English Pronunciation: The Fundamentals

Everything you need to know to master English pronunciation and be a great communicator

What you'll learn

• This course will take you through the fundamentals of English pronunciation in four key stages: Vowels, Consonants, Stress, & Intonation.
• By the end of this course, you will be able to use the skills you pick up in these areas to communicate confidently and effectively within the global community of English.

Requirements

Being able to understand English at an intermediate level is recommended.

Description

We make a huge impression the moment we open our mouth to speak, yet millions of people around the world spend years studying English without ever being taught the skills to improve their pronunciation.

No matter where you come from or where you want to go, good English pronunciation can have a huge impact on your social life, your career and your experience of studying in an English-speaking country.

So, do you want to:

- be perfectly-understood and sound natural when having a conversation, wherever you are in the world?
- make an impact in English, such as when you are delivering a speech?
- train your ear to quickly tune in to natural English speech?
- fix any pronunciation issues that you have picked up over the years?

If so, this is the course for you!

This course covers vowels; consonants; stress; rhythm; intonation; and pauses; all of the key areas that you need to be an expert speaker of English.

Stages:

Part 1: Vowels covers the essentials in three lessons: an introduction; a lesson on long and short vowels; and a lesson on diphthongs (the 'sliding' vowels). In each lesson you will be helped to create these vowel sounds and there are activities to help you to hear the difference, and correctly pronounce, commonly-confused vowels.

Part 2: Consonants will have you confidently pronouncing most words in four lessons: the first two lessons will help you to correctly pronounce the English consonants and there are activities to help you with the most hard-to-pronounce and commonly-confused consonants. The second two lessons cover consonant clusters, which will help you to pronounce trickier words such as crisps and extra.

Part 3: Stress & Rhythm covers what is arguably the most important feature of English pronunciation. We learn about stress in words and longer speech in the first two lessons and there are plenty of activities to help you to get it right. Then, there are two lessons on connected speech. In these lessons we learn how English words join together and there are activities to train your both your ear and your tongue.

Part 4: Intonation and Pauses is where you will begin to feel like a real master of the language. In the first three lessons we learn how to use intonation to add expression and meaning to our words, then there is a final lesson on pauses. We will look at how these skills were used together in a world-famous speech, and by this stage you will be ready to deliver a really impactful speech yourself.

Who this course is for:

• Anyone who has studied English at school but hasn't had chance to practise their speaking or pronunciation
• Students preparing to study in an English-speaking country
• People who use English in their workplace
• Teachers of English as an Additional Language
• Anyone who wants to improve their pronunciation but doesn't know how