Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy – a lesson

It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow, and although I don’t normally do anything for it, I thought that this year I would take the opportunity to share one of my favourite poems with my students. Here’s the plan in case you want to do it too.

Photo taken from http://flickr.com/eltpics by @vale360, used under a CC Attribution Non-Commercial license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

Ask your students what day it is, and whether anything special happens on this day in their country. What do they know about Valentine’s Day in the UK?

What kind of gifts do people normally give for Valentine’s Day? Brainstorm them on the board.

Give each group the word cloud. They decide what links the words in the cloud and what she is sending her Valentine. They can also look up any words they don’t understand, so they are ready to appreciate the poem as a whole later.

Show them an onion. What connection could this have to Valentine’s Day and the poem?

Ask the students to close their eyes and put their heads on the desk (but try not to fall asleep!). Read them the poem – take your time and savour the words.

Ask them to discuss how similar the poem was to their ideas. They can then read it and decide whether they would like to receive an onion as a Valentine.

You can then do some pronunciation/speaking work. Read the poem again. This time students mark where you pause using slashes.

They talk about why you pause in those places – it’s because of line/stanza breaks, and also phrases within the lines.

They can chose whether to read Valentine, or an anti-Valentine poem. You can find lots of them on the net. This is the one I chose:

In groups with other students who have chosen the same poem, they practise reading it. They decide where the pauses should be, how fast to read it, how to space the phrases…and then some of the braver students perform it to the class, or the whole group performs the poem together (providing their patterns aren’t too different).

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Weak Forms

It’s another #eltchat on pronunciation, so I thought I’d upload the worksheets I’ve been using recently to focus on weak forms with my students.

Common words which have weak and strong forms, with space to write a conversation underneath

Weak and strong forms table, with word clouds for students to see common weak form combinations.

Weak and strong forms dictogloss (recorded with my flatmate - teacher conversation / Croatia conversation)

Feel free to download them and use them. Please credit the source.

Enjoy!

Intonation online

I just took part in my first synchronous online workshop, provided by IH Online Training. It was presented by Zoe Taylor from IH Lisbon and dealt with teaching Intonation – something which I’ve been experimenting with a lot recently.

There were 18 participants from around the world, plus Zoe presenting and Shaun Wilden helping out the with technical side. First we had to join the session and download a small piece of software onto our computers which let us into an Ellumiate chatroom. Then we had to set up all of our microphones and test the sound – this took about 10 minutes, and once we were all ready Zoe started.

She showed us around the software first, then discussed some key terminology to do with intonation (like key, tone unit and tonic syllable). She demonstrated intonation patterns with example sentences, then we discussed some intonation rules in smaller ‘rooms’. This was the most surreal part of the experience as it took most of the 10-minute time limit we had to work out whether we could hear each other! (If you ever plan to take part in a workshop like this, PLEASE make sure you are using headphones! The echo effect made it pretty confusing at times) Once Zoe brought us all back into the main room we shared the findings with everyone.

The last part of the workshop was some practical activities, with some of us volunteering to demonstrate them to the group. This was the most useful part of the session, and there are definitely a couple of activities I would like to try out. The workshop was recorded and will be posted on the IH Online YouTube channel at some point – I will post the link when I have it.

For anyone who hasn’t tried out an online workshop before, I would definitely recommend it – it’s a great free place to get new ideas and you’re in the comfort of your own home. Keep an eye on the IH Online Training page for future workshops (and you don’t even have to teach at International House to join in!)

Hope to meet you there soon…

Pronunciation problems for Czech speakers of English

I wrote this as part of the IH Certificate in Advanced Methodology course which I’ve been following this year. It was partly gleaned from my own experience, and partly from this excellent piece of work conducted at the Pedagogical Faculty at the university in Ceske Budejovice. The only scientific research that went into it was done by the people at the university, and not by me!

Czech is one of the languages which does not appear in Micheal Swan’s excellent Learner English, which details not only pronunciation problems, but also grammar and vocabulary errors, for speakers from a variety of language backgrounds.

I hope you find it useful! (Please let me know if any of the phonetic symbols don’t show up properly and I’ll attach a pdf version too)

 

1.     Segmental

1.1.  Vowel Sounds

1.1.1.     Czech only has 5 vowel phonemes, compared to 20 in English. As Czech has a direct link between spelling and pronunciation, this can cause problems for speakers when they do not know which vowel sound to use in a particular English word.

1.1.2.     In Czech all syllables are pronounced equally. All vowels are strong and no equivalent to the English schwa /ə/ exists.

1.1.3.     Czech speakers find it hard to differentiate between the sounds /æ/, /e/ and /ʌ/, in pairs such as bad/bed, cap/cup

 

1.2.  Consonant sounds

1.2.1.     Neither pronunciation of the morpheme ‘th’ (/ð/, /θ/) exists in Czech. Learners have a tendency to replace them with similar sounds which do not involve putting the tongue between the teeth, namely /d/ or /dz/ for /ð/ and /f/ or /s/ for /θ/.

1.2.2.     /w/ does not exist in Czech. Learners often replace it with /v/. They sometimes also use /w/ in place of /v/.

1.2.3.     /r/ is pronounced in the middle and at the end of words, where it should only be pronounced at the beginning. Czechs also sometimes roll the /r/ sound, which is not necessary in English. Students do not use it to lengthen the preceding vowel sound (see 1.3.2.2).

1.2.4.     /ŋ/, /g/, /k/: these phonemes are most often confused at the end of a word ending in -ing (thing/think, sing/sink). The /g/ can be lost or pronounced as /k/.

1.2.5.     Voiceless /s/ and voiced /z/ are often confused, such as bus/buzz.

1.2.6.     ‘ch’ exists as a single phoneme /x/ in Czech. Learners transfer this to English, especially to replace /k/ in words such as chaos.

1.2.7.     The phonemes /p/, /t/ and /k/ at the beginning of a word are often not aspirated by Czech speakers of English. Alternatively, they over-aspirate the same phonemes in mid- and final positions in a word.

 

1.3.  Other

1.3.1.     All Czech words are stressed on the first syllable. This is often transferred to English.

1.3.2.     The differences between English spelling and pronunciation cause the following problems:

1.3.2.1.         incorrect choice of vowel sound (see 1.1.1)

1.3.2.2.         confusion when V+C= vowel sound e.g. ‘er’ in father = /ə/ not /ɜr/, ‘al’ in calm = /a:/ not /æl/

1.3.2.3.         pronunciation of silent letters, such as /b/ in bomb

1.3.2.4.         a difficulty in predicting the pronunciation of previously unseen words

 

2.     Suprasegmental

2.1.  Czech is a syllable-timed language, whereas English is stress-timed. Czech speakers of English therefore find it difficult to use weak forms of common words such as of, a, can. They tend to place equal stress on all the words in a sentence. This is further confused when contrastive stress is introduced to students and they have to decide which stress pattern to choose.

2.2.  There is a much wider range of intonation patterns in English than in Czech. This can lead to Czech English sounding ‘flat’ to a native speaker.

2.3.  Linking words and sounds through assimilation and elision is much more common in English than in Czech.

 

Reference (consulted 11 May 2011)

-, (1997/1998), ‘Most common pronunciation problems of Czech speakers of English’, Pedegogical Faculty JU , Cesky Budejovice, http://eamos.pf.jcu.cz/amos/kat_ang/externi/kat_ang_2834/Nejbeznejsi_vyslovnostni_problemy_ceskych_mluvcich.pdf

Diary of a Beginner: Sixth Lesson

Last weekend, H and I had our sixth lesson. He led this lesson, starting off with a little card he’d written with 5 sentences on it:

• I am a teacher.
• You are a student.
• He is an actor.
• She is an actress.
• It is a dog.

Because he’d had so much trouble in the previous lesson with the idea of ‘I am’, ‘You are’, ‘I am not’, ‘You are not’ and the question forms, I decided we would write out these sentences in the different forms. These were the results:

As you can see, we did various things to highlight forms. The arrow shows that ‘not’ is how we make a very negative’ – in Czech ‘ne’ is used to say ‘no’ and is added to a verb to make it negative. I used an orange pen to show how the apostrophe in a contraction replaces missing letters. I also drew a line under the phrases to show how the contractions correspond to the longer versions.

This was a real lesson in how to teach beginners for me – there are so many things we take for granted with our students, and we ended up having a lot of discussions in Czech to help H understand various concepts – I dread to think how he would have felt if we couldn’t have done this. I know native speakers who don’t speak the learners L1 can teach beginners, but I can see how much easier it is using a mix of both languages. For example, even the concept of different word order for a statement and a question was very difficult for H to grasp, since in Czech this doesn’t change.

Other problems with L1 became apparent here too: there are no articles in Czech, so he couldn’t understand why he needed one in English even though his original sentences had them already. In the end I showed him the contents page of New English File Beginner and told him not to worry about them – they would be covered in unit 2A and we’re in 1B. The existence of contractions is another thing which Czech lacks – all words are equally stressed, so he found it hard to see why there might be more than one form of these phrases.

The last problem with L1 interference was with ‘dog’ – in Czech ‘pes’ is a masculine noun as it ends in a consonant. Therefore it is always replaced by the subject ‘he’. I extended the idea to ‘It is a bag’/'It is a table’ etc to show other ways to use ‘it’, but H decided to keep his original example sentence.

All of these discussions just from five ‘simple’ sentences!

Once we’d created these tables, we practised the I/you forms using the grammar bank activities in NEF Beginner. Here again we had a couple of problems. Although the two-line dialogues were accompanied by pictures, it wasn’t always clear who was speaking. In the end, we labelled the people in the pictures as A and B to make it a bit easier. H also can’t understand why we say ‘You ARE late’ instead of ‘You ARRIVE late’ like in Czech. I said to him that I can’t understand why they say ‘You ARRIVE late’ and pointed out that that’s why you have to learn other languages I recorded the conversations so that H could listen to them at home.

After all of that, we only had five minutes left, so I decided to introduce the five long vowel sounds from the English File pronunciation chart. I also gave him these to listen to at home. Ordinarily I wouldn’t rush him with all of these sounds, but we only have three more weeks in which to have lessons, so he asked me to try to do all of them before I leave.

In the end, it was a very educational lesson for both of us!

Diary of a beginner: Third and Fourth Lessons

The third lesson with my beginner student was two weeks ago.

We started by revising numbers and letters. I then tried to revise the days and the months, both of which I had sent him to practise after the second lesson. He hadn’t noticed them in his email, so didn’t know them at all. This really proved to me that the listening he does in his car is what makes him learn the words, as without it he was completely lost.

He had however recieved the third file I sent him, based on the 12 consonant phonetic sounds from the English File set introduced in lesson two. We spent a few minutes practising these and he remembered all of them without a problem.

After all of that we had about 25 minutes left (the lessons are one hour long). We used an information gap from the New English File Beginner Teacher’s Book, which I can’t reproduce here due to copyright laws. We each had the same 12 pictures. Under the pictures was either the word or a line. We asked each other “How do you spell…?” to complete our sheets. If he did not know a word, he asked “What is it?” first. I then recorded the words and the spellings for him to listen to at home. I also re-sent him the months and the days for homework, along with corresponding sets on quizlet (months, days).

We’ve just had our fourth lesson together. Even with a two-week break, he remembered everything really well. This is what we did:

• Numbers: he put the flashcards in order, then closed his eyes while I removed 2-4 cards. Each time he had to say which numbers were missing. Then he said all of the numbers 1>20 and finally 20>1.
• Alphabet: I placed the letters randomly on the table and he said them. Then I said a letter and he took it. No problems at all this week
• Consonants: he remembered all of the words. I then got him to try to write them down as he only gets listening practice out of class. If he didn’t know how to spell the word he asked me. If he already knew it, he spelt it for me. This was good for practising spelling, and also to think about some common English sound-spelling relationships.
• Days of the week: a year ago I was very happy to find a card game for children based on the popular book The Very Hungry Caterpillar. In the card game, the players should put down the days of the week in the correct order (Monday, Tuesday…). When they have played all of the ‘days’, their caterpillar turns into a butterfly. The cards are really well illustrated, and I jumped at the chance to use them. I used two sets of ‘week’ cards (there are four in the pack). First he put one set in order, helped by the fact that each card also says “Day 1″, “Day 2″ etc on it – especially useful for Tuesday/Thursday. I explained the story to him in a mixture of Czech and English, helped by the pictures on the cards. We then played pelmanism with both sets, with him saying the words as he turned over the cards. Despite the fact that the cards are designed for children, I think he appreciated their quality and understand the value of pelmanism for his pronunciation.
  For those of you not familiar with the story, here is a youtube version:

• Months: he said the months, then wrote them down. As with the consonants above, he could ask me for difficult spellings.
• Six more consonant phonetics: I introduced /h/, /n/, /m/, /l/, /r/ and /w/, the latter being the most difficult as this sound doesn’t exist in Czech. He also wrote these words down. Listening to this recording is his homework.

What do you think I should do in the next class? Should I revise everything at the beginning as a confidence booster? I’m planning to start introducing some of the most common question / answer pairs, but probably won’t have time to do a lot in class. Which would you say are the most important for a businessman in his 30s (i.e. “What’s your name?” “Where are you from?” etc)?

Read about the first and second lessons.

Spanish Train by Chris de Burgh (linking words for fluent speech)

Alright, I admit it. I love Chris de Burgh. And while this is very unfashionable, I’m not ashamed in the slightest!

This week I was doubly grateful to him for providing me with an interesting story for my students to listen to (following on from ‘Story Prompts with #eltpics‘ last week) and a way to revise linking words when speaking quickly.

I showed the class the first slide of the presentation and asked them to decide what the story of the song is. They had to include something about all of the pictures in their story.

Once they had shared the stories, they listened to the song to find out who had the closest version. (The link in the presentation should take you to the video below)

I then showed them the pronunciation slides and elicited the rules.

Finally they practised saying lines from their own copies of the lyrics.

As their homework, they should find a poem or song of their own and record it, paying particular attention to the linking sounds.

Other ‘story songs’ by Chris de Burgh that you might find interesting include:

• Making the Perfect Man
• Waiting for the Hurricane
• Patricia the Stripper
• Brother John
• A Spaceman Came Travelling

Enjoy!

Diary of a beginner: Second Lesson

Alphabet Soup (created using http://www.wordle.net)

I’ve just finished my second lesson with the beginner I’m teaching and blogging about (read the first post to find out more). For homework he had to practise the alphabet using the audio file I had sent him previously.

We started the lesson by using my laminated letters to randomly practise, and he got all but H and Y without a problem. Last week he’d struggled with more than half of the lessons, so it was great to see such a quick improvement – one of the reasons I enjoy lessons with beginners!

Next, I said the numbers 1-20 in a random order for him to write down. When he had trouble I spelled the word and highlighted anything he needed to rememeber. For speaking practice, I then said a number and he had to spell it out loud.

Once we’d consolidated numbers and letters, we moved on to eliciting any and all English words he already knows, designed to be a confidence builder and an evaluation task at the same time. He wrote the alphabet down the side of the page, then wrote any words he could think of. When he had spelling problems, I helped him out.

Through this we got on to talking about the phonetic alphabet, with me attempting to explain in A2/B1-level Czech what it is, how it works and why it’s useful! We got there in the end, and once he’d understood that we talked about whether he wanted to learn it or not. He decided he did, so this week’s homework will be me going through the key consonants which are similar sounds in Czech to start him off. That should give him at least 12 of the sounds straight away. I’ll use the English File symbols and pictures, as I think they’re the most useful version of the phonetic alphabet, using pictures to help you remember the sounds.

Do you teach the phonetic alphabet to students in general? And to beginners in particular?

Pronunciation: what, why, when and how? (an #eltchat summary)

The Wednesday 2nd February 9pm GMT #eltchat was fast and furious. Here is a summary of the main points:

Why teach pronunciation?

‘If you’re not teaching pronunciation, you’re not teaching English’

• It can help with punctuation.
• Learners are keen to work on pronunciation so that they can be understood.
• It helps with listening skills, particularly features of connected speech.
• Pronunciation, rather than grammar / vocab, is the main barrier to understanding. If learners have bad pronunciation, listeners think their English is incomprehensible even if it’s not. Can undermine SS confidence.
• Raises awareness of sounds – learners better able to distinguish between them.
• It’s fun!

What to teach

• Individual sounds (perhaps using the IPA – see below)
• Sound linking
• Connected speech (perhaps through songs)
• Weak forms (schwa)
• Voice – get them to imitate English speakers mispronouncing their L1 – gives them a feel for sounds / rhythm
• Syllable stress - highlight length, pitch, loudness, & vowel clarity
• Intonation
• Minimal pairs
• Chunking
• Pausing
• Rhythm
• Awareness of varieties of English.
• Awareness and recognition – production will come later

How to teach pronunciation

• Integrate it into your lessons as much as possible OR Have courses which are entirely pronunciation focussed.
• Start with little steps, and build from there.
• Keep a corner of the board for pronunciation issues which emerge during the lesson.
• Model the shape of the mouth, and ask them to think about their tongues and lips! Even works with elementary SS.
• Combine it with listening.
• Use coursebook tapescripts to integrate pronunciation: mark schwas, intonation…
• Work on pronunciation with all new lexis.
• Record vocab covered in class and upload it for SS to listen to between classes (example here: http://bit.ly/eP8y3S)
• Record your students and use it to focus on pronunciation issues.
• Get SS to record themselves on their mobile phones. (they can do this for homework too)
• Transcribe.
• Use chants, clapping and songs. SS often have better pronunciation when singing, so it gives them hope when speaking. (Could reflect a question of attitude – do they resist sounding English when speaking?)
• Use games.
• Intonation: using only the word ‘banana’, role play this situation: husband arrives home, small talk with wife, wife confronts husband about recently-discovered affair, husband denies it, husband admits it, argue, make up.
• How many different ways can you say ‘no’ / ‘thank you’?
• Use graded readers with small groups to focus on pronunciation and see where SS need to develop.
• Use shadow reading with graded readers or with recorded versions of short texts e.g. http://bbc.in/gn4Ejp (also jokes, ads, movie trailers)
• Exaggerate sounds – it’s fun, and SS can feel the difference between them.
• Encourage SS to mouth words silently when reading / listening (works well with YLs)
• SS put a wrapped chocolate bar (Tatranky if you’re in the Czech Republic) in their mouth. Drill vowel sounds. The chocolate should fall out of their mouth if they’re doing it properly (open mouth)
• Take chunks of text and look at the connected speech, including lots of drilling
• Listen to the radio and imitate the accent
• Cuisenaire rods fabulous for teaching word/sentence stress, intonation etc
• Mouth exercises – SS think it’s fun to laugh at the teacher
• Get SS to stand up and sit down to mirror the intonation as you drill.
• Exaggerate pronunciation by putting on a ‘posh’ accent – “Hello. How are you? Haven’t seen you in aaaages.”
• Use drama: mini scripted sketches good for practising exagerrated voice range and intonation
• Make it fun: stress can inhibit production.
• Use tongue twisters http://bit.ly/f3NYP6 and limericks
• Work on sound and spelling associations
• Use different coloured pens, dots, connections, arrows…
• Experiment with the Silent Way http://bit.ly/ecSNmR
• Decode text messages
• Give SS a passage to mumble on their way home

The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)

• Opinions: Scares a lot of teachers – puts them off teaching pronunciation; can confuse things, but OK if students are comfortable with it; can make a dictionary more useful; introduce it ASAP and it becomes integral; learners may be resistant if they don’t see the point; levels the playing field in a mixed group if no-one knows it
• Students often use their own notation, so don’t feel the need to learn IPA.
• Can be hard to use if SS are from very different educational / language backgrounds
• Make flashcards for the sounds from the IPA (you could use the English File sound pictures http://bit.ly/e5jo2R or Adrian Underhill’s chart http://bit.ly/e9Nk44)
• Use it to highlight differences that SS may not hear e.g. cat v. cut
• Also to highlight differences between the variety of English you speak and other varieties SS need to be aware of
• Highlight sounds which don’t appear in L1.
• Use the schwa symbol – very useful – the one bit of IPA that every teacher should know.
• Have fun with it! SS more likely to accept it this way.
• Use games to teach the script www.cambridgeenglishonline.com/Phonetics_focus

Issues with teaching pronunciation

• It is very overlooked by teachers, often as coursebook syllabi are so dense, and teachers don’t think grammar / vocabulary include pronunciation.
• It is overlooked in a lot of coursebooks – included in very small chunks, so teachers don’t see it as important.
• Can be difficult to teach in multilingual classes unless suprasegmental.
• If it’s not tested, it’s not important.
• Some teachers think it will come by osmosis, but it actually needs a lot of work.
• It’s often left until later, meaning a lot of SS have very little exposure to pronunciation work.
• Realism is required: perfection is unnecessary and largely unobtainable.
• Students may believe there’s no system to English pronunciation.
• Which English? (see below)
• Do we do our students a disservice by speaking slowly and clearly in class?
• Teachers often aren’t trained to teach pronunciation, or training only happens later (Dip, MA) [solution: refer them to #eltchat ]
• Fossilised errors take a long time correct.
• Teens may fear being mocked by peers.
• Intonation can be difficult to teach as the rules are hard to pin down.
• SS attitudes to and perception of pronunciation might block them, although talking about this helps.
• Is it important for teachers to have a working knowledge of phonology? (The answers generally were that this is something you develop as you go along)
• HOWEVER, if you think pronunciation is important, your students will too.

Which English should we teach?

• Accent doesn’t matter, but clear pronunciation does. Accent ≠ pronunciation. And changing your accent can mean changing your identity.
• The English we know
• The English our learners need! If they’re going to be exposed to non-natives more than natives, then they need to hear them more!
• Expose SS to as many different accents as possible e.g. UK / US English is stress-timed, but Indian English is syllable-timed (Global coursebooks were recommended as providing a lot of exposure)
• A study showed that L2 is easier to understand when spoken in the accent of the listener, not the target language. http://tinyurl.com/6dln3lh
• The days of RP are long past.
• Be yourself (not like this http://youtu.be/iGTPWbLvrz8!)

Online tools

• English File Sound Pictures http://bit.ly/e5jo2R
• Interactive phonemic chart at OneStopEnglish (by Adrian Underhill) http://bit.ly/e9Nk44
• www.forvo.com
• Talking pronunciation chart at teachingenglish.org.uk
• IPA typewriter for all languages http://bit.ly/d5ZJIh
• Phonemic online typewriter http://bit.ly/bqV2tb
• Type IPA at http://bit.ly/g6IG7Y
• Text to phonetics at http://www.photransedit.com/Online/Text2Phonetics.aspx (RP and GA)
• Words their way http://tinyurl.com/6c93k5h
• Ship or sheep http://www.shiporsheep.com/
• BBC pronunciation page http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/ (including videos)
• Cybraryman’s list of pronunciation resources http://bit.ly/dpZttj
• and phonetics resources http://bit.ly/c64nKw
• British and American pronunciation www.antimoon.com
• British Council Pronunciation app for iPad http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/mobile-learning/sounds-right
• English Central’s pronunciation area, including chance to record themselves http://bit.ly/hib9Gw
• Close-ups of mouth showing articulation (American English) http://bit.ly/i3O8Db
• Audacity (to record students): download at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
• Pronunciation problems of specific nationalities, along with specific books to use http://bit.ly/ewg90I
• Talk a Lot series by http://EnglishBanana.com – great ideas 4 working with connected speech & pronunciation. http://scr.bi/eoT4o8
• Text to speech tools www.voki.com / www.xtranormal.com
• Clicker 5 (good for elementary students) http://www.cricksoft.com/us/products/tools/clicker/home.aspx
• Voicethread, vocaroo, voxopop, audioboo for recording
• Self-study pronunciation lessons on YouTube http://bit.ly/i0v8du
• Online group for students to join to practise pronunciation http://englishclub.com/s/?JC

Resource books

• English Pronunciation in Use by CUP (especially for spelling/pronunciation connectionsm, stress, emphasis)
• Ship or Sheep and Tree or Three by Ann Baker
• Jazz Chants by Carolyn Graham
• English Pronunciation Illustrated by John Trim (complete with funny cartoons)
• Global coursebooks (range of accents in listening activities)
• Team Up coursebooks (great pronunciation activities and funny tongue twisters)

Methodology and Further Reading

• http://bit.ly/eNj2H0 Webinar by Adrian Underhill
• http://bit.ly/i1Jo0R Teaching Pronunciation using the Prosody Pyramid, a free booklet from CUP
• http://bit.ly/dFQv5d Teaching Pronunciation to Adults (Australian English)
• http://youtu.be/f5RekixAMoM Adrian Underhill on an embodied approach to pronunciation teaching
• http://tinyurl.com/63gkgbx An introduction to using the pronunciation chart by Adrian Underhill
• Teaching Pronunciation by Keith Kelly
• Teaching Pronunciation: A Course Book and Ref Guide by Celce-Murcia, Brinton, Goodwin (CUP 2010 2nd ed)
• Learner English by Swan and Smith

A bit of fun

This video, shared by @harrisonmike during the chat, epitomises why we should work on pronunciation

Scottish voice recognition elevator (shared by @esolcourses) (April 2013 update: the link may not always work, because it is sometimes removed. Google ‘Scottish voice recognition elevator’ and you should find it!)

The Two Ronnies (shared by @ShaunWilden)

Update: On the 29th June 2011, we had another chat about pronunciation, including lots of new links. The summary is here.