1. Teach pronunciation from the beginning

Pronunciation should be introduced from the earliest levels and developed progressively.

With Young Learners and beginners, the priority is developing awareness of English sounds and establishing accurate sound–word relationships. As students progress, greater attention can be given to:

• individual sounds
• syllables and word stress
• sentence stress
• weak forms
• connected speech
• rhythm and intonation

Pronunciation, like grammar and vocabulary, is cumulative.

2. Never teach a new word without its pronunciation

Knowing vocabulary includes knowing how the word sounds.

When introducing a new word, teachers should consider:

Meaning → Pronunciation → Form → Use

Before students repeatedly read a new word from the board, let them hear it first. Model it clearly, ask students to listen and then practise it.

For example:

comfortable

Students may try to pronounce every written syllable. The teacher should model the natural pronunciation and draw attention to the difference between spelling and speech.

This is particularly important in English because spelling is not a reliable guide to pronunciation.

3. Model before asking students to produce

Students need a clear model before they can reproduce a sound, word or sentence accurately.

A useful sequence is:

Listen → Notice → Repeat → Use

Give students time to listen before immediately asking them to repeat.

After modelling, use repetition strategically:

Teacher → Whole class → Small groups → Individual students

Whole-class repetition provides a safer first stage, while individual production allows the teacher to check whether students can actually produce the target pronunciation.

4. Teach sounds physically

Pronunciation is a physical skill. Students need to understand what their mouth, tongue, lips and voice are doing.

Instead of simply saying:

“That’s wrong. Say it again.”

show students how the sound is produced.

For example, when teaching /θ/ in think, demonstrate the position of the tongue and allow students to observe and imitate it.

Mirrors, gestures and visual representations of the mouth can be particularly useful with Young Learners and lower levels.

5. Use gestures and visual support

The techniques introduced previously can also support pronunciation.

Teachers can:

• clap syllables
• tap the stressed syllable
• stretch long vowel sounds
• use fingers to represent individual sounds
• move a hand upwards or downwards to represent intonation
• use colour or underlining to highlight stress

For example:

PHO-to-graph
pho-TO-gra-phy

Visual and physical cues help students notice changes that they may otherwise miss.

6. Teach pronunciation beyond individual sounds

Good pronunciation is not simply producing individual phonemes correctly.

As students progress, teachers should increasingly focus on suprasegmental features, particularly:

• word stress
• sentence stress
• rhythm
• linking
• weak forms
• intonation

For example:

“I WENT to the SHOP.”

The important information normally receives greater stress, while grammatical words may become weaker.

This work is particularly important from B1 onwards because it directly supports listening comprehension as well as speaking.

7. Connect pronunciation and listening

Many apparent listening problems are actually pronunciation problems.

Students may know a word when they see it written but fail to recognise it when they hear it naturally.

For example, a student may easily understand:

“What are you going to do?”

when reading it, but struggle to recognise the same sentence in rapid connected speech.

Listening activities are therefore excellent opportunities to draw attention to how English actually sounds, rather than only checking whether students selected the correct answer.

8. Correct selectively

Not every pronunciation error needs immediate correction.

Prioritise errors that:

• make communication difficult
• change meaning
• concern the pronunciation target of the lesson
• are systematic and repeatedly produced

Teachers should avoid interrupting communicative activities constantly for minor pronunciation errors. During fluency work, communication should normally remain the priority; during focused pronunciation work, greater accuracy can be expected.

9. Aim for intelligibility, not imitation

Students will encounter many varieties and accents of English. The objective is therefore not to imitate one particular native-speaker accent perfectly.

Teachers should aim for pronunciation that is clear, comprehensible and appropriate for international communication, while also exposing learners to different accents through listening activities.

A Spanish accent is not in itself a pronunciation error. We should correct features that interfere with intelligibility, not simply those that reveal where the speaker comes from.

10. Put Pronunciation into Practice

When teaching pronunciation, avoid immediately telling students how a word or sentence should sound. Use an inductive approach: ask questions, guide their attention and encourage them to discover the pronunciation pattern themselves.

A practical sequence is to move through three levels:

SOUNDS → WORD STRESS → SENTENCE STRESS & CONNECTED SPEECH

10.1. Individual sounds

Start by helping students distinguish letters from sounds.

Take the word word:

“How many letters can you see?”
“How many sounds can you hear?”
“What is this/that sound?”
“Give me another word with the same sound”

Point first to sounds students can easily recognise, such as /d/, and gradually move towards the more difficult sound. Give students the opportunity to produce it before modelling it yourself.

Once the difficult sound has been identified and produced correctly, challenge students to find other words containing the same sound. In this way, one word becomes the starting point for building awareness of a whole sound category.

10.2. Word stress

Once individual sounds have been considered, focus on the rhythm within the word.

Ask:

“How many syllables are there?”
“Which syllable is stressed?”
“Can you think of another word with the same stress pattern?”

For example:

COMF-(or)-ta-ble → Ooo

Students identify the number of syllables and the position of the stressed syllable, and then search for words with a similar pattern, such as Germany, family or cinema.

Gestures can support this process: use fingers to represent syllables and emphasise the finger corresponding to the stressed syllable.

10.3. Sentence stress and connected speech

Finally, move from individual words to natural speech. English does not give equal prominence to every word in a sentence. Words carrying important information generally receive greater stress, while less important grammatical words tend to be weaker.

Write a sentence on the board:

I am a teacher.

Ask students:

“Which word carries the most important information?”
“Which word do you think receives the strongest stress?”

Then say the sentence naturally and allow students to check their prediction.

Represent the rhythm visually:

o o o Oo

I am a TEAcher

Gestures and sound can reinforce the pattern. For example, snap your fingers, clap or tap on the stressed beat while saying the sentence.

The important principle throughout the three stages is:

Don’t immediately give students the answer. Make them listen, predict, notice and discover first.

Pronunciation then becomes something students learn to analyse and notice, rather than simply imitate.