Oxford Handbooks for Language Teachers: Teaching American English Pronunciation

Preface
Introduction: Preliminary considerations in the teaching of pronunciation
- Biological factors
- Socio-cultural factors
- Personality factors
- The role of the native language
- Setting realistic goals
PART ONE: The sound system of English
1. Spelling and pronunciation
- The English spelling system
- Sound-spelling correspondences
- Spelling in other languages
- The phonetic alphabet
- Exercises
2. Individual sounds of English
- How speech sounds are made
- Consonants and vowels
The description of English consonants
- Place of articulation
- Manner of articulation
- Voicing
- Summary
The description of English vowels
- Tongue height
- Frontness/backness of tongue
- Tenseness/laxness
- Lip rounding
- Phonetic symbols for vowels
- Complex vowels (dipthongs)
- The vowel /ar/
- The consonant /h/
- Semi-vowels (glides)
- Exercises
3. English sounds in context
Positional variation
- Contrastive sounds of English
- Non-contrastive sounds of English
- Implications for teaching
- Conclusion
Grammatical endings
- The regular past tense
- The plural, possessive, and third person singular
- Grammatical endings in the pronunciation classroom
- Exercises
4. The shape of English words
- Syllable types
- Consonant clusters
- Exercises
5. Word stress and vowel reduction
- What is stress?
- Schwa
- Major and minor stress
- Placement of word stress
- Exercises
6. Connected Speech
Rhythm, sentence stress, and intonation
- The stress-timed rhythm of English
- Placement of stress in sentences
- Intonation
Modifications of sounds in connected speech
- The pronunciation of function words
- Linking
- Deletion of consonants
- Assimilation
- Summary
- Exercises
PART TWO: The identification and correction of specific pronunciation problems
Introduction
7. Common pronunciation problems
- English vowels
- English consonants
- Stress, rhythm, and intonation
8. Problems of selected language groups
- Arabic
- Chinese
- Farsi
- French
- German
- Greek
- Hindi and Punjabi
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Spanish
- Vietnamese
PART THREE: Classroom activities
Introduction
9. A communicative approach to pronunciation teaching
- Introduction
- Consonants and vowels
- Connected speech
- Suprasegmentals
- Monitoring
- Conclusion
10. Pronunciation syllabus design: a question of focus
- The zoom principle
- Assessing learner variables
- Collection of speech samples
- Diagnosis of speech samples
- From diagnosis to syllabus design
- Monitoring progress
- Appendix: Student diagnostic profile
11. Suprasegmentals in the pronunciation class: setting priorities
- Introduction
- Stress/unstress
- Stress and rhythm
- Major sentence stress
- Intonation
- Linking and pausing
- Palatalization
- Conclusion
12. Pronunciation-based listening exercises for the multi-level class
- Introduction
- Minimal pairs
- Stress assignment
- Function words
- Intonation
- Conclusion
13. Teaching pronunciation: an inventory of techniques
- Introduction
Individual sounds
- Minimal pairs
- Visual aids
- Stress, rhythm, and intonation
- Developing fluency
- Conclusion
14. Developing self-correcting and self-monitoring strategies
- Introduction
- Self-correction
- Self-monitoring
- Conclusion
15. Developing natural and confident speech:
- Drama techniques in the pronunciation class
- Introduction
- Articulation
- Pitch, volume, and rate
- Variety
- Conclusion
16. Unintelligibility and the ESL learner
- Introduction
- The receiver
- The sender
- Conclusion<br />
Glossary
Further reading
Bibliography
Contributors
Index

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Peter Avery currently teaches linguistics at the University of Toronto. He is involved in teacher training throughout the TESL Certificate programme at George Brown College, Toronto, Canada. His research interests include theoretical phonology and second language acquisition.

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