Pronunciation Links: ESL
 
 
TESOL Speech and Pronunciation Interest Section
This site contains “discussions of pronunciation issues, information about pronunciation teaching and resource books, pronunciation activities, articles, previous TESOL Matters columns, and links to interesting web sites.”


American Accent Training
This site contains useful info about intonation, liasons (linking), and vowels and consonants that are often difficult for learners (Ann Cook)


American English Pronunciation
Here you will find explanations and exercises such as dialogues with audio clips that you can listen to and imitate, as well as quizzes to check your skills (Easton Language Education)



American English Pronunciation Practice
Here you will find dozens of quizzes to test your ability to distinguish between easily confused vowel and consonant sounds (Charles I. Kelly).


Audio Examples of English IPA Vowel Symbols
Here you can hear examples of each English vowel sound. Here are the consonant sounds. Beware of numerous pop-up ads on this site (About.com, English as a Second Language).


New  Do You Speak American?
This is the web site of a recent PBS documentary that explored American English. Included on the web site is information about varieties of American English, changes underway in American English, and Americans' attitudes toward those language varieties and changes.


New  English Pronunciation
This page contains exercises to help you distinguish between easily confused vowel and consonant sounds (Okanagan College)


English Pronunciation for ESL Students
Here you'll find basic explanations, with some listening exercises, of word stress, sentence stress, the pronunciation of -ed endings, and more.


ESL Pizzaz – Tongue Twisters  
This site has well-known English tongue-twisters, links to a collection of tongue-twisters in other languages, and allows you to create your own (Leslie Opp-Beckman, University of Oregon) 


ESL Pronunciation Work
This site also covers many suprasegmental topics as well as consonants and vowels. At the "Listen and Practice" section of each page you will find sentences that demonstrate each of the rules/phenomena (Kristen Liljegren, University of Florida).


International Dialects of English Archive
If you are interested in improving your listening skills or just casually comparing different accents of native English speakers, check out this site developed by the Department of Theater and Film at the University of Kansas.


Kathleen Hanson's Word Stress Quizzes
With these interactive quizzes you can test your knowledge of word stress and rhythm patterns (Kathleen Hanson, San Jose City College; www.eslstation.net)


Mouth Workout  
Here you will find more tongue twisters featuring problem consonants (Adam Rado, UCLA Extension)

 
New   Phonetics
This amazing site lets you choose a vowel or consonant sound and see a video animation of how it is pronounced, as well as a video of a person pronouncing it (University of Iowa)


Pronunciation of Regular Past Tense -ed
This interactive quiz will test your ability to predict the sound of an -ed ending (Laurie Graves). See also the quizzes on predicting the sound of -s/-es endings .


Sounds of English  
This site explains the formation of vowels and consonants with pictures and sounds as examples. Each sound is contextualized in several words. The site has links to relevant pronunciation and listening quizzes


Spoken American English  
Here you will find explanations of American English pronunciation features that make spoken English so different from the way written English appears. You can hear examples of contractions and "shortcuts" used by native speakers of North American English, including how common these features are in formal and informal English.


The Vocal Tract
This page shows a diagram of the speech organs. It can help you understand which speech organs are involved with particular vowel or consonant sounds. For example, if you know that a /z/ sound is made with your tongue tip at the alveolar ridge (as you should learn in ELP 101 and ELP 102 ), looking at this diagram can help you see how to make the sound. (Kevin Russell, University of Manitoba)


Karen Schwelle
Instructor, English Language Programs
Washington University
Campus Box 1083
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO  63130
kschwell@artsci.wustl.edu

Last updated January 3, 2006