Struggle Pronunciation

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Many students of English as a Second Language (ESL) find that, of the many struggles they have with the language, pronunciation is the most difficult to master. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Sophie M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Pronunciation is an extremely important ability to have to sound more fluent in English. By gaining the knowledge and skill of proper pronunciation, an ESL student can come across at a much higher level of English ability and intelligence. However, this is easier said than done. In South Korea, for example, certain sounds aren’t used in their language but are used in English. Because these sounds don’t exist in Korean, students...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Given the increase in globalization during the late 20th and early 21st centuries and the growing inter-dependencies of domestic economies within the international marketplace, English, as a primary language medium for conducting international business arrangements, has become an increased priority both socially and within the business environment. However, notwithstanding the importance of English fluency within contemporary society, Japan and Japanese English learners face difficulties when trying to achieve competency. These difficulties and issues can be shown by the 2018 EF English Proficiency Index which ranked the English level of Japanese learners as rank 49 out of 88 countries which place Japan within the “low proficiency” category. The...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Yangdi Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Shangluo Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. What problems do English Language learners in Japan have? I worked as an English teacher in Japan for three and a half years. It has been my experience that Japanese English learners have four major problems as they study English. Perhaps the largest problems they have are with grammar and vocabulary. Students also have problems with pronunciation and listening. In...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Shuanghe Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Ankang Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. In this summative task, I will be discussing pronunciation problems in South Korea, as I am currently a middle and elementary school teacher in South Korea and see many of the same mistakes and struggles again and again. To begin, there are many sounds in the English language that simply do not exist in the Korean language, and this causes a multitude of...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Laocheng Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Dezhou Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. The differences between many Asiatic languages' pronunciation and that of English form the basis for a multitude of the miscommunications between international interlocutors. My experience living in Japan provides plentiful evidence to support this assertion. When my Japanese associates and I communicate in English, I notice three significant pronunciation struggles...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Guangming Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Aba Zangzu Qiangzu Zizhizhou —? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. The Vietnamese language is fairly simple grammatically, with every vocabularies are comprised from single syllable words. For example, the phrase in English “good morning class, how’s everyone doing” translated into Vietnamese would be “chào buổi sáng cả lớp, mọi người có khỏe không”. There are no vocabulary in the...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Zhaocheng Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Linfen Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Japanese and English are two languages that branch from completely different language families. Due to these dissimilarities, Japanese learners of English often have trouble in the classroom. One common area of difficulty is pronunciation. For a multitude of reasons, pronunciation problems arise in the Japanese EFL classroom. One reason students might have...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences The differences between many Asiatic languages' pronunciation and that of English form the basis for a multitude of miscommunications between international interlocutors. My experience living in Japan provides plentiful evidence to support this assertion. When my Japanese associates and I communicate in English, I notice three significant pronunciation struggles for my conversation partners. For the Japanese who are learning English, the clear enunciation of the /th/ sound, the fricative quality of the /v/ consonant, and the distinction of /l/ versus /r/ formation of the tongue. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Brandon F. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Aside...  [Read more]

Regan McAllister TEFL Information Teaching Ideas The pandemic has caused many changes in our daily lives. While I’m lucky to still have the opportunity to teach ESL in person, doing so with face masks has proved to be slightly more challenging. Face masks. A year ago, the thought of society operating with face masks seemed like some sort of ominous movie plot. Apocalyptic almost. Yet now they are on the same level as our phone or wallet, something we can’t leave the house without. Depending on where in the world you live, you may have never worn a mask until this pandemic. Unless you were in a medical setting, wearing a mask while going about your daily tasks would have probably attracted stares and raised some eyebrows. However, this was not the case in Japan. Masks have always...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Assuming it has already been understood generally, I do not intend to elaborate on the reasons between Myanmar and Burma, even though it still remains unknown to many. In this essay, I will be using ‘Burmese’ or ‘Burmese language’ to refer to the language and ‘Myanmar’ for the country. Language acquisition can understandably present several challenges ranging from alphabets, accent, construction styles, pronunciation, etc. Depending on several factors, different language speakers will have different challenges. While one part is no less difficult than another, I reckon, in Myanmar, there is one component that most learners seem to have similar difficulty in taking up the English language – pronunciation. This post was written by our TEFL...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Through my experience as an Assistant Language Teacher in Japan, there have been numerous difficulties and challenges my students face in learning the English language. My students are primarily between the ages of 5 and 15. These challenges involve the pronunciation difficulties the students face coming from Japanese pronunciation, as well as the methodology of teaching English in Japan They may not apply to all of Japan but are definitely prominent issues within my area. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate James W. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The most commonly known challenge in learning English for Japanese people is pronunciation. This is either due to sounds...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences This essay seeks to explain how the Japanese ‘Katakana’ and ‘Romaji’ alphabets cause barriers to the introduction of English education in Japanese elementary schools. It will look at how these alphabets affect the pronunciation, writing, and reading abilities of Japanese students. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ethan M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The main two, ‘Hiragana’ (the base Japanese writing system) and ‘Kanji’ (Chinese characters), are not relevant to English. The remaining two, ‘Katakana’ (used for ‘borrowed’ words from other languages) and ‘Romaji’ (Roman letters) are often used as the base for Japanese elementary...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Zhaozhaizi Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Liaocheng Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Preface: I am Indian living in the USA for more than 37 years. This essay is about my journey of speaking Indian English, problems I faced, and how I managed to learn American English accent. I am not presenting a research paper on all the pronunciation problems that an American will come across in India. These are my experiences learning to speak English in...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Yangbǎi Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Bazhong Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. To begin with, I would like to outline the main differences between the western education system in contrast to the Japanese education system. In general, Japan is a very conformist country as the Japanese way of thinking could be expressed as group thinking in contrast to the western way of individual thinking. From early childhood on Japanese people are taught...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Tangcheng Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Linfen Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. South Korea is one of the many countries on earth that do not use the Latin alphabet in their written language. Instead they employ the use of Hangul which has a distinctly different written structure, letters, and phonetic rules. Letters that exist in English do no exist in Korean and vice versa. For example the letters Z,V,F,X, and Q do not exist at all in...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Sanhui Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Bazhong Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. When you are teaching English in a class consisting of multiple nationalities, a clear understanding of the issues faced by individual students is important in order to effectively organise your lesson. The teaching techniques have to be adjusted depending on their language background, because they possess different strengths and weaknesses when studying English....  [Read more]

Ahmed Taha Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas If you're teaching a child in Kindergarten to second grade, you can probably assign about 10, 20, or 30 minutes of reading per night as homework. This blog post explains what the teacher can do and what parents and other caregivers can do to ensure that this assignment is truly beneficial to the child's development as a reader. The first thing a parent should do is sit next to their children as they read. Although it may be tempting to try to complete other tasks, the purpose of this homework is to have an adult monitor their progress. The parents can watch the words as the child reads them when they sit side by side. This allows parents to provide immediate feedback to their children when they require it. A child needs a lot of time to...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Miliang Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Shangluo Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. I have decided to write a summative task on this subject because I have some experience and observations in the area. I have observed that many Japanese have extreme difficulty pronouncing many English words correctly. The pronunciation difficulties causes some Japanese people to be reluctant to speak English, due to embarrassment, which compounds the problem. I...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Tangyu Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Xi'an Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Helping students improve their pronunciation can be challenging for teachers and students alike. For students, they may have a strong desire to sound fluent but might struggle in knowing what mistakes they make and how to correct them. For teachers, they may be aware of the mistakes but may lack tools to help students accurately and precisely correct them. Many of the...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Zaogoutou Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Linyi Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. This is going to be a short essay on the role of phonology in teaching English as a foreign language. What is phonology? The definition of phonology as a field of study is “The branch of linguistics that deals with systems of sounds (including or excluding phonetics), within a language or between different languages.” We, as ELF teachers, however, are more...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Baoshan Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Hanzhong Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Difficulty with pronunciation is likely something that every EFL teacher will face at one point or another in their career. Every language in the world has different ways of pronouncing different words/ letters. In addition to this, most speakers of other languages have heavy accents that can make pronouncing English words very difficult. This can be a challenge...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Mucun Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Luliang Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. While there are many challenges to teaching English one on one, there are also many advantages to having a one to one student teacher ratio. Teachers have the ability to be more creative when not in a structured language course or in a classroom setting. Teachers can focus on topics that are needed by the student, areas of language the student struggles with, and use...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Destinations Alumni Experiences Korean learners of the English language face numerous challenges in acquiring the language on a proficient level, although English is introduced to children at an early age. English is incorporated into the primary school curriculum from the age of four, yet only a small minority master the language on a proficient conversational level. Unfortunately, the reasons seem to stem from cultural and social differences, the significant differences between the two languages; Korean and English, and the Korean Educational System is also a contributing factor. This post was written by our ITTT graduate Beatrix N. To begin with, cultural differences seem to be a central reason why Koreans find it challenging to master English. Firstly, Korea is a...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Gaoya Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Baoji Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. There are many techniques that can help young learners improve their pronunciation and memorization of English words, including repetition, drills, and phonics exercises. One highly effective technique I have discovered in my teaching is singing. When a student struggles with the pronunciation of a word or simple phrase, I sing the word(s) to them and prompt them to...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I have been teaching English in Taiwan at a local elementary school, grades 1-6 with three different co-teachers since the end of August 2018. One of the biggest challenges I have faced so far is the fact that each student is very different, and all have different learning abilities and struggles with learning English. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Aria T. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. There are many different reasons why students may be reluctant to learn English or why they are struggling as a few units explained. Often, students are fearful of making mistakes and lack confidence in the classroom. This is something I have seen a lot during my time here. The...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences Difficulty with pronunciation is likely something that every EFL teacher will face at one point or another in their career. Every language in the world has different ways of pronouncing different words/ letters. In addition to this, most speakers of other languages have heavy accents that can make pronouncing English words very difficult. This can be a challenge when teaching English as a foreign language. It can be especially challenging because not all learners around the world will face the same problems. Students in Vietnam will likely have different pronunciation problems than students in Kenya and students in Brazil will likely have different pronunciation problems than students in Morocco. For this essay, I will focus on the specific problems of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Teaching English in China has become very popular for ESL teachers and many are looking for job opportunities in China. Finding a teaching job in China isn’t too hard but working with Chinese students can be quite challenging. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate VIKTORIIA H. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Chinese grammar is very different from English and many Chinese students try to copy the grammar rules of their native language and apply them to English. As a result, they form awkward sentences that are difficult to understand. They struggle to use gerunds and articles as these parts of speech do not exist in Mandarin. One more grammar problem the Chinese...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Helping students improve their pronunciation can be challenging for teachers and students alike. For students, they may have a strong desire to sound fluent but might struggle in knowing what mistakes they make and how to correct them. For teachers, they may be aware of the mistakes but may lack tools to help students accurately and precisely correct them. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Kent L. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Many of the common methods to help improve pronunciation have their own shortcomings. A pure listen and repeat approach does not offer sufficient feedback on how to properly correct errors. Even a teacher well acquainted with phonology might...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Each student faces their difficulties when it comes to English pronunciation depending on their country of origin. This essay will focus on the pronunciation difficulties facing ESL students in France and will also propose some solutions to help students overcome these difficulties. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Kerri M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The number of English vowel sounds greatly outnumbers those found in the French language. As such, French students will have to produce sounds that they have never produced before. The short ‘ɪ’ used in ‘bit’ does not exist in French. In this case, they will pronounce ‘bit’ as ‘beet’ [biːt] as the...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Zhaoan Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Yan'an Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. There are several pronunciation problems that students of English will face in Japan; however, I will focus on two. The first of these problems they face, is the fact that Japanese doesn't not have some of the same sounds in its' alphabet as English does. For example, Japanese does not have a hard R sound; instead it has a sound that is a mix of R and L. So, when...  [Read more]