Author Archives: Adrian Underhill

The Story of Sounds: Episode 26: Discovering the vowel /ɒ/

Posted on February 21, 2016 by Adrian Underhill

Example words: stop, hot, pop, cross, foreign, lobby, knowledge General setting of /ɒ/ The lips are rounded though not as forward as with /ɔː/ and /uː/, and the jaw is low creating quite a bit of resonant space in the … Continue reading →

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Teacher Training Programme. Pronunciation and Storytelling: from Phonemes to Fluency

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Adrian Underhill

I will be running this 2-week teacher training programme Pronunciation and Storytelling: from Phonemes to Fluency at Bell Teachers Campus, Cambridge in July 2016 It is for practitioners wanting to explore new approaches to pronunciation learning and who want practical … Continue reading →

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Complete series of 39 x 3-minute pronunciation videos now available

Posted on January 1, 2016 by Adrian Underhill

  I’m happy to say that the entire series of 39 x 3-minute pronunciation teacher training videos is now available here. The videos are free to watch. You can check the topics and timing on the list below. They vary … Continue reading →

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Comfortable Intelligibility 2

Posted on November 30, 2015 by Adrian Underhill

In the previous post on Comfortable Intelligibility – I suggested using the three levels of pronunciation (Level 1: Sounds: Level 2: Words: Level 3: Connected Speech) as a kind of practical ladder for moving up and down between the whole … Continue reading →

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Comfortable Intelligibility 1

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Adrian Underhill

Our goal is comfortable intelligibility in connected up speaking and listening. Pronunciation is a core ingredient of comfortable intelligibility and must always be in the service of this greater goal. For me as learner and teacher pronunciation is more than … Continue reading →

Posted in Comfortable intelligibility, The chart and physicality | 1 Comment

In Pursuit of Comfortable Intelligibility

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Adrian Underhill

Last month I made a pronunciation workshop and lecture tour in Thailand, Vietnam and China. It was immaculately organised by the local teams of Macmillan Education and attended by lively, interesting and informed local teachers. And they talked about the … Continue reading →

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The Story of Sounds: Episode 25: Discovering the vowel /æ/

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Adrian Underhill

Example words: cat, app, fab, add, taxi, sanction, accurate, vocabulary, language, catch, vanish, narrow General setting of /æ/: The lips are spread and quite open, and the jaw is lowered. The lips being open and spread may give a slight … Continue reading →

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The Story of Sounds: Episode 24: Discovering the vowel /ɑː/

Posted on May 7, 2015 by Adrian Underhill

The Story of Sounds: Episode 24: Discovering the vowel /ɑː/ You can think of a vowel sound as the result of the shape of the tongue coupled with the resonant space in the mouth created by lip shape and tongue/jaw … Continue reading →

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Sound Foundations: Teacher Training Videos update

Posted on April 30, 2015 by Adrian Underhill

Here is an update of links to my new 3-Minute pronunciation video series, other recent teacher training videos, articles and resources including the Sounds App and The Interactive Phonemic Chart (British and American English versions) 1.. The first 24 of … Continue reading →

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The Story of Sounds: Episode 23: Discovering the vowel /ʌ/ part 2

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Adrian Underhill

You can think of a vowel as the result of a certain position of the tongue, jaw and lips. You can also think of a vowel sound as the result of a shape (of the tongue) and a resonant space … Continue reading →

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