Pronunciation Instruction (instruction) for Dummies

Clip art:
Clker

Clip art:
Clker

There is no such book in the "Dummies" collection, although there is an EFL teaching dummy version--which, by the way I do NOT recommend. However, in that book, in the section on teaching pronunciation, the writer got a few things right, at least in terms of priorities--and the general assumption that without much background or training you can work with pronunciation, at least without doing much damage. The simple, recommended techniques are generally not the best but the emphasis is ok: stress, intonation, basic vowels and rhythm--and a little consonant work on the side, mostly just by repetition.

The EHIEP (essentials of haptic-integrated English pronunciation) system we are developing, which will involve using video clips to do all initial instruction, essentially follows a similar path: warmup; stress; vowels; thought group; intonation; speech rhythm; selected consonants. Most importantly, it has to be accessible, inexpensive and readily adoptable by "dummies," including those with excessive training in phonetics, disembodied professional experience or enthusiastic (but overly complicated) "dumbed up" pronunciation teaching methods.