Speaking - Tim Bunting

Language is a tool for communication. When we practice language, we practice communication.
English is primarily spoken by non-native speakers. More than 2/3 of the English speaking world are not native.
Therefore, in the real world, you are much more likely to speak English with a non-native speaker.
Native-speaker English is not the easiest English to understand, plus there is added pressure to sound native if you speak with a native speaker. Aiming to sound like a native speaker makes it harder to learn English.
You only need to be able to communicate in English. There is absolutely no need to sound like a native speaker.
However, for effective communication, you need to use understandable English.
We will practice understandable English in this class.

So, you do not need to sound like a native speaker. You need to sound understandable. But, what is understandable English? Let me show you in the next section. https://www.youtube.com/embed/ioysgTOtRLI?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-NZ&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

If practiced well, English pronunciation can be learned in a very short amount of time, even less than one month. If you know what you have to learn, it is much easier than just practicing ‘pronunciation’. Fortunately, there is a list of pronunciation features we can learn that give us the highest chance of being understood:

Features for understandable English:

Most consonants and the /ɛ:/ sound
Clusters / Blends
Long and short vowel sounds
Nuclear Stress

Feature One: Most Consonants and the /ɛ:/ sound

It helps to know that pronunciation is visible, even though it is the creation of sound. We can see sounds being pronounced. This is how deaf people are able to lip read. They look at the movements of the mouth, then guess the sounds, and then the word. In this lesson, I will show you which parts of your mouth to move to produce different sounds, starting with the vowels.

Vowels: Part Two

In the last video, we looked at the monophthongs, or the vowels with one vowel sound. Next we look at the diphthongs, the vowels made up of two vowel sounds. https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZM0IgiQPXlA?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-NZ&autohide=2&wmode=transparent