The 44 Sounds of American English

        Welcome to a New World - ESL

I am going to start with phonics although English is not a true phonetic language.  But to learn to speak any langauge, you need to master the sounds of that language.  So the first few blog posts will be about the Sounds of English.  I will focus on American English.  

In American English there are about 44 sounds formed from the 26 letters in the English Alphabet.  I say about because some dialects (regional variances) may have more or less.

In the United States, people tend to use the American Phonetic system shown in this photo from Scholastic book  Phonics from A to Z (2nd Edition) by Wiley Blevins (I see there is now a 3rd edition).  We talk about long and short vowels - I’ll discuss vowels in the next blog post.

 

In China where I taught for 7 years, they use the International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA.  I have edited an American English IPA chart to add sample words.

 

There is an app available for Apple phones and iPads (free or paid; I use the free version) and I think it is from Macmillan publishing.  See images below. 

It may be available for Android devices also.  I have always used it on my iPad.  You can choose American or British Charts from the app settings and switch as you need.  It allows you to hear the sound in isolation.

 

Next blog - Vowels

 Welcome to a New World of English

My name is Tim New thus the “pun" in the title of my sites - a New World.  I had a background in Science (a BA in Chemistry), and Law - a JD degree and 13 years working as a corporate attorney -  before I ever taught English.

When I first taught English, I winged it.  I taught based on what I was thought was good.  I started teaching at a private bilingual school in Mexico just across the border from Texas.  Students took classes in their native Spanish language but also took classes in English.  

The difficulty arose from the placement of students in English.  They were assigned English language classes based on their Spanish level - if they were year 3 in Spanish they were placed in Year 3 English Language classes.  Needless to say, that wasn’t ideal.  The actual level of English ability varied greatly.  I more or less threw away the Abeka textbooks and made my own lessons.

After leaving the school, I took a 40 hour course in TESOL - Teaching English to Speakers of other Languages.  That course more or less confirmed what I had been doing in my classroom.  That was in the summer of 2009.  In August of 2009, I flew to South Korea and began teaching as a certified English Instructor.

One thing I quickly learned.  Being a NATIVE English speaker does not qualify one to be a teacher of English.  My education prior to teaching English resulted in me knowing the correct English even if I did not always know why.  But I had experiences of others teaching English (or attempting to teach English) who, to state it simply, had no idea of what was correct or incorrect.  They were teaching learners completely “bad" English.  So don’t assume a person who is a native speaker actually speaks or writes their native language correctly.

After South Korea I went to Hong Kong and after about a year and a half return to the USA for 1 year before going to Shenzhen, Guangdong, China for 7 years.  I returned to the US from Shenzhen at the end of October, 2020.

In my 10 plus years of teaching abroad, I have learned the “whys" that I did not know when I started.  I also learned a lot about the differences between American English and British English (but not all) and I learned even textbooks can be wrong (or should I say inaccurate) as they teach rules when at times rules simply don’t apply as absolutes.

I now have my CertTesol from Trinity College in London in addition to my own "on the job” learning.  To be honest, I learned more “Rules” of English by answering questions from students than I have from any class.  Students have asked many questions over the years.  In the event did not know the answer (the reason why) then I would research it and find the answer.  I continue to do that today.  I have accumulated many resources to help me help them and you.  I still consider “The Oxford Guide to English Grammar” as the Bible for English grammar.  John Eastwood did an excellent job putting it together.  But I also use a variety of other sources when I find a need to explain some concept of English grammar.

This blog will be an effort on my part to help address English learning.  I will have a bias towards American English since I am American.  However I will point out differences from time to time in usage between American and British English.  

If you have questions, feel free to submit them.  It will help me post content.