The English teachers voice

How important is it for teachers to focus on correct pronunciation when teaching English to their students? Speaking with an accent, of course, is not actually problematic, in fact, it is a natural. The problem occurs when incorrect pronunciation of specific words hampers a listeneres ability to comprehend. When people have difficulty understanding another person simply due to the pronunciation, it can cause frustration on the part of the speaker and listener, and potentially cause misunderstandings or other unintended consequences. Additionally, if a listener has to expend a great amount of energy focusing on understanding what was said, then it will be more difficult to completely understand the message. Generally speaking, if a person learns a language later in life, more often than not they will speak with some degree of an accent. Everybodies brain is preprogrammed to learn languages and to especially acquire the first language(s) that they hear as infants. Over time, they...

Retrospective kinesthetic linguistics , the revision of previously learned language skills, be it vocabulary or grammar, syntax, phonetics, or semantics through challenging physical activities. When teaching English, it has become the norm to teach units of books, one after the other, month after month, new vocabulary, new grammar, etc, but, when and how do we ever go back to those very early lessons to review that which is often neglected and forgotten. We have this belief that "We have taught it so they will automatically use it", but seldom if ever is this the case with students often remembering and using just a percentage of what they have previously learned. Retrospective kinesthetic linguistics is the belief in the necessity to take the time every once in a while to go back and refresh students' memories to those previously taught lessons and the valuable components that they covered. To review subject-based vocabulary through a specific grammar structure, ...

Spelling, as with most things in English, has rules which we teach and follow, and even though there are sometimes exceptions, they are the foundation of successful learning.  Spelling is the ability to arrange letters in the correct order to make words that are communally understood and is considered to be one of the most important aspects of literacy. Accurate spelling   is an important skill for students to have in order to get through their school years, as spelling is required to not only read and write correctly but to successfully pass assessments. Learning to spell helps a child to develop a strong connection between the letters and their sounds and learning high-frequency ‘sight words’ (i.e. words that can not easily be sounded out) will assist a child in both their reading and writing.  The more thoroughly a child knows a word, the more likely it is that they will be able to recognize it in unfamiliar texts, spell it and use it appropriately in ...