Sky Pronunciation

Sky Pronunciation is a multimedia interactive pronunciation program designed to help learners of English to improve their pronunciation skills through awareness-building, recognition and production. The program is divided into five different sections, outlined below. These include the study and testing of sounds, the study and testing of similar-sounding word sets and the study, practice and testing of phrases and sentences.

Click on the titles below to see selected screen shots from each section

The Phonemic Alphabet in English
An interactive program designed to teach users to recognise the sounds and letters of the Phonemic Alphabet in English. The users can see and hear how vowel and consonant sounds and words are formed, test their ability to recognise sounds and words, test their transcription skills, test their ability to match words with their vowel /consonant components and record and compare items. Click here to see a sample section from The Phonemic Alphabet in English.

Similar Sounds
An interactive program designed to improve the user's ability to differentiate between similar-sounding sets of words, both in isolation and in sentences. The program, which covers 24 sound sets (12 vowel, 12 consonant), has a make-your-own-test feature, and includes a comprehensive reference point for each sound set and a record yourself tool.

Word and Phrasal Stress
This is an interactive pronunciation program designed to test the user's ability to recognise where stress falls in words and short phrases. As well as providing a concise grammar of word stress and a recording tool, the program contains a large library of sound items which are tested in various ways such as Listen and Click and Find the Odd Word Out.

Stress and Rhythm
This interactive program, containing over 600 sound items, introduces learners to the features of connected speech, including: the rules governing sentence stress, weak forms, linking, elision, assimilation and contraction, and shifting stress. It takes the form of a step by step tutorial with test-as-you-learn features and extensive practice in the focus areas. It also contains a recording tool and back chaining facility.

Rhythms From Rainland
This program which constitutes part five of Sky Pronunciation, gives the learner practice in the rhythms of spoken English through everyday dialogues, jokes, poems, rhymes, sayings etc.. The practice takes the form of video and audio lessons where the learner can listen and repeat the language in the texts in a variety of ways. There are 48 texts which you may access unit-by-unit or by topic area. The program also has a specialised recording feature, which allows the learner to build up a set of recordings.