General notes Notes on specific items Suggested resources for preparing to practise different aspects of pronunciation

In a multilingual class of students who speak different first
languages, they tend to have different problems when learning
English pronunciation. This grid allows you to see where their
areas of difficulty overlap, so you can decide what to prioritise
when teaching to avoid their having trouble in understanding
each other's pronunciation.
The contents of this grid are based on research (Jenkins, 2000)
which suggested some things were more important than others
for communication in lingua franca situations, or in other
words, situations where people who don't speak each other's
first languages use English to communicate. It is not intended
to be a diagnostic tool, but it could be a useful basis for
identifying which pronunciation aspects to prioritise in a
multilingual English classroom if the learners have trouble
understanding each other's pronunciation.
Because the grid is not based on the traditional method of
contrasting learners' pronunciation with native speakers'
pronunciation, some things which are familiar to you might
seem to be missing (e.g. word stress, or the sounds /θ/ and
/ð/). These have been left out deliberately, according to the
research this grid is based on; but of course, if you're teaching
and you notice something is causing a breakdown in
communication between students but it isn't represented on
this grid, you can and should still address it!
There is a row at the top of the grid, under the list of
languages, for you to write your own students' names in, for
easier reference when lesson planning/teaching.
/p/, /t/ and /k/ Lots of languages have these sounds, and they often contrast with /b/, /d/ and
/g/. However, in English it is very important to aspirate /p/, /t/ and /k/ when
it occurs at the beginning of a stressed syllable.
This means that when the /p/, /t/ or /k/ sound is 'released' in words/phrases
like 'pig', 'ton' or 'a curl', a small puff of air should also be released, so they
don't sound like 'big', 'done' or 'a girl'.
/t/ Many British and American speakers drop or change this sound at the ends or
in the middle of words (e.g. 'got', 'butter', 'winter') and some speakers
(especially American) may pronounce it like /d/ (e.g. 'litre' sounds like 'leader').
You should encourage your students to avoid all of this and always pronounce
the sound clearly as /t/.
/ŋ/ This sound doesn't exist as a phoneme in many of the languages listed here,
but it may exist in some contexts without learners' even realising they're
producing it (e.g. where /n/ is followed by /g/ or /k/).
/r/ This sound should be pronounced wherever it appears in spelling, and should
be pronounced as in General American English (technically written as [ɻ]).
word-final This row may override or overlap with information elsewhere on the chart, e.g.
consonants German speakers usually have no problems with /b/ in general, but they may
devoice it at the end of words.
consonant Normally, learners should never simplify English clusters by deleting sounds.
clusters in the However, some English clusters are more commonly pronounced with one
middle or at the sound dropped, e.g. the /t/ in the word 'facts'. If this is the standard
ends of words pronunciation, it is acceptable for learners to do it, too. Otherwise, encourage
them to pronounce all sounds in the cluster accurately. If they really struggle,
they may add very short vowels between the consonants (which they might do
naturally anyway).
This is just a selection from some books commonly available in language school staffrooms.
1. Individual sounds
Ship or sheep? (Baker, 1981)
Tree or three? (Baker, 1982)
Pronunciation Games (Hancock, 1995)
How to Teach Pronunciation (Kelly, 2000) – units 3 and 4
New Headway Pronunciation Course series - especially Upper-intermediate unit 6 for /ŋ/
Sounds English (O'Connor & Fletcher, 1989)
English Pronunciation in Use (Intermediate) (Hancock, 2003)
(The last three are especially useful for exercises which contrast commonly confused sounds; and
‘How to Teach Pronunciation’ contains some helpful suggestions for ‘learner-friendly’
explanations of how to produce sounds, plus ideas for practising them.)
2. Consonant clusters
English Pronunciation in Use (Advanced) (Hewings, 2007) – section B
New Headway Pronunciation Course Intermediate (Cunningham & Bowler, 1999) – pg. 7
3. Vowels
English Pronunciation in Use (Intermediate) (Hancock, 2003) – especially unit 19 (ɜː)
Ship or sheep? (Baker, 1981) – especially unit 12 (ɜː)
Sounds English (O'Connor & Fletcher, 1989) – especially for long-short vowel contrasts
Teaching the Pronunciation of English as a Lingua Franca (Walker, 2010) – pgs. 82-84, especially
for shortening vowels before unvoiced consonants
4. Word groups and nuclear stress
English Pronunciation in Use (Intermediate) (Hancock, 2003) – section C
English Pronunciation in Use (Advanced) (Hewings, 2007) – section C
Teaching the Pronunciation of English as a Lingua Franca (Walker, 2010) – pgs. 85-7
5. Contrastive/emphatic stress
Headway Elementary Pronunciation (Cunningham & Moor, 1996) – pgs. 42-43
New Headway Pronunciation Course Intermediate (Cunningham & Bowler, 1999) – pgs. 25 & 44
Pronunciation Games (Hancock, 1995) – unit C10 (“Intonation Directions”)

vowels
To avoid confusing one column which is relevant to your class
with others that aren't, you could either black out the language
columns that are not represented in your class, or highlight the
ones that are.
Students still need to learn English vowels, but the contrast in length (e.g. /ɪ/
and /iː/) is more important than the quality of very similar vowels (e.g. /æ/ vs.
/e/). Similarly, the length of diphthongs is more important than their quality.
The only vowel shown in the research to cause problems of understanding was
/ɜː/. Otherwise, specific quality is not a high priority as long as learners are
consistent, e.g. don't switch arbitrarily between /pæs/ and /pɑːs/ for 'pass'.

Some key terminology used in the grid shortening long In English, there is a contrast between short and long vowel sounds, like the
vowels before difference between 'ship' and 'sheep'. However, even the long vowels are
'Word-initial' = at the beginning of words unvoiced usually pronounced slightly shorter if the following consonant is unvoiced.
'Word-medial' = in the middle of words consonants
'Word-finally' = at the end of words
Consonant cluster = a sequence of 2 or more consonants For example, the vowel in 'seat' is slightly shorter than the vowel in 'seed'.
Example: /str/ in 'street'
nuclear stress Fluent speech is divided up into manageable chunks (for speaker and listener),
often called 'tone units', usually less than a sentence. Within each unit, one or
two words are more prominent than others. This is often taught as 'sentence

This grid and accompanying notes are stress'. Proficient speakers choose (probably without conscious thought) which
© Laura Patsko 2013 words to stress in order to highlight them. It is this stress which we can move
around a sentence to contrast different meanings (e.g. 'Do you want to go NEXT
weekend?' means 'as opposed to this weekend'). Placing and sometimes
moving stress in this way can be very difficult for learners.