How to Make Your Own Pronunciation Flashcards

The Flashcard Maker from CEO has been around a while, but it is one of those really good free tools that keeps getting better. It enable you to create and print your own flashcards which include text, phonemic script and images that you can type in and add. You can then use these for a range of activities in the classroom.

To create flashcards, the first thing you do is go to: http://www.cambridgeenglishonline.com/Flashcard_maker/ and choose the size of the flashcards you want to create. you can choose from either one A4 size card to 8 cards per A4 sheet.
Next, you can either draw your own image or select one from the image library.
To add an image you just click on the name of the image you want from the image library and click 'Apply' and it appears on the flashcard.

Next you can add your text and lastly, use the small phonemic typewriter to add the symbols.

Then all you have to do is click on print and you have your flashcard with phonemic script.

This is a great tool to use with EFL and ESL students.

• You can create simple flashcards with images and phonemic script of the nouns.
• You can get the students to create the flash cards themselves, as the phonemic typewriter also has sound so they can hear the phonemes as they type them.
• You can create some cards with just images, some with just word and some with just script and create a great matching activity.
• You can create flashcards with pronunciation mistakes and see if the students can spot them. You can create flashcards with one image and two different phonemic spellings and see if students can say the correct one.

If you really like this and think it's useful, there is even a version for iPad / iPhone which has lots of activities built in along with the ability for students to record and compare their own audio of their pronunciation. The app version isn't free though I'm afraid, but it is quite cheap at £1.79 in the UK. You can some screen shots here.

Hope you enjoy this and make some useful flashcards.

Here you can find more online pronunciation activities for EFL students

Related links:

• Text to Speech for EFL ESL Materials
• Pronunciation goes 2.0
• AudioBoo to Posterous: Audio Podcasting from the Classroom
• iPad Apps for English Language Teachers
• Make Quick Pronunciation Activities
• Adding Phonetic Symbols to a Webpage
• Dictation goes Web 2.0

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Make Quick Pronunciation Activities

Text2Phonetics is a very handy site if you like to use phonemic script with your students. It can take a lot of the hard work out of transcribing text to phonetic symbols. You just paste in a short piece of text, click a button, and it does it for you.

You can then copy and paste the text into websites or documents, like the text below which I copied from Wikipedia. Here you can see how well it transcribes.
This was done using the 'RP' setting.

• | fəʊˈnɒlədʒi z ðə ˌsɪstəˈmætɪk juːz əv saʊnd tə ɪnˈkəʊd ˈmiːnɪŋ ɪn ˈeni ˈspəʊkən ˈhjuːmən ˈlæŋɡwɪdʒ | ɔː ðə fiːld əv lɪŋˈɡwɪstɪks ˈstʌdɪɪŋ ðɪs juːz |
• Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use.

This looks like a really great tool to help prepare materials for students or to get students using for themselves.

Here's a few ways you might use it.

• Get students to type example sentences using new vocabulary words and convert them to script.
• Produce some sample sentences in script for your students to decode and read.
• Produce some examples of script and the original text and add some pronunciation errors to the script and see if they can spot the errors.
• Get students to translate short texts or sentences to script and then use the site to compare and check their own transcriptions.
• Create transcribed versions of conversations or dialogue and get students to draw on the intonation patterns to show where the intonation rises or falls. You could actually use short exerts from film or TV scripts to do this and then find the clip on YouTube so they can listen to hear the intonation. Drew's Script-O-Rama is a good place to find TV scripts.

If you want to transcribe longer texts then you can also download a desktop edition, but this only runs on PC, so I haven't tried it yet. The tool even offers a degree of customization so you can remove or include different features.
I hope you find Text2Phonetics useful and soon have your students producing perfect 'RP' accents.

Here you an find more web based activities for pronunciation.

Related links:

• Adding Phonetic Symbols to a Webpage
• Dictation goes Web 2.0
• Pronunciation goes 2.0
• Phonology can be fun and free
• Karaoke with a Social Network
• Artificial Intelligence Chat bots and EFL ESL
• Listen and Write the News
• Listen to and Download Texts
• Subtitling your video clips

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Nik Peachey Read More..

A Database of Film Scripts

Something that's always handy to have as either reading materials, support for video lessons or for drama projects, is access to up to date film scripts, so The Internet Movie Script Database is a great one to keep in your bookmarks.


It has quite a few up-to-date movies that are reasonably easy to access. You can search for a particular name or browse by genre or by alphabetical listing.

There's a landing page with a few ads on before you get to the actual script link, but one you get to the script it's reasonably easy to print or copy for you students.


As I said, there are lots of ways you can use these scripts:

• Get students to learn and act them out
• get students to read parts of the script and try to imaging the way the actor would say the lines (what kinds of emotions they would express through the words etc) then watch the films and compare.
  
• Get students to watch the film and follow + analyse language
• Get students to listen and mark on any features of pronunciation
• Get students to listen the film and try to imitate pronunciation and record themselves
• Use small parts as reading activities
• You could cut and paste the script into something like CuePrompter and get them to read lines from it that way.
  

Scripts like this add a new dimension to reading activities because they use spoken language and screen / stage direction that push students to imagine and visualise how things would happen and be communicated visually on film.

I hope you and your students enjoy them. Here you can find activities for exploiting movies

Related links:

• Drama project tools
• Subtitling your video clips
• Transcribed Videos for EFL ESL
• Using Product Reviews
• Free Educational TV Channels
• Open source video animation
• News Videos for EFL ESL Materials Design
• Things You Can Do With Your WebCam 1
• Exploiting a Video Viral
• Lesson plan Top 10 Cartoons for Children’s Rights

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Adding Phonetic Symbols to a Webpage

TypeIt.org is a handy tool that allows you to add phonetic symbols to a webpage. It doesn't just have the ones for English, but has a few other languages too. Seems like you just type in the consonants from the keyboard and click on the additional symbols to add them. Then just cut and paste the script into your page.


I was tempted to write a little bit and paste it in here as an example, but I wəz əfreɪd aɪd gedɪt rɒŋ!

Hope you find TypeIt.org useful for adding phonemic script to your online and offline work.

Here you can find Activities to Develop Pronunciation.

Related links:

• Dictation goes Web 2.0
• Pronunciation goes 2.0
• Phonology can be fun and free
• Karaoke with a Social Network
• Artificial Intelligence Chat bots and EFL ESL
• Listen and Write the News
• Listen to and Download Texts
• Subtitling your video clips

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Nik Peachey Read More..

Another Great New Karaoke Site

Getting ESL EFL students singing songs is a great way to improve their pronunciation, so here's another great karaoke site (the 3rd in a month) that has been brought to my attention.

This one is called Karaoke Party and is a little different, for a couple of reasons, the main one being that if you register, you can actually get a score for your singing when you hit the right notes.

This could make the whole activity more motivating for learners as the site is giving them some feedback on their performance. If you got a whole class logged in they could learn their songs at home and compete for the highest score.

I also like that the site has embedded YouTube videos of the original singers for many of the songs, so students can listen to the original and look at the lyrics ( They usually appear under the video clip) before they try to sing themselves.

The site doesn't have servers available in every country yet, but even if you can't register and get a score the lyrics, video and audio to sing along with are still available.

So, no more excuses. Get singing!

Related postings:
Transcribed Videos for EFL ESL
Karaoke with a Social Network
Great New Karaoke Site

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Nik Peachey Read More..

Great New Karaoke Site

I was really pleased to be offered a sneak preview of the fantastic new Lucky Voice Karaoke website which is still in private beta.

Karaoke can be really motivating for some students and as we all know, song is a great way to improve our EFL / ESL students' pronunciation.

The site itself has a really easy to use interface. Once you select a song to sing along with it comes up in a big pop up window which you could display full screen on an interactive whiteboard if you are brave enough to work with a whole class on a song. The words of the song change colour as you should sing them.

You get a bit of help on the chorus, when the original singers join in. If you are using this with students it might be a good idea to play the complete song by the original singer before starting to get them to work on the songs on the site. That way they'll get a better sense of the timing and when to start singing.

You can find more ideas for using karaoke with EFL / ESL students on my Learning Technology blog posted under the title of 'Karaoke with a Social Network'

The selection of songs is also quite broad with quite a lot of up to date songs as well as some older classics. They also have some ready created playlists which are quite handy.

This will certainly be a useful site once it goes public and is one of the best designed Karaoke sites I've seen.

I hope you and your students are able to enjoy it soon.

Related postings:
Transcribed Videos for EFL ESL
Karaoke with a Social Network

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Nik Peachey Read More..