As I wrote in QW 042812, my first target for “Pronunciation Practice 2012 Spring” is on 15 vowels of American English. I didn’t soon agree that my biggest problem in terms of pronunciation and L1 influenced-accent is vowels, but I decided to follow the tutor’s advice. Here’s what I did so far today:
1) Print out the article that the tutor did the model speech for me.
2) Listen to the recorded model speech over and over to get the “feel” of the whole speech.
3) Overlap the recorded model speech in an attempt to copy tempo, rhythm, and intonation (=target to-be in my plan).
4) Check the parts I think I didn’t do well.
5) Overlap the recorded model speech many times with the points in 4) in mind.
6) Look up all the vowels sounds in the speech in dictionaries, even the very basic ones like “are”.
7) Keep listening to the model and copying it with the script (=the printed article).
I’m not sure if it’s the best way to do it, but I’ll keep doing this way for a couple of days. During the next lesson with my pronunciation tutor, I’ll demonstrate my own speech and ask him to give me feedback. Let’s see how it goes.
