Month: May 2022

“Connected Speech for Listeners”: New book is now out in electronic format on Kobo and Apple Books. Some folks prefer to hold a physical book, but the ebook has certain advantages too, such as easy click-to-hear audio for a quick idea of what this all sounds like.

Surrealism

Imagine this: You’re in the middle of the ocean, and you can see two ships. But the top part of the nearest one actually looks like a huge sheep! And above the other ship, there’s a cloud in the sky which is also the shape of a sheep. It’s a surreal scene which looks like a painting by Salvador Dali, but in fact it is part of an advertising campaign for an English language school in Brazil. ‘What on earth is the connection between this image and English?’, you may ask. But of course, you know already; ship and sheep is a minimal pair. The picture represents one of the more well-known pronunciation problems of English.

Pronpack: Connected Speech for Listeners is a new departure for the PronPack family, with a different format and focus. As well as plenty of ready-to-use classroom materials as with previous PronPack books, this one also includes more background reading in the form of tips for teachers. The new focus is on the role of pronunciation in listening skills, and in this first volume in the new series, the focus is on connected speech. This pocketbook-style volume is user-friendly, with short well signposted chapters providing maximum accessibility for the busy teacher, plus plenty of ready-to-use supplementary material here on this website, including classroom worksheets and audio files.