Speaking
The following is an annotated list of speaking websites.
Beginners
* American English Pronunciation (Charles Kelly)
There are many minimal pairs drills here. (ex. thirteen/thirty; said/sad; see/she, etc). The sound quality is excellent. Give it a try. There are also a few songs and tongue twisters to try. This is part of the larger site, "Interesting Things for ESL Students".
* British English
This site provides a comparison to American English, as well as minimal pair practice.
* To Practice Long Vowel Sounds
Try the Poem Pack (10 animated poems which practice different long vowel sounds), Snap It (race the clock to find long vowel sounds), and Drag 'n' Spell (drag the vowels to finish the words before your time runs out). Spend some time at this site and I think you'll learn a lot!
* Minimal Pairs
There are three minimal pairs drills with 10 samples each. Listen and see if you can hear the difference between b/v, r/l, b/p. This will be especially helpful for Arabic and Japanese speakers of English.
* Phonetics: The Sounds of American English
This excellent site describes the mechanics of forming each sound. It includes a description of how to form each sound, a movie of a person making the sounds, an animation of what goes on inside the mouth, and some spoken examples.
* Pronunciation (E.L. Easton)
Consonant sounds, vowel sounds, linking, reductions, stress patterns and more. You can listen, practice and take quizzes. Also includes some spelling exercises. A very useful resource.
Intermediate
* English Pronunciation
This is a PALS favorite. Excellent website with minimal pairs, tongue twisters, dialogue practice, and audio recording of sounds.
* TESOL pronunciation special interest group
This site provides more resource links for listening, pronunciation, and speaking activities.
* Foreign Accent Archive
Not for ESL per se, but a great resource for examining accented English and predicting pronunciation problems for students.
* EnglishCLUB.net
You'll find a few exercises for word stress (and word stress rules), sentence stress, and how to pronounce "-ed" in past tense (3 ways).
Post Intermediate
* Sounds of English
Audio, video, pictures, and diagrams of English pronunciation. Activities, exercises, links, and presentation handouts.
* About.com - English Pronunciation
The site is an excellent introduction to IPA and basic sounds.
* California Distance Learning Project
Use this site to build your reading and life skills. Excellent for listening and vocabulary building. Excellent for Discussion class - students may read a topic and come to class prepared with their arguments.
* ESL Independent Study Lab (Michael Krause, Lewis & Clark College)
This website is wonderful for beginners through advanced. Great links included for pronunciation and listening.
* Fonetiks.org
Pronunciation tutorials with sound clips for a variety of accents.
* The Internet TESL Journal's List of Pronunciation
Advanced
* Diphthong Calculator by Steve Chadwick
Click over to this site and power up Steve Chadwick's diphthong calculator. Add a mid front unrounded vowel to a low front unrounded vowel then watch and listen as the small animated face produces the diphthong.
* ESL Pronunciation Work Page
This page has lots of audio examples of speech elements that can help advanced ESL students improve their pronunciation. Ex: intonation, stress, linking, thought groups, etc.
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