Teaching phonetics: the need, difficulties, and methods for overcoming them

Phonetics is the magic melody of a language that immediately either attracts or repels you in a foreign language, and the way to express your intentions, feelings, and emotions, and sometimes leads you to misunderstanding, funny situations, or even conflicts.

The participants are invited to discuss phonetic features, peculiarities, and difficulties of different languages, the need to develop correct and ‘comfortable’ pronunciation for non-native speaker, theе phenomenon of ‘foreign accent’, as well as ways and methods to improve students’ pronunciation skills and to overcome difficulties in pronouncing sounds, stressing words, and intoning phrases (tongue twisters, imitation, rhymes, limericks). Is it hard work or fan?

You are welcome to share with us all the ‘phonetic incidents’ and ‘phonetic failures’ happened to your students!

Maryna Yakubovska, assistant, Ukrainian and Russian languages for foreigners Department, Philology Institute, Taras Schevchenko National University in Kyiv, Ukraine.
40 years’ experience of teaching Russian for foreigners of different levels of the language. Interests: Practical phonetics, practical grammar, etymology, phraseology. Author of special practical courses on Phonetics (for beginners and intermediate), Verbs of Motion (intermediate), Prefixed Verbs (intermediate), Russian Phraseology (intermediate, advanced), and the course ‘Let’s read and talk in Russian’ (beginners, intermediate).