Featured Song in Phonetics

Joan Baez - Where Have All The Flowers Gone 

Dare you - Solution!

Write the spelling

Write the spelling of the words in brackets


Careful!
The jar is [ful].
Don´t drop it.
Don´t be a [fu:].

The solution tomorrow

The Answer: "Peace" Phonetics

Fill in the brackets with the pronunciation in phonetics

 3)        Dare you?

Watch out for MEAT (            ) and GREAT (                 ) and THREAT (             )

They rhyme with SUIT (           ) and STRAIGHT (                ) and DEBT (               )

You will soon experience your pronunciation is improving

Quiz

I expect that you realize that i: is represented by two vowels in spelling, but not always. To what words of the poem it does not apply?  

PEACE  J BY THE SEA

From my window

I have a clear view

of the sea.

The fire is lit.

The cat sleeps

on a cushion

on a seat;

it isn't neat

on account of it

There is a ship

in the sea

and a cart near it

loading seaweed.

The island is

purple and green,

with flowers and trees,

and rocks made of granite

A bird gets in

I let it free

but it refuses to leave;

It'd rather stay with me.

Later, a bee

comes in ,

it’s a busybody

and annoys me .

It's a bore indeed

Now, the dog leaps up,

it licks

my knees

and feet

I want to read

but I can't get rid 

of him .

It’s hard to believe,

I do want to read

but the birds begin

to sing

and the sheep

to bleat,

and I go to sleep.

Now you can see

what peace

there can be

on a piece

of land by the sea.

Can you imagine

the scene?

Did you know that six years is a critical age for learning to speak ?

 Some children were found in the mountains, suckled by animals, who had never had contact with humans.

Those who were found before the age of 6 could learn to speak , but those aged 7 or more, such is the case of Lucy, a girl found in France,  were not able to learn to speak even if  their teachers tried hard. The researchers concluded that six years is a critical period for brain maturation . This suggests that listening to the mother tongue creates paths  due to the high plasticity of the brain at an early age, a kind of linguistic and conceptual frame required to learn to speak.

Funny

We live on the top of a heel (hill)

Hye! Anybody there?

We saw the trails of your footsteps and would like to hear from you, if only hellow. Dare? We promise warmth and understanding

PRONUNCIATION MOST GENERAL RULES

AMUSING, aesthetic, EFFECTIVE

WHOLE BRAIN

LEARNING

Our aim is to attract your attention, motivate and engage you with amusing, aesthetic and interesting material that produce effective learning. 

VOWELS i contrast

from SOUND&SPELLING MINDMAPS

Phonetic Symbols help

SOLUTION

Fill in brackets!

Dare you try familiar traps?

Be aware of heard  (          ), a dreadful word

That looks like beard (          ) and sounds like bird  (       )

And dead  (         ): it is said like  bed  (           ), not  bead  (           )

For goodness sake, don´t call it a  deed  (         )

The solution tomorrow.

MIND MAPS, WHY?

Logic, rational, conscious learning is processed in the left brain.

Pronunciation, rhythm and intonation are mainly processed in the right brain.

Our procedure engages both hemispheres: it is whole brain learning.

a)    There is a logic organization of the contents for the left brain.

b)    The layout, the use of images, color and irregular lines for the right  brain.

c)    The same sound appears in different words. This exposure caters for  unconscious learning and association of words with the same spelling. It leads to automatic put out.

A FREAKY EFFECTIVE DEVICE

SOUND & SPELLING DANCE

Globalization confirms English as a basic need that a democracy should afford.ORA ENGLISH is a MUST but a difficult TASK; due to Sound and Spelling bad relationship.

Sound accuses Spelling of deceptive and misleading, Spelling accuses Sound of fussy and  choosy; the  learner is  dismayed and helpless.

An absent-minded teacher, Miss Peace, had a brilliant idea.She got them to dance the tango. Sound embraces spelling tightly, both learn the proper steps consciously and follow the rhythm unconsciously. 

 Eventually they fall in love and marry. The wedding is jubilant. It is a  happy marriage indeed in spite of what bigots foresee.

The professionalism and imagination of Miss Peace  tamed  the unruly Spelling, Sound followed suit  and both  live happily ever since.

SOUND&SPELLING MINDMAPS

JOLLY TALES FOR LEARNING

JOLLY TALES & FUNNY STORIES  audio CD

Author: Alba Paz

Answers!

Joke

The misleading English spelling

The unruly English spelling causes most pronunciation errors, others are due to different  articulation of the sounds.

To make you aware of the problem:

Write in the brackets the pronunciation of the following words:
TOUGH  (             ),  BOUGH  (           ), DOUGH (            ), SOUGH (           ),
SOUGHT (            ), TOUCH  (           )HICCOUGH  (         ),  THOROUGH  (         ), 
LOUGH  (              ), THROUGH) (            )

Tomorrow I will give you the answers. Don´t be dismayed if you made mistakes, most people would.

I undertook the taming of the unruly spelling in order to facilitate pronunciation.

PHONETICS? - YES

Although audio dictionaries are a great asset nowadays, however, phonetic transcription is still convenient as a visual support. The advantages of phonetics are:
it is visual, accurate and reliable
it is permanent, remains
it is up to learner's pace
it provides self- monitoring
it develops self-confidence and self-esteem

Mindmaps

SAMPLE MINDMAP, More here

These pronunciation MINDMAPS are unique. They relate sound and  spelling.

a) The target sound appears in phonetics in a central image.
b) Branches with different spellings radiate from the central image.

 The mind maps are enhanced with colour and pictures to add interest and loveliness. So they attract attention, enhance memory and improve the recall.

Mind maps store data efficiently and so multiply your capacity.

It is an evident visual display of the English sounds related to spelling. 

All the system displayed  in 22 mindmaps.

GO ON, look at the sample map and take the wise decision of continuing if you wish to improve your pronunciation or somebody else’s.

The branches should be read clockwise the first time so as to be acquainted with the procedure.

If you are not able to produce the sounds indicated by the phonetic symbols  consult an English pronouncing dictionary: eg. Oxford Pronouncing Pocket Dictionary

The author wrote the present MINDMAPS inspired by Tony Bazan´s and  Barry Buzan´s Mind Map book (BBC Books), to whom she would like to express acknowledgement and recognition.