PronPack 1 Pronunciation Workouts

Published 2017.

PronPack 1: Pronunciation Workouts are extended drills focusing on specific areas of English pronunciation. Think of them like the scales and other exercises which pianists use to improve their fingering technique. But in the case of pronunciation, it's the vocal articulators which are getting trained - the tongue, lips, jaw and vocal chords. The workouts can benefit learners in two different ways - practice and perception. Practice: The workouts can help the mouth muscles to get accustomed to the unfamiliar movements required to speak in English. Perception: The workouts help learners to notice features of English pronunciation. Because the target pronunciation feature is repeated so often in the workout, it becomes much more obvious. What aspects of pronunciation are covered in PronPack 1? The earlier workouts in the book focus on the sound system of English. These serve to familiarize the learners with the system as a whole by exploring the PronPack Sound Chart. They focus on different regions of the system, such as the short vowels or the stop consonants, and they help the learner become more aware of the articulators in the mouth and vocal tract. The later workouts in the book focus on suprasegmental features such as word stress, connected speech and tonic stress.