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Think of "Pronunciation for Teachers" as a professional clearinghouse for information. We include links to teaching and research resources, information about what researchers and teachers are... This seems like a great collection of resources for teaching pronunciation. It is supported by some big names in the field.

Nice, Randy!

If you were in listening/speaking last spring, you may remember this website I shared. It has lots of videos for learning American English pronunciation. I used it all the time while I was teaching pronunciation classes in Nebraska. At the time I didn't have any background in phonetics and was trying to teach myself. I found this site to be helpful for students as well as for novice teachers like myself. I used the videos to supplement our textbook (Clear Speech or Pronunciation Pairs). Students who had access to the internet could practice at home too. The videos show some close-ups of her mouth while making the sounds, so I brought small mirrors to class for students to use and watch their own mouths (not all students were comfortable doing this though). The site is well organized and you can easily find the sound/topic/skill you're looking for. You could also use the videos to create Grockit activities.

I stumbled upon this resource while researching the tools and techniques used by a school that I'm applying to teach for.The Reading Assistant is based on speech recognition technology that helps students practice reading aloud (pronunciation) and answer comprehension questions (reading and critical thinking skills). From what I can tell, this paid software is available online, for maximum student convenience. After students complete assignments, teachers receive reports on students' performances. The program claims to have 300 graded readers that align with  US Common Core standards from elementary to high school. To me, the capability of this program to "listen" to students' pronunciation and provide help and individualized feedback is its greatest advantage. The inclusion of a variety of resources for developing vocabulary and work knowledge are also important points for me. Overall, this looks like a useful resource for K-12 schools that want to supplement classroom reading instruction.

This is a quirky website that I used in my high school creative writing class. I think that ESLers could use this page to talk about syllables, pronunciation, and of course rhyming. Through a simple search, students could discover a very wide variety of new words from the suggested rhymes on this site. The attention to phoneme-grapheme association (spelling vs. pronunciation) will reinforce emerging literacy skills. Overall, I just find this to be a fun site for generating ideas and word knowledge.

This website has many games for grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary, as well as games that teachers can use to get all classmates involved at once (e.g., Jeopardy). The games are meant to be supplementary. Some disadvantages to the website are that the pronunciation exercises require that students be familiar with the IPA, that the exercises are largely drills, and that there are many ads on the website that could be distracting. However, if students need additional practice with a specific grammatical, vocabulary, or pronunciation item, then this website could be useful.

This website is an interactive guide to the sounds of American English, German, and Spanish. It's American English guide is comprehensive, including a step by step guide on how to produce each sound. In addition, flash animation is used to demonstrate how to position one's mouth in order to produce the sounds of American English. This tool is useful for students who are curious about pronunciation or who are struggling with a particular sound that they would like to improve. Although the technical terms are defined, this tool can still be confusing for students and should not be taken as a guaranteed solution for improving pronunciation. It can, however, be used as supplementary material.

When you click the American English option, you can select consonants' manner, place, voice, or the vowels' monopthongs and diphthongs. Then, you can see an animation of the sound, or you can see a person using the sound in a word. The home page says it has libraries of the phonetic sounds of English, German, and Spanish.

Jennifer ESL could be used in the classroom or for self-study. I really like her videos because she goes into detail about pronunciation. I think she gives explanations that are thorough, but comprehensible for beginning students. I would suggest that students use this resource outside of class for additional practice.

This site, though the interface is about as awesome as Compleat Lexical Tutor, provides a simple self-study tool for academically-oriented students. This resource is appropriate for TOEFL and IELTS preparation, as well as advanced IEP courses. The benefits of this website are the inclusion of a pronunciation and definition for each word, as well as gap-fill exercises to practice using each word in context. The major limitation of this site is that the exercises are only gap-fill.

This website has multiple things to hep both students and teachers. Students can work on different skills from grammar to pronunciation on this website and teachers can get ideas and connect with other teachers through forums. Also this site posts ESL jobs so if a teacher is looking for a job this website is a good resource.

When I opened a lesson on grammar, it had a lesson with a Q & A section below it where students can check their own answers. A daily vocab word is also on the page. Lessons include grammar, reading, vocab, listening, pronunciation, slang/idioms. From the Website: "Learning English as a second language (ESL) is not always easy, but it should be fun. 5 Minute English has been designed to give you short and easy explanations and exercises. You can also find answers to questions that other students have had about confusing things in English. This is under the Question and Answer section. Take your time and come back to 5 Minute English often. You'll be surprised at how much English you can learn with a little dedication."

This website is a good source for teachers and a guide for learners. It has basic/travel/interview speaking lessons along with pronunciation lessons.

iTunes has a plethora of podcasts available for free, many of which are for language purposes. Podcasts are audio shows, so to speak, which are uploaded in an episodic fashion. I browsed through some of the language podcasts, including ElementalEnglish.com's "English Pronunciation and Language Lessons," the VOA's "American Stories--Voice of America," and BBC World Service's "English at Work." In the podcast descriptions, the authors usually list language level, and the speakers tend to modify their input so listeners can understand. These types of podcasts are useful for listening practice and for supplementary material in the classroom. There are other podcasts available as well, ranging from Mugglenet's MuggleCast (a Harry Potter themed podcast) to podcasts dedicated to comedians. These podcasts can be useful in the language classroom, as they present more authentic listening material, especially for more advanced learners. Podcasts are a great way for students to engage in their interests while practicing listening, with just one potential set-back: the set up. To access the podcasts, students must download iTunes (if they do not already have it) or it needs to be downloaded onto school computers. From there, one can access the Apple Store (though podcasts are mostly free), and then they can browse the selection. It can be tricky at times to find a good one, but once you do, the podcast can be downloaded onto mp3 players, so students can listen to them on the go, if they want. Note: Because the iTunes store is accessed through iTunes, I could not put a URL. The one above does, however, provide more information on what goes into making a podcast.

Google voice is a resource that can potentially be used in listening and speaking classes. Essentially, it allows the user to associate a phone number with one's Google account. From there, the user can record messages that the caller will hear when he/she dials the phone number. In a Listening and Speaking context, access to recorders for classroom use may be limited at times. However, many learners have cell phones. To complete a listening and speaking task, during class or for homework, learners can call the phone number, listen to the task, and record their responses. Many concerns with Google Voice arise, however. Most notably, the quality of the recording may be muddy. That is, learners may have a difficult time comprehending the recorded message they hear when initially calling. Additionally, the messages recorded by the learners can be difficult for the instructor to understand. Also, whereas recorders allow learners to confirm that their speech has been recorded, on Google Voice, the learners simply hang up and receive no such confirmation--unless the task is done in a classroom setting whereupon the instructor has the list of messages available. Moreover, the learners are not able to listen to their messages or the messages of other students in the class if they are not logged into the instructor's account. As far as the positive attributes, Google Voice attempts to transcribe messages, and while the transcriptions are not always accurate, even when transcribing messages from native speakers of English, the transcriptions are interesting to read nonetheless. Possibly giving learners an incentive such as extra credit for a perfect transcription due to their pronunciation is an option. Additionally, Google Voice does allow the instructor to download the messages if desired, so saving the files is possible. As far as identifying the callers, each voice message is accompanied by the phone number, so collecting students' phone numbers is probably