🎙 From the classroom: When I arrived in Sydney with textbook English, I couldn't understand people in the casino. They didn't say 'I am going to finish'. They said 'I'm gonna finish'. My textbook English…
🎙 From the classroom: My Bengali students in Brittany pronounced 'worked' as 'work-ED', adding a full syllable. My Korean student said 'wok'. My French student said 'workt'. All three had learned the same spelling. None…
🎙 From the classroom: No one taught me the schwa in Bangladesh. I spoke each syllable clearly and equally — like reading out loud. In Sydney, people couldn't understand me. Not because I didn't know…
🎙 From the classroom: When I was learning French, I kept stressing the wrong syllable: CAfé instead of caFÉ. French has near-flat stress; English does not. In English, the wrong stress in a word can…
My English teacher in Dhaka taught me British English. When I landed in Sydney, I heard: 'G'day mate, how ya going?' I understood zero words. Not zero — I understood 'how'. Australians shorten everything. 'Afternoon'…
My French accent in English used to trip people up — not because of the sounds, but the stress. Stress is everything.
Native speakers link, reduce, and swallow sounds in ways that standard pronunciation syllabi don’t cover. Learners trained only on careful speech are unprepared for real connected speech.
Stress and intonation carry meaning in spoken English. A sentence stressed differently changes its meaning or politeness level. Teaching these explicitly improves both production and listening comprehension.
Drilling establishes pronunciation and form. Choral drilling — whole class together — lowers anxiety and lets learners rehearse without exposure. Individual drilling checks and consolidates.
"Pronunciation is not accents. It’s sounds, stress, and intonation for clarity and fluency. Here’s how to teach it with TES (Technology-Enhanced Strategies)."
Questions about a post, a lesson or a video? Write to me.
sourovdeb.is [at] gmail [dot] com
Sourov Deb EI · SIRET 106 764 061 00011 · Saint-Pierre, La Réunion