teeth, usually the top, in order to produce another sound. We also have other sounds, which use both of the rows of teeth. Further back we have what's called the alveolar ridge. That's the bit of the mouth that may get burnt when we're eating a pizza that's a bit too hot and the cheese burns just behind there our top two teeth. That again is the hard bit just behind our top teeth, called the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Many teachers of the English language, both young and old at secondary school level are faced with the uphill task of designing a course structure. They often find designing a progression as a real Herculean task. As a secondary school student, I took English language courses with teachers who in most cases used just the prescribed textbooks page after page. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Buh Mariette M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Today as an amateur teacher for almost a year now, I have discovered that most teachers shy away from designing a scheme of work because they find it difficult and painstaking. Breaking the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Say the word ‘hat’ to yourself out loud. Now say ‘mouth’. Was it easy? If you are a native English speaker you did it without thinking. You didn’t have to contort your face into all sorts of funny shapes or feel self-conscience during the process. The reason is that you already know the phonology of those two English words. You may not understand exactly how you said those words; whether they were plosives or voiced or non-voiced, whether or not the tongue was forward touching the teeth or raised touching the soft palate. You don’t need to know. You have heard and said these words hundreds if not thousands of times in your life. You already can say them easily without thinking. But what if you are...  [Read more]

  And now we have our nasal sounds. There are three nasal sounds and basically the pattern of air that's moving out of our vocal tract has to do with two big instances and that is a closure in the vocal tract. Except aside from the plosives and affricates, what we have is air escaping through our nasal cavity. These sounds include ?m?, ?n? and ?ng?. We're moving from the front of the mouth to the back of the mouth. First with the M sound or the ?m?, we're closing both lips and the air is escaping through the nasal passage ?m?. Next we have our N sound or our ?n? sound. There, the closure is inside the mouth but our tongue is closing up near our alveolar ridge and the air is escaping through the nose. Again that's ?n?. Finally we have our NG sound and the closure there is happening...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences The English language has become so essential in china because the country wants to successfully promote internationalism and keep the lines of communication open for trade and business matters. As one of the global powers, it’s in the country’s best interest to keep afloat of shifting trends in international matters. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ramy M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The government has recognized that English is now the preferred language used for international purposes, and is becoming an increasingly necessary skill for its people to have. So, as an ESL teacher, I must know the problems and...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences Like we all know, the English alphabet has 26 letters. These 26 letters can make 44 different sounds or phonemes – 20 sounds come from the vowels a, e, i, o and u; and 24 sounds come from the remaining 21 consonants. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can change the meaning of a word. If we consider sounds made simply by the letter ‘a’ for instance, in the word ‘apple’ – it’s /ae/, in ‘car’ – it’s /a:/, in amount – it’s /a/, and so on. This, consequently, makes English a non-phonetic language, which means that the pronunciation of a word is not dependent on its spelling. Now in order to pronounce a word correctly, we need to get three factors in it right - vowel sounds,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Education is not only the process of preparing individuals for life but also life itself. It is a fact that education environments are intertwined with life. At this point, teachers have an important role in regulating the educational environment and providing it to the service of the student. To accomplish this task, teachers need to have some critical skills and characteristics. At the beginning of these skills is the regulation of teaching environments by the needs of the students and real life. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Miraç G. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Effective regulation of teaching environments is not...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Phonetics and phonology may seem like advanced or ‘bonus’ aspects of teaching the English language, but they are essential and fundamental to successful English communication for English students. While teaching and practicing concepts like pronunciation, intonation, stress, and articulation may be difficult (or seem outright impossible!), there are several methods and tools which English teachers can employ to help their students master them. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Max T. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Grammar and vocabulary are key components of effective communication, but their impact is greatly reduced...  [Read more]

  Connected speech is also an important element of phonology and it's involved in joining words together in an effect to make our speech more efficient. Some might say it's a product of being lazy but nonetheless it's what we all do and we want all of our non-native speakers to speak as naturally as possible, so we have to be aware of these things. Here are a few of the more common examples. We have linking, dropping, changing and extra lettering. An example of each would be with linking, we link our words together so that they almost in effect become one word. Instead of saying ?What do you want to do,? we typically will say ?Whatdoyou want to do?? Then, we can also have dropping. Rather than pronouncing each and every consonant, we can sometimes, especially in certain accents,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences During nine years of teaching English as a Second language, I have discovered how important phonetics is in learning the correct pronunciation of the English language, and in fact, in any language. Derwing and Munro (2005) emphasize, “It is essential to have an accurate understanding of the target language phonological system to enhance the quality of pronunciation". This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Mark B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. A vast majority of language books are aimed at L2 learners from all over the world and don’t necessarily cater to the “localized” needs of a particular country. These books...  [Read more]

Hoàng Minh Huy TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) is a challenging yet rewarding task that requires a set of essential skills. Pronunciation, grammar knowledge, and teaching method are three crucial elements that every teacher needs to possess in order to be effective in their role. From developing a neutral pronunciation to understanding grammatical rules and exploring different teaching methodologies, these skills are necessary for both native and non-native English teachers. In this blog post, we'll delve into each of these skills, highlighting their importance and providing practical tips for improvement. Whether you're a seasoned teacher or just starting out, this guide will...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences For the longest time, people have separated teaching English from linguistics, which tends to include all their subcategories. However, phonetics, in particular, plays an incredibly integral part of the teaching of the English language. Why is an understanding of phonetics important in aiding the teaching pronunciation, articulation, and intonation? Being able to demonstrate how one changes the shape of their mouth, or the placement of their tongue can be the difference between someone speaking correct English and sounding as close as possible to a native speaker. Without at least a basic knowledge of this concept, how can we as teachers properly explain and display the way our language sounds in comparison...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Productivity could be described as what someone or something creates or in other words produces. In the world of education, and reference to students, most tangible progress can be seen and heard through two specific means of production, the productive skills of speaking and writing. However, it is important to ask, how important are these productive skills? From the perspective of the teacher, they must understand that in the instances that individuals wish to converse with one another there is a cause, they have a purpose, a need to say something, a need to listen to something, or they are interested in what is being said. (ITTT, 2011) When a teacher can understand this, they can conjure and create a...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Helping students improve their pronunciation can be challenging for teachers and students alike. For students, they may have a strong desire to sound fluent but might struggle in knowing what mistakes they make and how to correct them. For teachers, they may be aware of the mistakes but may lack tools to help students accurately and precisely correct them. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Kent L. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Many of the common methods to help improve pronunciation have their own shortcomings. A pure listen and repeat approach does not offer sufficient feedback on how to properly correct errors. Even a...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas As an English teacher, it is quite common to encounter high achievers, those who are so inspired and self-motivated in learning English, as well as low achievers, those who find themselves with no interest or goals in class. About the former group, there are always ways to encourage them in English learning, while for the latter, the teacher really has to think over and over before taking appropriate actions. I have always had to think of ways to encourage students in my teaching practice because the majority of students from my class are far from being excellent in English. The top student currently only scores 6 in IELTS. Therefore, it takes me much effort to arouse their interest first, without which the task...  [Read more]

  The next thing we should look at is how our consonants are arranged for the top two rows we have P and F at the left side of our chart and G and J at the right side of our chart. They're arranged this way because if we analyze the way we speak we're using the front of our mouth to use these sounds as in ?p? and ?f? and I'm using my lips and my teeth to produce those sounds and as we move to the right on the chart slowly but surely we're making those sounds it towards the back of our mouth. We can use the examples of ?g?. The sound ?g? is produced further back in our mouth than ?p?. The next thing we'll notice about our chart is that some of our symbols are shaded. Notice that none of the symbols in the vowel sections are shaded but only a few are in the consonant section. The...  [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]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences I, as an out of school English teacher, have been teaching English in China for about one year. My students are coming from elementary schools or middle schools. The teaching is one to one. The background and personality of my students are various. Some students are very interested in learning English and want to take extra courses to improve their English proficiency. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Nan W. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Some students feel having more challenges in grammar, vocabulary or speaking. Some students are not interested in learning English but have to learn it due to the pressure from school...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Language is a uniquely human cognitive skill. Undeniably animals communicate in a variety of ways: bee dance for honeybees, bird song for aviary species, pheromones for ants, etc. However human language remains unique in its complexity and variety. Human language has the unique characteristic of being able to describe abstract concepts such as love and belief and temporal displacements such as past events or future plans. Even our closest evolutionary relatives are not able to acquire such complex language structures. Scientists have attempted to teach different ape species human language, and despite years of conditioning and training, the members of these species have a vocabulary store of no more than 1,000...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Many ESL teachers have never even heard of phonetics or phonology, yet they use these aspects of speech naturally when they speak. Phonetics and phonology are two areas of linguistics that study the sounds of language. Phonetics focuses on individual sounds, while phonology studies the features and combination of sounds (McMahon, 1-3). There are two reasons why ESL teachers need to know phonetics and phonology: first, it helps them to conceptualize English in a way that their students can understand; and second, it helps them to address their students’ difficult pronunciation problems. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Victoria I. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Child development may be defined as a gradual sequence of physical, language, thought and emotional changes that occur from birth to the beginning of adulthood. In this process, there is a progression in a child from being sorely dependent on the parent/guardian to be self-dependent. Such development is strongly influenced by the genetic factors emanating from the parents and similar events during prenatal life. According to Maria Montessori Theory, such a journey from childhood to adulthood the key principles to be borne in mind are independence, observation, following the child, correcting, need for prepared environment and an absorbent mind. In all of these, the aspect of speech and language are paramount. This...  [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]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas The word ‘drilling’ in education refers to a teaching technique in which the teacher creates a certain pattern or structure to be practiced repeatedly by the students, for them to ultimately develop a system where they may identify and use the pattern or structure independently. Drilling as a technique has been put to use in teaching almost all subjects, but its efficacy has been particularly acknowledged in the field of language teaching, for training students in both pronunciation as well as grammar. However, just as it has been lauded for being a foolproof system of making students ‘practice’ a language, drilling has also been criticized for being a mechanical and largely monotonous process of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas The purpose of my essay is to outline some of the most frequently occurred pronunciation mistakes made by Russian learners and share some of the teaching ideas based on a few sources and my own experience of teaching and learning English as a foreign and second language. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Olga R. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Teaching English phonology and pronunciation for Russian learners is always challenging as there are a great number of differences rather than similarities in the pronunciation norms in the English and the Russian language systems. That is why Russian learners experience difficulties...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas With the advent of online teaching making such a large part of the ESL market, we need to be aware of some teaching skills for that area. The first skill to consider which is absolutely important for ESL teachers, both native and non-native is that of pronunciation. This is a problem for most students coming from non-native English-speaking countries. They suffer by not understanding the teacher’s speech, which can be most stressful. The first skill relates to the teacher developing neutral pronunciation. There are a lot of self-study training courses that help ESL teachers to practice pronunciation skills and these are strongly recommended. Some native ESL teachers have really...  [Read more]