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  • 1.  Best online PRONUNCIATION software/program/license (American English focus but not limited to)

    Posted 27-07-2022 01:54 PM
    Greeetings to my TESOL community,

    I am emailing you with a question concerning your personal experience as a professional or as a student working with pronunciation online software/programs and what seemed to have worked best for you.

    Looking forward to learning from your individual or collective experiences.

    All the best,
    Diana Popa

    Feel free to email me at dpopa@uvm.edu


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    Diana Popa
    PhD
    University of Vermont
    United States
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  • 2.  RE: Best online PRONUNCIATION software/program/license (American English focus but not limited to)

    Posted 28-07-2022 01:19 PM
    Hi Diana-
    I have been using the app ELSA and it seems to work really well for students.  I was able to get a small grant to buy many 6 month subscriptions, so students contact me and I set them up with the version they would normally have to pay for.  As a company they are also very responsive.
    Are AI apps limited?  Sometimes, but overall there has been good feedback from students.  I should also mention that I don't use them as part of instruction in a class, normally.  The one time I did, for a small group, they were just assigned a certain number of minutes per week and I was able to see that as a kind of manager of the class on ELSA.
    I look forward to seeing what others say!
    Jen

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    Jennifer Brondell
    Director
    English Language Programs
    Clemson University
    jbronde@clemson.edu
    [864-656-3209]
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Best online PRONUNCIATION software/program/license (American English focus but not limited to)

    Posted 29-07-2022 01:30 AM
    Question: What do you think people you use pronunciation problems want from the program>
    (1) to make sure their speech is understood
    (2) to sound like a member of a certain group = to have that group's accent.

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    Stephen Krashen
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Best online PRONUNCIATION software/program/license (American English focus but not limited to)

    Posted 29-07-2022 10:25 AM
    Why does it matter why a person wants to use a pronunciation apps (or tutors)?

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    Allison Widmann, MSW, MPP, Certified TESOL
    ESL Teacher
    Language and Literacy, LLC
    United States
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Best online PRONUNCIATION software/program/license (American English focus but not limited to)

    Posted 02-08-2022 06:31 AM
    Edited by Jacqueline Leigh 02-08-2022 06:32 AM

    I think Stephen Krashen's question about student goals is important to our cultural responsiveness in the classroom. Our students learn additional languages so they can mingle farther than they could before; define new identities for themselves. In each of their planned futures, what is the percent of perfection they will need to be understood, or to have a particular group's accent, considering the fact that studies have shown that listeners' ability to comprehend a second language speaker can vary considerably depending on their attitude toward that person's personality, ethnicity, or whatever; i.e., on listeners' willingness to comprehend. How much of our class time can we justify spending on perfecting pronunciation?


    Sometimes you have a further instructional goal in mind. In teaching poetry in anglophone West Africa I go through all sorts of antics trying to get students who speak a regional syllabic-stressed variety of English to appreciate metrical patterns in poems written by native (phrase-stressed) English speakers.


    Sometimes the student's goal is just to get a job. I recently was treated in Michigan by a South Asian physical therapist who had been learning in English since childhood, who told me about the four attempts he had to make to pass an oral English exam to obtain his credentials to work, particularly in light of all the non-native speaking doctors he has met in the US he considers very difficult to understand. He had a good point but I couldn't help thinking resentment might make him sometimes less willing than he could be to understand them.

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    Jacqueline Leigh
    Sentinel English Language Institute
    United States
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Best online PRONUNCIATION software/program/license (American English focus but not limited to)

    Posted 03-08-2022 01:24 AM
    I appreciate your question, Stephen. It's a reminder of the importance of student goals when choosing a pronunciation or any other tool.

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    Nellie Deutsch, Ed.D.
    University of Phoenix
    CALL-IS Co Chair Elect
    nelliemuller@email.phoenix.edu
    Moodle Teacher/Admin Trainer
    Mindfulness Practitioner
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    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Best online PRONUNCIATION software/program/license (American English focus but not limited to)

    Posted 31-07-2022 07:05 AM
    Hi,

    To deal with pronunciation issues at word level, I have been using Mariam Webster Dictionary App. If I have to deal with phrase-level pronunciation problems, like assimilation, blending or short-forms, I use YouTube videos, or Cambridge Pronunciation In Use audios, (2022 edition) which deal with various accents, as well as,  individual phonological patterns.

    FluentU is another app. that teaches  with videos, where users watch various situations like movie trailers, commercials and music videos. I used that only occasionally. It is mostly recommended for students to practice speaking outside the class time.

    Try them, I hope you will find them helpful.

    Fayyaz.



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    Fayyaz Malik
    Instructor
    Al Yamamah University
    Saudi Arabia
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    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Best online PRONUNCIATION software/program/license (American English focus but not limited to)

    Posted 01-08-2022 05:30 PM
    Great question! .My/ our goal is comprehensibility.

    At the excellent recommendation of Christine Bauer- Ramazani, as a pay- for service in Higher Ed ESL, our program really likes Pronunciation Power. Students can watch videos on point and manner of articulation of all the vowels and consonants, and do a variety of other exercises which exploit the targeted pronunciation focus for each vowel/consonant. All with the end goal of taking an oral quiz repeating 52 sentences with this target targeted pronunciation focus. When they finish the quiz,  they get immediate feedback on areas of strength and areas of improvement. This determines what they should work on before they take the next quiz. The goal, at least for me,  is to show improvement over the course of our eight week term. How that is measured is up to the teacher.:) Some teachers explicitly teach the 52 sentences that are used on the quiz. This way, I can focus on specific aspects for each student, and they can see the end goal. One sentence, for eg, "the quack of the duck annoyed the queen", a source of endless amusement for my students, zeroes in on the KW or K production. ( Please excuse the copyright)  One drawback is that the program is only concerned with vowels and consonant production: nothing on rhythm. For that,  I have been digging into lyrical poetry with easy rhyme schemes and meter. Even the above sentence could easily be use to teach rhythm content and focus words. It remains to be seen in research which of these two  aspects of pronunciation ( rhythm or "production")  is the most important. I think a two-pronged approach works well. Finally, you can get some great data from the feedback that PP provides. I map all scores on a spreadsheet and set targets from there. I'd be curious to hear what you all have to say.



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    Larry Udry
    Assistant Professor- ESL
    Divine Word College
    United States
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    Original Message