Tips on IELTS Pronunciation

How to Improve Pronunciation for the IELTS Speaking Test?

English sounds are generally complicated. As English is a language which has been derived from many other languages, pronunciation seemed to be more complicated and challenging.

Challenges of non-native English speakers

• Not pronouncing the sounds in an acceptable way.
• Mostly the voice is flat: monosyllabic (doesn’t go up and down naturally)
• Unaware of silent letters in words.

The speaking test of the IELTS exam is marked under the following criteria.

• Fluency and coherence
• Grammatical range and accuracy
• Lexical resources
• Pronunciation

If you look into the last criterion, which is pronunciation, brings you 25% of the total mark. The pronunciation criterion mainly includes sounds-both vowels and consonants, stress and intonation.

Let us now focus on each and every one of these.

Sounds

The first and foremost thing you should master is the individual sounds. In order to do so, we need to become familiar with the English phonetic alphabet.

The phonetic alphabet contains all the sounds of the English language in the form of symbols. Each symbol represents a unique sound. Nevertheless, the ordinary English alphabet does not do this.

If you could spend some time to become familiar with these sound symbols, it would definitely benefit you immensely in the long run.

Learning them is not difficult. All you need is a bit of commitment.

Once you have learned these sound symbols it will be very easy for you to tackle any pronunciation issue that you might encounter in the future with a help of a good dictionary.

As certain sounds of English are not present in all foreign languages, it is vital to learn these sounds. For example, in the Maldives, where I am currently living, most people struggle to differentiate between / ɜ:/ as in ‘word/work’ and / ɔ:/ as in ‘ward/walk’.

On the other hand, if you are a busy personal with a tight schedule who does not want to learn these sounds, then the better option is to use a good online dictionary which has photonic symbols and their sounds uttered in an audio form which usually represented with a speaker icon for both US and UK English.

Stress

Stress is when you emphasize or give extra force to a word or syllable by throwing your voice up in a high pitch tone.

There are two types of stress:

• Word Stress
• Sentence Stress

Word Stress

Word stress is applied when pronouncing words in general. In order to apply the stress in words, we should know how to divide them into syllables. Syllables are unique sound units into which words can be divided.

Let us divide some words into syllables.

• go - Go (one syllable)
• conclude - con/clude (two syllables)
• beautiful - beau/ti/ful (three syllables)
• pronunciation ­- pro/nun/ci/ation (four syllables)

Depending on the word, the stress falls onto different syllables.

• WON-der (initial position)
• po-TA-to (mid position)
• re-fu-GEE (end position)

The stress pattern of the same word will differ depending on its word class (noun, verb, adjective and adverb)

• conDUCT (v) – to make something happen
• CONduct (n) - the behavior of someone


• perFECT (v) - to make something as good as you can
• PERfect (n) - complete without faults


• reCORD(v) - to make a record of something
• REcord(n) - a written account of something


• proGRESS(v) - to improve or develop towards a goal
• PROgress(n) - improvement or development towards a goal

Sentence stress

English is generally known as stress language. Depending on the word you stress the meaning changes. For example,

• I want your pen. (I who need the pen; not anyone else)
• I WANT your pen. (I desperately in need of your pen)
• I want YOUR pen. (I need your pen; not anyone else)
• I want your PEN. (Give me your pen; not anything else)

The generally rule is to stress on the most import words in a sentence. This may vary depending on the situation. Listen to a lot of native speakers on T.V watch movies and observe closely their tone on how they place the stress on words in different contexts.

Intonation

Intonation is the natural up and down of your speech. Every language has its own wavelength and frequency. The common cadence of the English language is used in the following way:

Statements

Your voice should go up and down naturally in the following way whenever you utter a statement, a yes/no question or a wh-question.

• I usually go to work on foot.(DOWN)

YES/NO Questions

• Do you know him?(UP)

WH-Questions

• Where does he live?(DOWN)

Silent Letters

List of common words with silent letters. The bold letters in the following list of words are silent. You should not utter their sounds while speaking in English.

• B silent
• comb
• bomb
• lamb
• thumb

• C silent
• scent
• scene
• science

• G silent
• sign
• design
• resign

• H silent
• honest
• hour
• honor

• K silent
• knock
• know
• knife
• knot

• L silent
• palm
• calm
• half
• walk
• talk
• should
• could
• would

• N silent
• autumn
• condemn
• column

• N silent
• hasten
• often
• listen
• soften

• U silent
• guard
• guess
• guest

• W silent
• wrong
• answer
• sword

If you want to do more practice exercises on the areas we learnt just now, do the exercises given on the Marian Webser Dictionary Page.

How to practice pronunciation at home?

Finally, let me give you some suggestions on you can practise pronunciation at home.

One important factor you should keep in your mind is that for IELTS you can either use UK or US based English for both spelling and pronunciation. For example, it does not make any difference even if you pronounce certain words like these in either way.

• direction /daɪˈrek.ʃən/ or /dɪˈrek.ʃən/
• vitamin /vɪt.ə.mɪn/ or /vaɪ.t̬ə.mɪn/
• hot /hɒt/ or /hɑːt/
• past /pɑːst/ or /pæst/

But you cannot pronounce: divorce /dɪˈvɔːs/ as /daɪˈvɔːs/ and war /wɔːr/ as /wɑːr/

Get hold of a good dictionary if you have no one to ask for.

Tip #1

Record your voice

One of the best ways to practise pronunciation at home is to record your voice on your mobile phone or any other recording device available. Pick up a topic, IETLS speaking part two cue card, would be an ideal choice. First take notes for one minute and then start speaking for one to two minutes on the topic. Replay and check your individual sounds and the stress pattern.

Tip #2

Use a good dictionary

Using a good online or an offline dictionary along with audio pronunciation for each and every word is an essential tool. From a good dictionary you will not only learn pronunciation but also the stress pattern. Nowadays these dictionaries come in handy. Most of them are available in the form of mobile apps. So make use of your mobile phones to regularly check your pronunciation. The Cambridge online dictionary and Merriam-Webster online dictionary are greate resources.

Tip #3

Watch videos

Observe how native English speakers stress and intonate in linked speech - which means in continuous communication. Jot down as many sentences as possible. Try to imitate their accent with stress and intonation. Do this for a couple of months untill you become familar with English pronunciation in general. Movies with subtiltles are a great tool for this. BBC Learn English Series has many useful videos on pronunciation.