Preface

Purpose
The purpose of this book is to equip readers with what they need in order to teach the
pronunciation of English. The intended readership is trainee English language teachers, and
in-service teachers wanting to increase their expertise in teaching English pronunciation.
The book is divided into three sections. Section 1 deals with phonetics, the study of
speech sounds. It also touches on phonology, the way speech sounds pattern. There are
many books dealing with the phonetics and phonology of English. However, most of
them go into far more detail than the average English language teacher needs, or is
prepared to read. The treatment in this book is therefore very selective, covering only
those aspects that are important for language teachers. However, just like icebergs, you
know that there is more below the surface. Readers who want to delve deeper into the
subject can follow up some of the references given.
Section 2 addresses various factors that impinge on the teaching of pronunciation.
Language is composed of many interrelated elements. While the focus of this book is
pronunciation, it also describes other elements, such as nonverbal communication,
which can be exploited by language teachers when teaching pronunciation.
Section 3 contains sample materials that can be used in class. There are of course
many books of pronunciation materials, good and bad, interesting and dry. The mater-
ials in this section are samples of the kind of exercise that competent teachers can
produce themselves for their particular groups of learners.
There are 35 chapters, which may seem incongruous for such a book. However, this
has been deliberately done in order to provide short, digestible chapters. This is espe-
cially important for the first section, on phonetics, which is necessarily technical in
parts, and introduces aspects of speech that readers may be able to command but not be
consciously aware of. If you read one chapter per day, you will finish the book in a little
over a month.
Like all good pronunciation books, this one is accompanied by audio material. Sound
files relating to various parts of the book are housed on the Companion Website: http://
www.routledge.com/cw/brown.

Conventions
In this book, standard linguistic conventions are followed: