Mark Hancock

There can be very few English teachers who have never encountered minimal pairs. They are pairs of words like ship and sheep, which are identical except for one sound – in this instance, the vowel. They have long been standard fare in pronunciation materials because they neatly demonstrate meaningful differences in the target language. In fact, minimal pairs have even been used as the title of published books, such as Ship or Sheep? (Baker, 1977). But are minimal pairs really of value in pronunciation teaching – or are they a waste of time? Let’s take a look at some...

An activity for checking the pronunciation of the months of the year.

The article offers a range of activities for raising learners awareness of the schwa sound most common in connected speech.

Linking, elision, assimilation and stress are all features of speech our learners need to practise. Online resource available.

Mark Hancock investigates using the IPA and argues that it is a phonemic rather than phonetic chart. It is a useful guide to pronunciation but not all sounds are and accents are precisely covered.