Teaching Difficult Sounds - Adrian Underhill


Part of the Exams session at the Macmillan Education Online Conference 2014, this webinar will boost your confidence in teaching pronunciation and provide you with practical tips and techniques for tackling some of the trickiest sounds, such as th, r, l.

During his webinar, Adrian will discuss: 

  • The pronunciation chart and how it helps learners
  • Finding the muscles that make the new sounds
  • Using easy sound positions to find the difficult ones
  • How to correct and practise these sounds
  • How to make optimal use of learner errors
  • Insights into pronunciation that shed new light on typical problems.

About the speaker: Adrian Underhill

Adrian Underhill works mainly as freelance trainer, consultant and writer. He’s a former President of IATEFL and a current IATEFL Ambassador.  He’s interested in how people learn, how they relate and how they organise themselves.  He enjoys all forms of improvisation, in jazz, in theatre, in comedy and in life, as well as organic gardening - and eating the results!

Adrian’s hugely popular series of Pronunciation Skills videos can be viewed over on the Macmillan Education ELT YouTube channel! 

Adrian also runs two blogs: 

Here, Adrian tells us more about his work and what you will learn from him at MEOC2014:  

What will people learn from your webinar?

How to cut through all the nonsense about pronunciation being difficult! 

Tell us about  your latest projects with Macmillan Education? 

A series of 35 three minute videos on understanding and teaching the sounds of English. 

What  inspired and continues to inspire you to work in ELT? 

Learning, being a learner, learning with others, curiosity.

If  you could have written one book what would it be? 

How to make an anti-gravity device in your kitchen.

Adrian's top teaching tips

  • Seek to learn rather than to know
  • Be a  curious learner alongside your students
  • Speak to  them like friends, rather than like students

Download the presentation