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Tips for Indian and Pakistani English Speakers

Word: hotel
Culprit: pronunciation, meaning

The first I was asked if I wanted to go out to a HO-tl (pronounced with hard retroflex t) on a Friday night, I had to ask the speaker to clarify. She wanted to go out to eat at a nice restaurant, while I was wondering why we'd go out just to sleep in a hotel. In standard English, a hotel is a place where you stay or sleep. Many nice restaurants in the subcontinent happen to be in 5-star hotels, so it's understandable how the term 'hotel' came to mean 'nice restaurant.'

In standard English, the word 'hotel' is pronounced with stress on the second syllable, 'ho - TEL' and with a soft [t] not a hard one. The [t] should be pronounced right behind your teeth, in a similar position to the Urdu-Hindi softer sound.

There is also no verb 'to hotel,' which means we can not 'go hoteling' tonight. If that were a verb in English, it would have to mean something like going out to sleep in different hotels. What you want to say is, "Let's go out to eat tonight."

For more tips see here:

Avoid These Common Mistakes in English

ESL Grammar Lesson Plans

Here are some links to complete ESL Grammar lesson plans:

Grammar

1) ESL Lesson Plan: Comparatives & Superlatives
Have fun teaching adjectives with this interactive lesson.

2) ESL Reading and Speaking Activity: Comparatives & Superlatives
Students read about and discuss 5 young world record holders as a reading exercise.

3) ESL Lesson Game: Action with Adverbs
An interactive group game to practice adverbs. Great for ESL students or native speakers learning grammar.

4) Lesson Plan: Make Narrative Exciting with Adverbs
A lesson plan to integrate grammar with writing skills

5) ESL Lesson Game: My Amazing Imaginary Life
This creative activity will help students master the use of perfect tenses

6) Lesson Plan: Fun with Verb Tenses
This interactive and fast-paced group game will help students review simple and perfect tenses. It can be adjusted for use with any other tenses as well.

7) Lesson Plan: Perfect Tenses
Presentation material for teaching present perfect, past perfect and future perfect

8) Lesson Plan: Verbs Daily Routine
Adjustable lesson plan to practice different verb tenses by filling in the daily planner of a superhero

Resources for Teaching and Learning English Pronunciation

Pronunciation can be one of the most difficult areas to mast in any foreign language. Have a go at reading the following poetic verse out loud:

“I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?”

(Attributed to George Bernard Shaw)

Not so easy, was it? English pronunciation is, in part, so tricky because English spelling is not phonetic. In a phonetic alphabet, each letter will only represent one sound, and each sound will only be represented by one letter. In English, this is certainly not the case! Other teachers are always asking me for good resources to teach pronunciation, so here’s a list of websites along with their descriptions. Many of these sites are good for both language teachers and language learners.

Sounds of English

Sounds of English is primarily a site for English teachers. It includes some great links, handouts from presentations, pronunciation pages including sound and video files, activities and exercises for pronunciation and listening, teacher tips, and printable worksheets with answer keys. It’s one of the best sites for English language educators.

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