CivieBlog

This is a useful site if you are teaching pronunciation. Though it could take some time to load the first time you use it.

There is a phonemic chart which has small audio clips of the phonemes along with video clips that show the mouth movements as the sounds are made. (Be warned, this is quite a big file)

Open pronunciation chart

You simply click on the mouth and then watch and listen. I’m not so sure how helpful seeing the mouth is with some of the sounds, but with some it could be quite helpful.

Because the chart is a Flash (swf) file if you right click on it, you can ‘zoom in’ and this makes the view of the mouth much larger. You can even fill the whole screen with just one clip if you want to, though this looks a bit scary!

If you use the menu at the side you can turn off the symbols and just have the video clips, so you could use this for a phonemic dictation activity. (Students listen and write down the phoneme they here)

You could also use it to pronounce words while your student try to spell them out (in standard script)

Also if you click the chart where it says ‘Words’ you will see a word chart and clicking the words that are in blue gives you a page with the different sounds that make up that word.

The page is there to promote the software that the company ‘Thrass’ is selling. I haven’t tried the software, so I don’t know if it is any good. If anyone does try it or buy it could you post a comment to say what you think of it?

Also please post ideas for activities using the free page if you think of any.

Best

Nik