Pronunciation through technology

Dear All
I went through the website of BBC Learning English
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/. I found the page 'The Sounds of English' http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/ quite useful.
This site is useful for the primary level students. However, any other level of students of the English as a foreign language can be benefited from the site.

The site primarily enhances better pronunciation of the students. All sounds, both consonants and vowels, of English are given in the website along with their pronunciation. The sounds have been further categorised into long, short and diphthongs in the case of vowels. Likewise, the consonants sounds have been put under voiceless, voiced and other sounds. Since the students can also listen to the sounds, their listening skill will also be enhanced. Moreover, this site provides the examples of /I/, /i:/, /u/, /u:/ and some other vowels at the word level in five different units. This helps the students to pronounce the words correctly.

Overall, the site is relevant to the level of primary students. By using the site, students can practice the pronunciation of all English sounds. However, the site does not provide the word level examples of all sounds. The pronunciation of sounds in isolation sometimes create problem especially when the students make a sound-symbol correlation. Sometimes, the same symbol is pronounced differently and sometimes the same sound is represented by different symbols. Similarly, the site does not give any minimal pair examples (e.g. fan and van) which enable students to discriminate and identify correct sounds. It would have been better if there were examples of the sounds at different position on the word (e.g. initial, middle and final).

Besides these lacunas, the site is useful for the students to improve their pronunciation.

With regards
Prem
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Dear Prem,
This is my teaching philosophy when using technology with my students. I consider tech as a tool only, to show them the path that will lead them, by their own, to go autonomously, forward for more exploration.

I have used my favourite website for pronunciation with a group of engineers in a training course. Do you believe that they sent me after the coursed ended, maybe weeks later, that they still used it in their free time? If you are interested you can have a look at it here:

I agree with you that BBC Learning English is very beneficial for students.

You wrote "It would have been better if there were examples of the sounds at different position on the word (e.g. initial, middle and final)." I cannot agree more. For example, this website pronounces words with photos. It's suitable only for young learners.

You also wrote "Sometimes, the same symbol is pronounced differently and sometimes the same sound is represented by different symbols.". How about this website:


It gives you an idea of the sounds of American English. I hope you will find it useful. Even website offering services like: do not work properly and may waste students' time trying to shorten phrases or re-edit a word.

Regards, Hala

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Dear Hala
Thank you for your comment on my post. What I wanted to say about the web page I have discussed in my previous post was: the page does not provide any example of the occurrence a particular sound at word middle and final level. It only provides examples at word initial level.

Moreover, sound-symbol correlation is tricky in English which poses a great problem for my students. For example, 'ch' is pronounced as /tS/ in 'chocolate' 'choice' but /k/ in 'chorus'. My point is that although the website is useful, there is no doubt, it'd been better if there are some examples of such variations in pronunciation.

Cheers
Prem