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Pronunciation for Advanced Learners of English Student's book

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The conversations sound realistic and unrehearsed. At first glance, the illustrative technique makes the illustrations look cluttered. But the system doesn't take long to learn and is easy to use.

From the introduction:

"It is emphasized that the speakers you will hear will be participants involved in some communicative event, that is to say, they will be saying something that they think is of interest or importance to someone else. They will not be providing model sentences or lists of words for you to imitate. And your own aim will be to take part as effectively as you can in similar events in which you have your own ideas to communicate. You will not be satisfied with simply demonstrating that you have mastered an awkward vowel sound or a difficult sequence of consonant sounds. If the course is to be useful, at your level of competence, the emphasis must necessarily be upon communicative use rather than upon demonstration.

It is for this last reason that the course differs in the way it is organized from most others that are concerned with pronunciation. It makes its first objective an increased awareness of how the intonation system of English is used. This can only be done if we assume that language is being used to communicate, for intonation is the means whereby we organize our language into patterns that fit the present communicative need.

Part 1 of the first unit is concerned, therefore, with how speech is presented by the speaker, not as separate words, but as tone units. Tone units are the building blocks out of which all spoken communication is constructed. Thereafter, work in intonation is introduced unit by unit alongside work on individual on individual 'sounds' (the vowel and consonant 'segments' of traditional pronunciation practice).

There is one very straightforward reason for doing this: in the speech of advanced learners, departures from what we regard as desirable are said to be more often matters of intonation than matters of how particular sounds are made. There is more to it than this, however. If we want to focus upon the individual 'sounds' of a language, and to do so usefully, we must take account of what happens to them when the language is used to communicate. This really means being aware of how such sounds are affected by the intonational shape of the stretch of speech they occur in. And this in turn means focusing on the tone units that we find in any sample of used language.

Intonation is not, on the whole, popular among language teachers or learners. By giving it so central a place in the course, we may seem to making things harder rather than easier. Intonation has a reputation for being difficult and 'slippery.' It is true that people tend easily to lose confidence in their ability to get to grips with it. The truth may well be, however, that this is precisely because it has not been given a very prominent place in most teaching procedures. Through being left out, it has acquired the kind of mystery that so often surrounds things that we think are beyond our understanding. And mystification about something so fundamental to spoken communication as intonation is clearly not a good thing! Being aware that there is a whole area of the language you know next to nothing about hardly makes for self-confidence. This is particularly true when your told - as you probably have been told at some time - that intonation is immensely important! And building self-confidence is central to the aims of this cour."

Also from the introduction: "The course is intended to be worked through one unit at a time and in the given order. This is because each unit provides information that you will need in later units.''