Fotobabble

Fotobabble is an internet service providing an easy way to record your voice to a picture of your choosing. In terms of teaching, it can serve as a great tool allowing students to record themselves describing pictures. Since describing picture is a common part of English speaking exams, this is a great way for practicing in the comfort of home.



(As stated in assignment description, this is me talking about a picture on the topic of knitting.)

My Vocaroo recording

Vocaroo is a simple web service that can be used to record your voice or voice of your students, just like I did here in this post. The recording can be then shared via e-mail, link, tweet, web embedding, whatever...

Record music with Vocaroo >>

Connected speech

Words in connected speech often get pronounced very differently than they would on their own. This can be very troublesome for English learners. Consider the difference in pronunciation of the following simple sentence between its written form with emphasis on every word and the same sentence in the form how it would be commonly spoken:

What do you have got there? –>  [vot dů jů hef gat thér]

What you have got there? –>

What you got there? –>

Whatcha got there? [uotča gat thér]

The sound changes can be roughly categorized as following:

Catenation (Linking) - a word starting with a vowel joins to the previous word

She’s out again [ší zautegen]

In an afternoon [i nen afternůn]

Here is [hi ris]

an apple [e neple]

each other [í čadr]

Intrusion (r) (j) (w) - an extra sound (that is not present as a letter in the text) links a word starting with a vowel to the previous word

Intrusion (r)

Law and order [ló ren ódr]

here and there [hi ren thér]

Intrusion (j)

I am [ajem]

They are [thejár]

I agree [ajegrí]

the idea [thíajdíja]

Intrusion (w)

You are [juár]

go off [gouof]

grow up [grouap]

blow away [blouevej]

Assimilation (a sound changes) - sounds next to one another in connected speech may influence and change each other, typically the sound at the end of a word changes because of the first sound in the following word

In bed [imbed]

Did you…? [didžju]

this shop [thišop]

good boy [gubój]

bad girl [bégrl]

last year [lásčír]

have to go [heftgou]

do you want [djuvont]

Elision (a sound disappears) - some sounds dissapear in order to ease pronunciation, it is easier to pronounce them in the reduced form than it would be in their full form (contraction is the special case of elision because it is represented by the spelling - “I’ve done it”)

Next week [neksvík]

I don’t know [idonnou]

got to [gata]

chestnut [česnat]

strictly [strikly]

past perfect [pásperfekt]