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Pronunciation and Phonology in the EFL Classroom - Manner of Articulation Pt. 1

 

When it comes to manner of articulation, we have six different ways in which our breath is produced in order to make our sounds. We have our plosives, our affricates, fricatives, the nasal sounds, our lateral sound and the approximants. Let's take a look at each individually and see how they differ from one another. First we have our plosive sounds. As the word might indicate we have basically a little explosion of sound with our breath. The plosive sounds are made through a three-step process. First there's a closure somewhere in the vocal tract. Second there's a buildup of air and finally there's a sudden release of that air like a little explosion. If we look at some of the sounds that are made this way we might better understand why they are called plosives. Examples are the ?p?, ?t?, ?k? and ?g? sounds. Again we have a closure in the vocal tract, a buildup of air and a sudden release ?p?, ?b?, ?k? and ?g?. Next we have our affricates. This manner of articulation is very very close to the plosives however there's one very important difference and that's in the last step. Again with the advocates we have a closure somewhere in the vocal tract, we have a buildup of air, however, with this manner of articulation we have a gradual release of air rather than the sudden release of air with the plosives. There are two examples of these sounds and they are ?tsh? and ?dsh?. Again there's a closure a buildup of air but yet this time it's a sudden release. Let's take a look at that one more time we have ?tsh? and ?dsh?.


Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next.

This unit was about the teaching of productive skills, namely writing and speaking. The unit detailed the differences between lessons or activities concerned more with the equally important accuracy and fluency. The unit ended with the topic of using games in the classroom, insisting that games are multiply useful, and not just a distraction.This lesson provided a lot of good ideas, lesson plans, and teaching methods that should be good for children. Unfortunately everything seems to be focused on children that already have some knowledge or grasp on the English language, and I will be starting more from scratch. So these should be handy later on, but not in the beginning for me.

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