TEACHERS

As your colleague I understand the difficulty teachers face daily when teaching ESL pronunciation to students. As an elementary and ESL teacher, licensed in the Province of Ontario since 1972, and as someone who did not speak a word of English upon arrival in Canada at age 12, I still hold personal painful experiences of the long journey that a non-English speaking person must make in order to achieve a desirable level of English pronunciation, not only in order to have her words understood, but especially to overcome the feelings of loss, anxiety, marginalization, frustration, discouragement and helplessness. I experienced all of these emotions and sympathize with students and teachers of ESL.

Later, when I became and ESL teacher I realized that teaching ESL pronunciation was one of the most important aspects of helping a student learn, since success meant not only good pronunciation as the end result, but also good emotions, optimism, inclusion and courage. AND OF COURSE, BETTER JOB PROSPECTS. We all know students who achieve a very high mark in English grammar, or have impressive degrees or business/professional experience from back home, yet cannot hold a job down because their personal relationships at work in an English environment take them to a dead-end of misunderstandings and failure. How can an ESL teacher help them improve their pronunciation and their self-esteem and keep their job?

Leave them alone! Pronunciation is a PERSONAL problem for the most part. Let them learn English pronunciation on their own through the esl-linkscanada.com lab exercises, anytime, anywhere. Students don’t benefit totally from collective pronunciation exercises in class, because each student’s problem is specific, and the teacher cannot repeat enough times to correct students, nor assist with much effective remedial REPETITION for long periods of time, without sacrificing other aspects of the ESL program. Time does not permit the individual tutoring that every student needs.

WE ENCOURAGE ALL TEACHERS to work with the esl-linkscanada.com pronunciation program, and to be GUIDES to students while they learn, each on their own.

Teachers can use the Handbook to assign sounds PRACTICE, and control the quality of improvements or assign yet more pronunciation work from the Handbook or/and the lab log-in or their own resources.

GOOD LUCK!

Tina Whalen, O.T.C., ESL, B.A., M.A.