Customer Reviews

Teaching American English Pronunciation (Oxford Handbooks for Language Teachers Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was asssigned this book in a non-credit ESL pronunciation course, and found it a bit less complex than the "bible" on the subject, Celce-Murcia. Good clear explanations throughout. This subject involves some memorization and study to master it properly, but as a teacher you'll be amply rewarded when with a few tips on lip and tongue placement the correct sound magically emerges from your student's mouth. Has a good section on specific problems depending on the L1 of the student.

I use this book quite a bit when teaching pronunciation. While this smaller volume isn't as thorough as Celce-Murcia, et al.'s Teaching Pronunciation... I find that it's a very good supplement. I use the two books together. A practical and very classroom-oriented guide for teachers. Recommended.

the book has a great section on pronunciation problem for specific first-language groups (for example, the problems that many Taiwanese or Spanish speakers face), but it could have more pictures about mouth shape and how to make the pronunciation sounds

In general, I think most Americans, even those native born, are fairly easily intimidated in the matter of pronunciation. Most of us came from non-English-speaking backgrounds and a fairly small percentage of families can boast of being college-educated for more than two generations. So we are susceptible to the claims of someone purporting to be an expert on pronunciation whose work is published. So I would advise unsuspecting teachers to use this book with caution. First of all, pay no attention to anything describing how to pronounce an individual word. Perhaps the problem here is that the authors are Canadian and are unfamiliar with American speech that does not come from right across the Great Lakes. I have not spent enough time in Canada to really recognize a "Canadian" accent, but perhaps that's what this book is teaching. It is certainly not teaching Standard American English pronunciation. Among the more infuriating untruths it includes are 1) there is no difference in the pronunciation of "which" and "witch" (Tell that to E.Y. Harburg) and 2) the word "bought" rhymes with "cot." Maybe this is correct in Dubuque, Iowa or Madison, Wisconsin, but it's not Standard American English. So forget this. They don't know what they're talking about. For a reliable reference to the pronunciation of individual words, get Kenyon and Knott's A PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN ENGLISH. It has been the standard reference for actors, media commentators, and speechmakers since the 1950s. Use Kenyon and Knott as the reference for pronunciation and take what's valuable from the rest of this book, because most of it is extremely helpful. The sections dealing with the rhythms of English speech were all particularly outstanding. Chapter Six, "Connected Speech" by Avery, Ehrlich and Jull is the probably the best part of the book and I would recommend reading this chapter even if you don't read the rest of the book. The "Birds eat worms" example has become a staple of mine. The section dealing with the particular problems of individual language groups is also very useful, especially since nowadays the typical class will have speakers of many different languages. Poles, Arabs, Chinese, and Hispanics all have vastly different pronunciation obstacles with English. I'm rating the whole book at three stars, but I'd give Chapter Six five stars.

I used a first printing of this book during graduate studies back in '93, and although the book has gone through subsequent printings, errors remain. The errors, both editing and typo errors plus interpretative errors--are available as a three-page pdf file (1.2 MB) at eslbee.com/teaching_american_english_pronunciation_corrections.pdf . I guess I'm surprised that after fifteen years, Oxford still hasn't issued a new corrected edition. The book is clearly a five-star book were it not for its errors.

This book is very useful for English teachers, it gives an exhausive description about the articulation of words and how to teach the phonetic symbols in an amusing way.