Day 2:

Building Pronunciation
Confidence
This workbook is designed to help you understand how to use the
pronunciation confidence method to improve your pronunciation,
grammar, and vocabulary.
Pronunciation Confidence Method
My pronunciation confidence method ™ (PCM) is a systematic way to build
muscle memory and internalize a sound, word, or grammatical structure in
English, and as a result gain more confidence as a speaker of English.

This method comprises of 5 stages:

1. Prioritizing your speech needs -Identifying your challenges, be it in

pronunciation, vocabulary, or grammar and syntax, and

understanding what you should focus on first.

2. Perception - Understanding why you have a challenge with a certain

sound, word, or grammatical structure.

3. Production - Understanding how to produce a certain sound, word, or

grammatical structure.

4. Repetition - Creating strong speaking habits by drilling the

challenging sound, word, or grammatical structure you chose to focus

on.

5. Intentional Speaking - Intentionally using in free speech the sound,

word, or grammatical structure that you practiced.

ENGLISH FLUENCY FESTIVAL 2021

Ⓒ Hadar Shemesh International. All rights reserved. 2
Hadarshemesh.com
Understanding the gap

Do you sometimes feel that the English that you know is not fully expressed

when you speak? What are some of the things that interfere with your flow

and clarity?

Following the live training on Day 2, can you identify what stages of my

method you haven’t incorporated, or haven’t incorporated enough in your

English practice until now?

Prioritizing your speech needs

Perception

Pronunciation

Practice (creating new speaking habits)

Intentional speaking

ENGLISH FLUENCY FESTIVAL 2021

Ⓒ Hadar Shemesh International. All rights reserved. 3
Hadarshemesh.com
Using PCM when practicing pronunciation
In this section, you’ll understand how you can use my method to
sound clearer when speaking.

Stage 1: Prioritizing Your Pronunciation Needs

There are 3 types of pronunciation challenges:

● Critical challenges that severely impact your clarity
● Mild challenges that mostly bother you and interfere with your
clarity
● Insignificant challenges that are mainly aimed at polishing your
pronunciation

High Priority: Critical Pronunciation Challenges

● Replacing a consonant with another consonant that exists in
English: light -> right berry -> very
● Sound deletion: begged -> beg
● Adding a sound: special -> sEpecial
● Misplacing the primary stress: CONtradiction instead of
contraDICtion

ENGLISH FLUENCY FESTIVAL 2021

Ⓒ Hadar Shemesh International. All rights reserved. 4
Hadarshemesh.com
Medium Priority: Mild Pronunciation Challenges
● Replacing a vowel with another close vowel (existing either in
English or in your first language):
cup -> cop; ship -> sheep
● Significant mispronunciation* of sounds (R, L, TH, etc.)
● Diphthong simplification: bait -> bet

*Mispronunciation occurs when the sound you produce deviates from its optimal
pronunciation in Standard English in a way that slightly compromises clarity.

Low Priority: Insignificant Pronunciation Challenges

● Aspiration of p, t, k
● NG mispronunciation: sing -> sin
● Subtle mispronunciation of R, L, TH and other sounds
● Mispronunciation of the different T’s

Ask yourself:
Based on the live training, do you tend to confuse the primary stress in
words? If you do, it would go on your high priority list.
If you don't know what primary stress is, you can watch this video.

Do you tend to add or drop sounds in the middle or end of words?

ENGLISH FLUENCY FESTIVAL 2021

Ⓒ Hadar Shemesh International. All rights reserved. 5
Hadarshemesh.com
Below we’ve added a list of key sounds in English that sometimes pose
challenges for New Speakers of English. As you go through the sound
list, consider the following points:
● Do you mispronounce this consonant?
● Do you replace this consonant with another consonant in
English?
● Do you replace this consonant with another consonant in your
own language?
● Does this consonant make you too self-conscious?

If you answered yes, you can mark it in the list below.

The Consonant Sounds of English

R As in ‘red’

L L as in ‘light’ and ‘well'

TH As in ‘they’ or ‘think’

ENGLISH FLUENCY FESTIVAL 2021

Ⓒ Hadar Shemesh International. All rights reserved. 6
Hadarshemesh.com
 T As in ‘time’, ‘better’, ‘football’, ‘kitten’,
‘twenty’ (consider each of them as
a separate T)

Z As in ‘husband’ or ‘zebra’

B As in ‘bay’

V As in ‘very’

Final M As in ‘game’

j As in ‘vision’

w As in ‘way’

ng As in ‘sing’

H As in ‘hair’

Do you pronounce the following word pairs the same sometimes? If

you do, mark it in the list below.

beat-bit

fool-full

head-had

ENGLISH FLUENCY FESTIVAL 2021

Ⓒ Hadar Shemesh International. All rights reserved. 7
Hadarshemesh.com
 cap-cop

cup-cap

cup-cop

met-mate

law-low

Take action: Create your personal priority list

Based on the priority table we shared above and the sound list,
choose 2-3 elements that are on your high priority list, and 2-3
elements on your medium priority lists, and add them in the table
below:

Critical Mild Insignificant

ENGLISH FLUENCY FESTIVAL 2021

Ⓒ Hadar Shemesh International. All rights reserved. 8
Hadarshemesh.com
Now, choose one of the elements on your critical list and practice it by
following the next step of the Pronunciation Confidence Method.

Stage 2: Perception
Does the sound you selected sound to you like a different sound? Do
you hear or interpret it as a different sound? For example, if you
selected the sheep-ship vowel pair, can you hear the difference
between the two when you listen closely?

Step 3: Pronunciation
In this step, you need to learn how to pronounce it accurately and
effortlessly. You can use this list of pronunciation lessons to help you
with that.

ENGLISH FLUENCY FESTIVAL 2021

Ⓒ Hadar Shemesh International. All rights reserved. 9
Hadarshemesh.com
Step 4: Repetition & Practice
Make a list of 10 words, 3 phrases, and 5 sentences with the sound you
selected. Practice saying them out loud several times.

Step 5: Intentional Speaking

Use the sound you selected in free speech intentionally. Make sure you
focus on using the new pronunciation even if it might slow you down a
bit.

Using PCM when practicing vocabulary

In this section, you’ll understand how you can use my method to grow
your English vocabulary and feel more versatile and expressive.

Prioritizing Your Vocabulary Needs

In order to feel more confident and free in English, your high priority
should be growing your active vocabulary, which is the words you
know and are easily retrieved. Growing your active vocabulary

ENGLISH FLUENCY FESTIVAL 2021

Ⓒ Hadar Shemesh International. All rights reserved. 10
Hadarshemesh.com
requires you to focus on words that you know and need but rarely use,
or essential words that you use in your first language but rarely in
English.
Whenever you practice, focus on 1-2 words a day or every other day.

Perception
Look for real examples of how the word is used in context.

Pronunciation
Look for the phonetic transcription of the word online. Pay close
attention to the number of syllables and the primary stress of the
word.

Repetition & Practice

Repeat the word out loud fast about 20-30 times. Copy the real
examples you found and read them out loud. Then, create 3 sentences
with that word on your own and say them out loud.

Intentional Speaking
Use the word intentionally in a conversation or even just for practice.

Take action...

ENGLISH FLUENCY FESTIVAL 2021

Ⓒ Hadar Shemesh International. All rights reserved. 11
Hadarshemesh.com
Choose one word you tend to forget in conversation or confuse with
another word, and follow the steps above to internalize it.

More about the pronunciation confidence method for vocabulary can

be found here.

Using PCM when practicing grammar

In this section, you’ll understand how you can use my method to
internalize grammatical structures so you don’t feel too self-conscious
and get stuck when using them.

Prioritizing Your Grammar Needs

Identify what grammatical structures you tend to avoid when
speaking or simply get stuck on when trying to use them. Make sure
you know which structures are more important for your clarity.

Perception
Try to understand why these structures pose a challenge to you, and
how they’re different from how it is in your first language. Usually we
struggle with tenses or elements of speech that don’t exist in our
native language.

ENGLISH FLUENCY FESTIVAL 2021

Ⓒ Hadar Shemesh International. All rights reserved. 12
Hadarshemesh.com
Pronunciation
Understand how to produce this grammatical structure. Pay close
attention to the sounds and how the words connect to each other.

Repetition & Practice

Find 5-6 real examples with that structure and say them out loud.
Then, create sentences that contain the grammatical structure you
want. Read each sentence out loud several times.

Intentional Speaking
Use the grammar form intentionally when speaking.

Take action...
Choose one grammatical structure that usually gets you stuck in
conversation and follow the steps above to internalize it.

Notes, insights, thoughts

ENGLISH FLUENCY FESTIVAL 2021

Ⓒ Hadar Shemesh International. All rights reserved. 13
Hadarshemesh.com