ESL Teaching Resources

ESL Teaching/Learning Resources

Pronunciation

Tongue Twisters

Sites Using Shockwave Technology

Sites Using Quicktime

Sites Using RealAudio

Sites Providing Text Files Only

Sites for Phonetic Labs & Professional Organizations

ESL Pronunciation Lessons on YouTube (American English) -- examples: TH pronunciation English Meeting ESL Lesson -- articulation, examples, words and sentences with sound highlighted; Past Tense Regular Verbs -- explanations, examples; Word Stress -- counting syllables, phonetic transcription, spelling, exercises, examples in native speaker speech; Intonation -- meaning in communication, falling intonation patterns, examples, illustration; Accent Reduction: Final sounds -- voiceless, voiced sounds, word pairs, strategies for pronunciation

Phonetics Focus and Flashcard Maker <http://www.cambridgeenglishonline.com/Phonetics_Focus/> -- all phonemes with phonetic script and sounds, flashcards, Entry/Exit Tests, Phonemic Chart, Phon' Chart & Poster, Phonemic Reader, Phon' Flashcards, Record & Practice, Phon' Chart Quiz, Phonemic Hangman, Phonetic Pelmanism, Which Phoneme?; includes phonemic search, phonemic flip, games--Phonemic Link, Phonemic Maze, Shoot-a-Symbol, Half 'n' Half, Odd Phon' Out, by Cambridge English Online

speechinaction <http://www.speechinaction.com/> -- by Richard Cauldwell, an online resource that focuses on authentic speech samples

Phonetics: The Sounds of English (German, Spanish) <http://www.uiowa.edu/%7Eacadtech/phonetics/#> -- animated sounds, with side view and articulation in front view videos, plus audio samples of initial, medial, final occurrence (Flash 7 download required); University of Iowa

English Pronunciation <http://www.okanagan.bc.ca/Page1205.aspx> -- Site created by the Okanagan University College of International Education; includes articulation videos (front & side view), instructions, repetitions, minimal pairs, dictations, tongue twisters, and recordings for consonants and vowels

American and British English Pronunciation Differences <http://www.answers.com/topic/american-and-british-english-pronunciation-differences> -- from Answers.com

The Sounds of English and the International Phonetic Alphabet <http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm> -- with audio (.mp3) of minimal pairs, some for both American and British English

BBC Learning English--Pronunciation Tips: The Sounds of English <http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/multimedia/pron/chart/index.shtml> -- includes phonemic chart with audio, minimal pairs (audio), and downloadable consonants/vowels sheets and exercise

SIL Encore IPA Fonts -- This site is created by SIL International. (Freeware in ASCII format). Download SIL's IPA fonts at no cost. Available for Mac and PC. Click Download the SIL IPA fonts now.

Phonetic characters to compose words and paste to other documents <http://www.e-lang.co.uk/mackichan/call/pron/type.html> -- created by Pete MacKichan

EnglishClub.net Pronunciation
    Word-Stress
    Sentence Stress
    How to Pronounce "-ed"
    Pronunciation Workshop

Worldwide Accents of English <http://www.gazzaro.it/accents/files/accents2.html> -- sound clips; site includes a commentary on RP, GenAm, Scottish, USA Southern Mountains, Texan, Russian, Black African, Asian Indian, Nigerian (by Gabriele Azzaro)

English Accents <http://www.let.uu.nl/~Rene.Kager/personal/TV2/accents.htm> -- many samples / sound clips

Forvo <www.forvo.com> -- a shared site for pronunciation of words from many languages; pronunciation by native and non-native speakers; various accents

International Phonetic Association

Tongue Twisters

The Tongue Twister Database

International Collection of Tongue-Twisters <http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/> -- With 2712 entries in 107 languages; 400 for English <http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/en.htm>

Tongue Twisters <http://www.eslpartyland.com/articles/tongue-twisters.html> -- What is a tongue twister? How are they used? Also includes Sites for Tongue Twisters

Alliteration Lesson Plans provides a list of tongue twisters teachers can use to introduce the concept of alliteration to their classroom.
Tongue Twister Practice offers an interactive game to help people practice their tongue twister reciting skills.
ThinkQuest offers a collection of tongue twisters in English and other languages in order to strengthen language skills.
Where is the Twist in the Tongue Twister? Is a research study demonstrating the elements of a tongue twister making it difficult to say.
The Warwick Center for Applied Linguistics offers information on tongue twisters.

A Feast of Homonyms - Homonyms: words that sound the same, but have a different spelling and a different meaning. At this site, you'll find 4 activities that will teach you lots of homonyms. You can use Flashcards, or play Concentration, Matching, or Word Search games. Just follow the instructions for each activity.

The CMU Pronouncing Dictionary <http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/cmudict> -- The Carnegie Mellon University Pronouncing Dictionary is a machine-readable pronunciation dictionary for North American English that contains over 125,000 words and their transcriptions.

Supras - To subscribe, e-mail Judy Gilbert

Sites Using Shockwave Technology:
Okanaga's English Pronunciation - (Requires Shockwave and Quicktime) Cutting-edge activities in pronunciation. Tongue twisters, dictation and Quicktime movies all provide instruction for minimal pair discrimination in a content-rich environment. Shockwave plug-in and 16 megabytes of RAM are recommended.

Sites Using Quicktime:
ESLoop by Geoff Taylor - (Requires HyperCard and Quicktime) Small animated video/audio clips of the alphabet illustrate speech articulators and proper pronunciation. Always wanted to use Karaoke in class? Look no further. This shareware focusing on minimal pair discrimination uses HyperCard application.

Takahiko Iimura's Video Clips - (Requires Quicktime) Avant-garde artist meets phonetics. Extremely artistic in nature, these clips exaggerate facial movements to display articulateness features of several Japanese vowels. Entertaining at the very least.

Sites Using RealAudio:
Vowels and Diphthongs of American and British English <http://faculty.washington.edu/dillon/PhonResources/newstart.html> -- (Uses AIF files and RealAudio) A sleek chart of English and British vowels and diphthongs. Click ona phonetic symbol to access and AIF audio file of the phoneme. An efficient reference chart and a helpful way of looking at the elusive American central vowel before /r/.

Adam Rado's English Learning Fun Center (ELFC) - (Uses AIF files, RealAudio) ELFC' "Mouth Manglers" focuses on problematic consonants while utilizing minimal pair discrimination in sentence format. "Toons & Voices" allows the learner to follow a text focusing on an idiom. The site elicits information from the user via cloze sentences, movie reviews, and multiple choice exercises. AIF audio files integrate content with speech production.

Fonetiks <http://www.fonetiks.org/> -- "The online resource for pronunciation and language study."

BetterAccent <http://betteraccent.com> -- Personal Interactive Pronunciation Coach Speak clearly, effectively and be easily understood!, Practice your American English Pronunciation!, Focus on intonation, stress and rhythm!, See and hear your pronunciation!, Identify, understand and correct your pronunciation errors!, Use the power of breakthrough speech analysis technology!

Sites Providing Text Files Only:
Pizzaz!...Tongue Twisters, by Leslie Opp-Beckman - Create, illustrate and manipulate tongue twisters. Includes links to the main tongue twister databases. Several stimulating activities to bring tongue twisters into the classroom.

John Higgins' Home Page - (Machine Readable Phonemes, ASCII files) A compilation of different RP minimal pairs, homophones, and homographs. Author John Higgins has re-indexed sections of Roger Milton's 1974 work, the "Advanced Learner's Dictionary of English." The extensive list of RP minimal pairs in ASCII format can be downloaded.

English Pronunciation Test - And internet incarnation of the 'English is tough stuff' poem familiar to many teachers of English pronunciation. The unidentified author promises, "Once you've learned to correctly pronounce every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world."

Sites for Teachers:
UCLA's Phonetics Lab - Visit Peter Ladefoged, Pat Keating and others in the UCLA Phonetics Lab. The Phonetics Lab journal and phonetic software are available at a small cost. Visiting this state-of-the-art lab is a must for students or teachers interested in acoustic phonetics.

The CMU Pronouncing Dictionary - (Transcriptions; for developers) The Carnegie Mellon University Pronouncing Dictionary is a machine-readable pronunciation dictionary for North American English that contains over 100,000 words and their transcriptions. This format is particularly useful for speech recognition and synthesis. Because IPA is not the standard here, this site is really for the serious developer.

Summer Institute of Linguistics' (SIL) IPA Fonts - (Freeware in ASCII format). Download SIL's IPA fonts at no cost. Available for Mac and PC. Click Download the SIL IPA fonts now.

Summer Institute of Linguistics' Computing Resources - (Link Page) Helpful computing links with several links to SIL speech analysis software.

The International Phonetic Association - The aim of the Association is to promote the scientific stud of phonetics and the various practical applications of that science. IPA fonts, journals, and sounds of the IPA are available.

People Helping One Another Know Stuff - (Link Page) A massive list of related links and websites providing speech synthesis and recognition technology.

American Accent Training (http://americanaccent.com/) -- includes interesting links to information about
Intonation (speech music), Liaisons (word connection), Pronunciation the sounds of American English

Teaching English by the BBC/British Council on Teaching English

Pronunciation Activities <http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/prontry/pron_activites.shtml>
Audio Bank <http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/download/audio/pron/pron.shtml> -- listen to a number of teachers from around the world talking about their approach to pronunciation, what model of pronunciation they use and how they feel about their own voice.