Pronunciation and American Speech Patterns

Main topics:

• Learning how to produce sounds you find difficult or confusing in American English. This may involve learning to move your mouth muscles and tongue in unfamiliar ways.

• When to put spaces between words 

• When to connect words: How to make connections between words in order to be more easily understood.

• Intonation, The speech music of American English.  Pitch patterns and rhythms can completely obscure or change the meaning of a word or sentence. 

• The correct intonation for questions, answers and lists

• Slowing down so that your listener knows where one word or phrase ends and another begins. 

• What to do when your listener doesn’t understand you. 

• Communicating over the phone 

• Checking for meaning

• Asking for help 

• Cardinal and Ordinal Numbers

• Frequently mispronounced words

• Using an online dictionary with audio