I D Pronunciation

Pronunciation Problems for Chinese Students of English As a global language, English has been popularly taught as the second language in China for quite a few years. Now there are more Chinese people learning English on various purposes, such as applying for a higher paid job, studying and living abroad, or establishing business with western countries. According to my experience of learning and teaching English, it is harder to master English pronunciation than English grammar for Chinese students. Chinese grammar may appear quite simple compared to that of many highly-inflected Western languages (e.g. Russian, Latin, etc.), or even the low-scale verb conjugations, for instance, of English (e.g. "swim, swam, swum") because of the lack of inflections. Even though there are similarities...  [Read more]

Phonetics and TESOL Phonetics, the study of the sounds of human speech, and in particular “Articulatory Phonetics”, are not commonly taught to native speakers of English, let alone learners of English as a second language. However if the learner is serious with their English and wish to progress to an advanced level, learning phonetics, in particular the International Phonetic Alphabet, would be of immense benefit. English spelling is often contradictory, devoid of relation to the pronunciation of a word, and lacking in clear patterns. Patterns that do exist are numerous, with a large number of exceptions, and all of this makes it very difficult for the learner of English as a second language to master pronunciation. The International Phonetic Alphabet puts all of the individual...  [Read more]

  For statements in the negative form, what we have to do is add the auxiliary verb 'to do'. For subjects 'I', 'you', 'we' and 'they', we simply leave 'do' as 'do', use the word 'not', and keep the base form of the verb now for the negative statements. However, for 'he', 'she' and 'it', we have to conjugate our auxiliary verb into 'does'. We still use 'not' and we still keep the base form of the verb. The pattern performing questions is very very similar to the pattern performing negative statements. However, what we've done is invert our subject and our auxiliary verb so that the questions read the auxiliary verb first. Of course, again, we use 'do' for 'I', 'you', 'we' and 'they' and use 'does' for 'he', 'she' and 'it'. In both cases, we've left our verb form as the base form of...  [Read more]

British english vs american English With English being recognised as the global language of choice, which one is considered the official language? So just how did American English diverge from British English in the first place? American English roots back to the early colonial days of the late 16th century, were a whole gamut of cultures converged into a single society. In some colonies English wasn’t even a spoken language and in those colonies that did speak English it was quite different from the English we know today. The Elizabethan English of the day consisted of many varieties of regional English dialects. All these different dialects, intermingled with a multitude of cultures formed one big boiling pot, of which over time, a new variant was produced – American English. And...  [Read more]

Cape Town is a modern city with a combination of cultures, urban living and natural beauty all dominated by the magnificent Table Mountain National Park. Whether you are into art, food, music, sports or all these things you are going to feel right at home in Cape Town. Cape Town is the oldest city in South Africa and is known as the “Mother City”. The region that is now Cape Town was first noted by Portuguese explores in the fifteenth century and the city is great place to explore the history and culture of South Africa. Surrounded by gorgeous natural landscapes, Cape Town is also home to some beautiful cultivated natural spaces such as botanical gardens and public parks. With an abundance of outdoor space it is not surprise that sports are a popular past time in Cape Town and South...  [Read more]

Computer Aided Language Learning With the advent of the internet and its increasing importance in the classroom, Computer Aided Language Learning, or CALL, has become a viable and useful source for both teachers and students. CALL first became prevalent in US classrooms in the late 1070’s. Since its introduction it has gone from a primitive, structured Q&A program, to full-fledged language programs such as Rosetta stone. Although programs like Rosetta Stone have experienced success, many experts believe that CALL should be used to augment rather than replace face-to-face learning environments. This was one of the big questions facing ESL teachers in the late 90s, how to integrate CALL and its resulting technological concerns successfully into the classroom. Such things as whether an...  [Read more]