Teaching pronunciation

[Kerry Lynn James]

Hello all,

 

I am new to this site, and this group, but wanted to get your opinion on this subject. I give private lessons to a student who is originally from Romania who would like to improve his British pronunciation.

 

I have some background in linguistics and phonetics and have gone through the pronunciation of all the sounds of English. We have looked at phrasing, stresses, intonation, content and non-content words, and I have impressed upon him the importance of listening to television and radio and trying to imitate the accent he would like to learn. He is very advanced in English. There is almost nothing more I can teach him with regards to grammar, and I feel I am running out of things to do with him in terms of pronunciation. He works and is around English all the time.However, although he has made some progress, his accent is still very romanian. And I am having touble discerning what it is that is exactly making it that way. I think it might be where the sound is produced as it seems to come from very far back in the throught.

 

Would anyone have any advice on where to go next? Rote repetition of phrases? Continue what we are doing?

 

Many thanks for any advice you could give.