Saundz – Building Blocks of Learning Pronunciation

If you’ve had the opportunity to study Saundz’s features already, you may have noticed that our curriculum is based on what is commonly known as the Building Blocks approach.  This means that our app focuses on the basic speech units – phonemes – and teaches them one by one until learners are able to combine them into words, the smallest meaningful language units, or building blocks of learning pronunciation.

In conceiving our Saundz app, what we wanted to achieve, and have achieved, was to start from the basics and focus on what matters most.

In many ESL classrooms, teachers do not focus enough on pronunciation and fail to explain important phonological features of English.  Though it is obvious that some students are able to master the unfamiliar language and accurately imitate its accent without much trouble, the majority of learners struggle with this and require additional practice.

SEE ALSO: 5 Rules for Excellent English Pronunciation

Teachers may not always find enough time to teach pronunciation properly.  This is why we created Saundz – the app that helps learners practice pronunciation at their own pace, outside their classrooms.  With Saundz, they are able to focus on the basics of American English pronunciation and gradually yet efficiently improve their pronunciation skills.

In their book Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, Richards and Rogers state that

We may have gone even a step further by focusing on phonemes specifically.  Since lexis (word) can also be divided into even smaller units, why wouldn’t this be the starting point instead of words? Once you learn the basics, it’s easy to upgrade your knowledge and ability.  You combine the correct phonemes into larger units according to specific language rules (in this case English) and this helps you improve your overall language skills.

This is what we consider to be the foundation, the building blocks, of learning correct pronunciation and, thus, the English language in general.  The Building Blocks of learning pronunciation model refers to developing a set of independent foundational units within a larger theoretical unit in teaching.  This means that such classes involve step by step, or unit by unit instructions.  However, even though the lesson units may be considered independent, they relate to each other and are taught in the order prescribed by the curriculum.

Building block methods are frequently used in all fields of education because they allow learners to efficiently progress and upgrade their knowledge.  This is exactly what Saundz is designed to achieve.

Keep it simple, yet effective.