English Pronounciation

January 4, 2012

Enjoy!

English Pronunciation:

 

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité

Online vs Onsite TEFL Course

June 3, 2010

One Goal, Two Methods

Our online TEFL TESOL courses and on-site TEFL TESOL courses are geared to achieve a similar goal in two very different ways. The goal is to make you the most effective and most qualified English language teacher that you can be. Achieving that is done in our online course through a combination of interactive technology and experienced, technically savvy tutors. In our on-site program, it is achieved by immersion in a great program with excellent teachers. They both come down to two main things – cutting edge methodology and sincere, professional people who are concerned about your progress. ITTO´s courses are recognized by schools and language institutes across the globe.

There Is No Best Way

Just as our on-site course does, our online course will give you all of the basic theoretical and practical knowledge you need in order to become an excellent TEFL instructor. The main difference is that our online course is designed for busy people who may not be able to travel away from home for a month and commit to a full time on-site course. There is really no 'best' way to learn how to be a teacher – it all depends on your individual needs and professional goals.

Cost Vs. Benefit

In deciding whether you should take an online or on-site TEFL TESOL certificate course, you need to consider what you are willing to spend, whether you want to become a full time or part-time TEFL instructor, and the amount of time you have available to travel. It is definitely a cost/benefit proposition. On-site training does have some very tangible benefits. Schools such as ITTO provide the opportunity to teach actual students of English as part of the course, with 10 observed teaching practice sessions (which is even more than the international requirement of 6). In addition, the concentrated learning experience you can obtain by being immersed in an intensive learning environment for a full month is unmatched. However, these benefits have a higher cost in both time and money. Many other TEFL providers do not include a grammar module or will charge for this separately.

The Course Content Is Similar

As a general rule, the online TEFL TESOL course contains more theory than the on-site TEFL TESOL course since it is completed via the Internet as distance learning with no actual teaching in a classroom environment. The on-site course is more practical (hands-on) by its nature, as it includes 10 individually observed teaching practices and uses a more comprehensive, immersion approach. The basic content is actually quite similar in both courses. The minor differences are generally caused by the different medium of teaching. Online educational technology experts have designed the online course making sure that it is not simply a 'repackaged' course that was meant to be taught in person. Instead, it uses its medium to the maximum potential to reproduce as close as possible the results of the original course. Both courses will provide results, so you need to weigh the cost/time and other factors to determine which is best for your personal situation.

Our Reputation Is Long-Standing

Whether you choose the online or on-site option, it is imperative that you choose a well-known and respected school that is affiliated with solid industry organizations. An employer will accept your certificate based on what school has issued it. ITTO has a long-standing solid reputation for its on-site TEFL TESOL courses and is considered to have one of the best programs. The online market for these types of courses is much newer, yet ITTO’s reputation for its on-site programs definitely creates a 'halo effect' for our online programs. Potential employers know that ITTO holds all of its programs to the highest standards and employs only the best instructors, so they correctly assume that we hold our online programs to those same stringent standards. 

Flexibility Is A Key Factor

A major reason that many people decide to take the online TEFL TESOL course route is flexibility. While you need to put aside a month of your life and drop everything from work to family for the on-site program, our online program is an interactive self-study program that can be undertaken at your own pace. There are 140 hours of content, so you can work for a modest 10 hours a week (2 hours per weeknight) and finish in 3 - 4 months. Or, you can spend just a few hours a week and finish in 6 months or up to a year. We will not charge for a six month course extension, in the event that you need one. Whatever suits your schedule – as there isn't a set time limit for completing each part of the course. However long it takes you to complete the material, your online tutor is always available to answer your questions and guide you to completion.

Got Questions? Contact us at info@tefl-online.com!