Portal:Phonology/Segmentals
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Vowels and consonants are called segmentals - individual sounds into which words can be segmented. We focus on the phonemes, that is, general sound categories that are distinctive in the language. For example, the /b/ and /p/ are considered different sounds in English - bat is a distinctly different word from pat - but this sound contrast may not be true in other languages. Learners will have difficulty with how English phonemes sound in particular contexts, which is where phonetics knowledge will be helpful for teachers.
1 Phonemes
- Minimal pairs for English phonemes: a good collection of minimal pairs - exmaples of all possible phonemic vowel and consonant contrasts are given, including less common contrasts (like the fricative consonants); includes British vowels, too
- Pronunciation drills: Typical drills for teaching phonemes
- List of English phonemes for evaluation or self-evaluation
- Spelling-phoneme patterns
2 Consonants
- Overview of English consonant system
- Stop consonants
- /f/ and /v/
- sounds /θ/ & /ð/
- spelling patterns
- /l/ and /r/
- Alveolar /z/
- Palatal consonants
- Consonant clusters
3 Vowels
- Overview of vowel system
- Tense & lax /i/, /<small I</small /
- Lax vowel /æ/ cf. /ε/
- Long /ei/ & short /ε/
- Long & short /ou/, /υ/
- Tense & lax /u/
- Schwa and /ʌ/
- Tense and lax vowel alternations
- Comparison of American, UK, Australian vowels
