 |
| Table of Contents | About the Authors | ||||
|
|||||
This course is designed to improve your English pronunciation using daily exercises for one month. It includes complete instructions, strategies, student demonstrations and exercises that will help you quickly and easily improve your pronunciation. The course includes 2 videotapes or 2 DVDs, a daily exercise workbook with 3 follow-along audio CD's.
Student Course:
2 videotapes or DVD’s, 246-page workbook, and 3 audio CDs
Videotaped Lessons:
Two 90-minute videotapes (or DVDs) present complete lessons for each of the most important areas of pronunciation. Lessons focus on areas that learners can improve quickly. For each unit learners are asked to watch a short segment on videotape (or DVD) and then complete 2-4 days of exercises in the workbook using the audio CDs to help reinforce the concepts. Videotaped lessons are presented by a very professional and easy-to-understand instructor.
Student Demonstrations:
In each unit on the videotapes, students from 13 different countries demonstrate problem areas and techniques to help learners improve specific difficulties. The students help learners identify incorrect patterns, understand the strategies and steps to solve those problems, and demonstrate improvements.
Workbook:
This comprehensive workbook includes over 240 pages of practical and easy-to-understand exercises divided into 31 days of lessons. The exercises should take less than 30 minutes a day to complete. Special emphasis is given to muscle-building exercises, self-listening techniques, learning key words, and practicing the techniques in real conversations or situations. Practice exercises present information about U.S. culture including friendships, small talk, use of space, education styles, and many other cultural situations. Each pronunciation unit includes practical exercises with additional classroom or partner activities. Even without an instructor, learners are able to discover problem areas and practice the techniques to improve quickly. An answer key is included for self-study learners.
3 Audio CDs:
Every workbook comes with a set of audio CDs which include dozens of follow-along and listening exercises. By practicing with the CDs learners quickly master the pronunciation skills.
Unit 1: The Basics - Muscle-building Exercises
- Learn new ways to move your lips, jaw and tongue
- Practice daily exercises help change your jaw, tongue, and lip movements.
Unit 2: Enunciation: Consonants
- Learn to pronounce specific consonant sounds including b, p, m, f, v, th, t, d, l, n, r, k, g, ng, and h.
- Learn to pronounce words with difficult groups of consonants.
- Practice consonants in various places in words (beginning, middle and end) and within sentences
- Build KEY WORD lists, words you most commonly use.
- Learn an effective strategy to pronounce difficult words
Unit 3: Enunciation: Vowels
- Learn how to pronounce vowel sounds accurately.
- Learn how to open your mouth and lengthen vowels.
Unit 4: Word Stress
- Learn how to divide words into syllables or units of sounds.
- Learn the features of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Unit 5: Sentence Stress
- Learn which words to stress in a sentence and how to make them sound stronger.
- Practice the sentence stress patterns so listeners can pick out the most important words.
Unit 6: Emphasis
- Learn how to help your listeners focus on the most important information in your sentences like transition words and new information.
Unit 7: Thought Groups and Pausing
- Divide your sentences into manageable groups of ideas called thought groups.
- Learn which words to stress in each thought group.
Unit 8: Intonation
- Learn the overall “music” of English.
- Practice correct intonation patterns.
Unit 9: Linking and Wrap Up
- Learn strategies to make words flow smoothly.
Self Listening Exercises
- Learn an effective strategy for self-monitoring - listening for your own mistakes and correcting them.
| About the Authors |
| Colleen Meyers and Sheryl Holt are both ESL instructors at the University of Minnesota, teaching pronunciation and writing for over 20 years each. They have taught teaching assistants, business professionals and students in the United States and many countries around the world. They have presented at local and national conferences such as TESOL and NAFSA, and each have co-authored books, including contributions by Colleen Meyers to a widely used ITA book, Communicate: Strategies for International Teaching Assistants (Prentice Hall Regents). |