Pronounciation Improving Programs

Followings are several types of programs that can help you to improve your pronounciation:

1. Phonetics Flash Animation Project (done by the University of Iowa.)
This website provides not only an introduction to the American sounds, but also an introduction to German sounds as well as Spanish sounds. Its information is very useful for people who's second or third language is English, German or Spanish. When I was using this website to search the exact pronunciations of few German consonants, I found out that the examples of the consonants and the animation of the changes in oral cavity are amazingly clear and easy for learners to imitate. Moreover, I think the linguistic learners and professors may also use this website as their E-learning materials.

2. Practice on minimal pairs
Minimal pairs play an important role in English learning. Without the ability of identify the minimal pairs, the learners might misunderstand the details of a sentence. This website gives the English learners many chances to practices how to distinguish the minimal pairs by providing lots of exercises and practices. This website is very useful and helpful for the beginners and people who have difficulty to identify minimal pairs in English.

3. PBS Kids (Public Broadcasting Service).
This website is extremely suitable for children, because it is formed by lots of pictures and animation and other elements that children will crazy about. After visiting this website, I think I like its “Video” part the most. The videos there contains several English grammatical rules such as rules of placing vowels and consonants in words, plus vivid animation and wonderful music, it makes boring grammar rules into active and easy-to-catch English songs. Unfortunately, this website also has it disadvantages. The biggest of it is that it has too many sound effects and becomes a little bit annoyed.