Sounds of Speech Software Review

Pronunciation textbooks most often present and teach vowel sounds through “key words,” often presented as a list or as part of a vowel chart. In this article, I argue that “key” or “chart” words are ineffective, especially when using words that create minimal pairs that English Language Learners (ELLs) already tend to mispronounce. As an alternative, I present Native Speaker Utterances (NSUs). The NSUs are easy and fun to teach, focus ELLs’ attention on the sound, and link the sound utterance to meaningful communication. A complete model is presented that can be integrated into any classroom.

This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the English at ODU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ODU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@odu.edu. Repository Citation Bing, Janet Mueller, "English Sound Stucture [Book Review]" (1997). English Faculty Publications. Paper 14. http://digitalcommons.odu.edu/english_fac_pubs/14