Practice pronunciation.

[Maryfer Aleman]

Hi there!
I’m an English teacher and I want to know about your strategies to practice pronunciation with teenager’s students.
I use songs to improve student’s pronunciation, and with younger students I have had good results but, with teenager students it is hard to use songs, they have told me that they feel awkward singing songs.

What should I use to practice the language, in a funny way, with teenagers?

[Carlos Raul Lopez Reatiga]

Hello Maryfer,
I can tell you what I think about pronunciation.
1. Pronunciation is one of the skills teachers do not know, most of the times, how to teach, and
2. It is something most teachers simply fear.
3. Students do not feel motivated to improve their pronunciation, therefore, they hate it when teachers want them to do something about it.

Also, it is true that working with teenagers is so difficult that teachers tend to pretend they are working in order to avoid problems.

There are a few activities you can do to motivate them to practice and improve their pronunciation.
This is one example: Students are asked to record their voices telling something about them or about something they are interested in. Promise them to give them extra points after a specific number of this kind of assignments. Of course, if they are well pronounced. This activity has proven to give great results.
Let me show you a sample of this:

Sometimes, it also helps to identify who likes to sing so they can do something very similar to karaoke. They just choose the songs they want to sing.

I hope this can help.

CU Around ;)
Carlos Raul

[GREGORIO MAGNO RUELAS]

Hi, Marifer, that's a good question. For some teenagers singing is all right, but when doing a singing activity they notice that some of their peers are not singing they feel the presure and don´t want to be different, so peer presure is sometimes a barrier to singing activities, I know that because I used to work with teenagers. Right now I am teaching children and I notice that younger children are more willing to participate in songs than older ones.

So I suggest you to include different activities for pronunciation, not only singing, may be you can model reading for them and then have reading aloud activities, some of the Ss might like more reading than singing, and also you can do discusion activities to help them express their ideas while you monitor their pronunciation.

Another activities you can do is watching together a movie clip, then discuss about it, Or may be give some students a news paper than they share to others what they read and also you monitor their pronunciation helping them to improve it.

I hope you can take at least one on these useful ideas.

Have a good day Marifer.

[Maryfer Aleman]

Hi Teacher Carlos!

Thanks for your reply, I searched on the net and I found lecture with sound, but the activities you post are fun, and I think Ss would love to use karaoke, I remember that you gave us an example in the first semester, and I think recording themselves it is a great idea too. This kind of activity will definitely help to have students motivated and achieve my goal.
Thank you very much.
Greetings!
Maryfer.=)

[Carlos Raul Lopez Reatiga]

Maryfer,
It is amazing how many activities we can do to help learners improve their pronunciation.
Surfing the net this morning, I found this website: http://www.trainyouraccent.com/accent.htm. You should go there and see what you can get to help students improve their pronunciation.
Warm regards!

CU Around ;)
Carlos Raul

[KipYellowjacket]

Hmm...

A thought just came to me, but I've never actually tried this with teenagers(yet).

Perhaps you could have them sit back-to-back and speak to each other, with or without prepared dialogues. Not being able to see the other person's face/lips will require them to focus a bit more when speaking and listening.

Hope it proves fun! :)

[aida]

Hi Marifer:

Well in my opinion, you can use lesson´s conversations, it is one of the best ways to have a better pronounciation, so teacher can help with mistakes pronounced.

[martha sandoval]

hi....

i want to give my opinion
i think the teeneger are interested more in music, and the
fashion, that you can use it like examples in your activities..
for example if you are teaching adjectives... you can describe
like hanna montana...

please, post me, in my discussion

thank you!!

[Maryfer Aleman]

Hi

Guys thanks for your suggestions.

PS: Martha what's the topic of your discussion

martha sandoval said:

hi....

i want to give my opinion
i think the teeneger are interested more in music, and the
fashion, that you can use it like examples in your activities..
for example if you are teaching adjectives... you can describe
like hanna montana...

please, post me, in my discussion

thank you!!

[Belemtu]

Hi maryfer =)
I think that pronunciation it's something really important!
uhm. besides songs you can download some activities, or they can discuss about some topics that they feel interested!
(like sex jajaj just kidding!) Also you can make competitions!
And maybe they will feel more interested!
Good luck!
see ya! =)
rattui =)