PronPack is a set of four resource books to help teachers focus on English pronunciation in class – each takes a slightly different approach to pronunciation teaching. You can select the approach you prefer, or use the various books to complement one another.
PronPack 4: Pronunciation Poems are rhymes, chants, limericks, raps and song lyrics all written specifically to contain multiple examples of the target pronunciation features. The activities usually begin with an exercise completing or correcting the text and culminate in practising saying or chanting the text out loud.
The poems can benefit learners by making specific features of English pronunciation very noticeable to them because they occur so frequently in a short sample of language. They also provide concentrated practice in producing the target feature through the chant. A further benefit is that they tend to be very memorable – the chant or lyric will often ‘play-on-repeat’ in the student’s head afterwards, providing extra silent practice.
The poems in the greater part of the book focus on individual sounds. Later in the book there are poems focussing on consonant clusters, grammatical –ed and –s endings and weak forms. However, the poems all have a further focus which is equally if not more important: they provide intensive exemplification and practice of connected speech.
This printed book contains worksheets for the students and teacher’s notes for you. The teacher’s notes give a short background to the pronunciation point plus step-by-step guidelines for using the activity in class. They also highlight the teaching focus, the minimum student level and indicate printing requirements. Additional materials including audio and printable resources to accompany Pronunciation Poems are available on www.pronpack.com
Other books in the PronPack series are:
Book 1: Pronunciation Workouts – extended choral drill activities activities.
Book 2: Pronunciation Puzzles – puzzles and game-like activities.
Book 3: Pronunciation Pairworks – communication activities.
Mark Hancock started teaching English over 30 years ago and wrote his first English language teaching book – Pronunciation Games – published by CUP over 20 years ago. His approach in both teaching and writing ELT materials is to engage the learner and inspire their intrinsic interest in the content and in the process of the lesson. This is driven by his belief that teaching and learning a language can and should be an enjoyable experience. He studied Geography and Philosophy at St. Andrews University, followed by teacher training courses and finally an MA in Teaching English from Aston University. Mark has taught in Sudan, Turkey, Brazil, Spain and currently lives and works in the UK. Apart from teaching and writing, he also presents at international conferences and leads on short teacher training courses. In his free time, Mark plays the saxophone and guitar, paints in oils and walks in the mountains.
