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Have you ever been confused by the fact that the words 'though' and 'bough' are pronounced differently, or frustrated by the realisation that 'hint' and 'pint' don't rhyme? It is well known that the spelling system of English is notoriously unhelpful as an indicator of how to pronounce English words. Spoken and written representations of English are mutually inconsistent, making it difficult to interpret the 'logic' of the language. Learning to transcribe English phonetically, however, provides an accurate visual interpretation of pronunciation: it helps you to realise what you actually say, rather than what you think you say.English Transcription Course is the ideal workbook for anyone wishing to practice their transcription skills. It provides a series of eight lessons, each dealing with a particular aspect of pronunciation, and introduces and explains the most important features of connected speech in modern British English - such as assimilation, elision and weak forms, concentrating on achieving a relaxed, informal style of speech. Each lesson is followed by a set of exercises which allow for extensive practise of the skills learnt in both current and previous chapters. Students can check their progress with the 'model' answers provided in the appendix.

Over the years, the Englishes of Singapore and Malaysia have developed into varieties in their own right, ranging from the sub-varieties spoken by people with high levels of English-medium education and of higher socio-economic status. This text volume illustrates this from a range of examples of spoken and written Singapore and Malaysian English as well as advertising pamphlets, newspaper advertisements and literary texts. The introduction to the volume sketches the historical and ethnic background, the increase in the functions of English in the colonial and earlier post-colonial period and the divergent language policies which have led to a decline in the status and functions of English in Malyasia but an ever increasing emphasis on it in Singapore. Each text is accompanied by a set of notes which explain grammatical and lexical characteristics and give information about the background of the text.

Cognitive and linguistic components related to spelling and writing in English as a second language (ESL) and native-English speaking (EL1) third graders were examined. ESL and EL1 children performed similarly on rapid naming, phonological awareness (PA), verbal short-term and working memory, reading fluency, single-word spelling, text spelling, handwriting fluency, and paragraph writing fluency tasks, and on writing quality indices. ESL children scored lower on vocabulary, syntactic awareness and decoding fluency measures. PA predicted single-word spelling for EL1 and PA and rapid naming predicted single-word spelling for ESL. PA and rapid naming contributed to text level spelling across groups. Rapid naming and syntactic awareness predicted writing quality (content and structure) for ESL children, but syntactic awareness and oral vocabulary predicted writing quality for EL1. Transcription predicted overall writing achievement for ESL, but transcription, vocabulary, and syntactic awareness were all important to overall writing ability for EL1. Results are discussed in relation to the componential model of writing in a first or a second language.

Abstract: Hausa, a major language of West Africa, is one of the most widely studied languagesof Sub-Saharan Africa. It has a rich lexicographic tradition dating back some two centuries. Sincethe first major vocabulary published in 1843 up to the present time, almost 60 lexicographic works— dictionaries, vocabularies, glossaries — have been published, in a range of metalanguages, fromEnglish to Hausa itself. This article traces the historical development of the major studies accordingto their type and function as general reference works, specialized works, pedagogical works, andterminological works. For each work, there is a general discussion of its size, accuracy of the phonological,lexical, and grammatical information, and the adequacy of its definitions and illustrativematerial. A complete list of the lexicographic works is included. Keywords: ARABIC, BILINGUAL LEXICOGRAPHY, DIALECTAL VARIANTS, DICTIONARIES,ENGLISH, ETYMOLOGIES, FRENCH, GERMAN, GLOSSARIES, GRAMMATICALCATEGORIES, HAUSA, LANGUAGE LEARNING, LOANWORDS, NEOLOGISMS, NIGER,NIGERIA, ORTHOGRAPHY, PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION, PHONOLOGY, RUSSIAN, STANDARDDIALECT, STANDARDIZATION, TERMINOLOGY, VOCABULARIES, WEST AFRICA. Opsomming: Die leksikografiese tradisie in Hausa. Hausa, 'n belangrike taal vanWes-Afrika, is een van die tale van Afrika suid van die Sahara wat die wydste bestudeer word. Dithet 'n ryk leksikografiese tradisie wat ongeveer twee eeue oud is. Van die eerste groot woordeboekwat in 1843 gepubliseer is tot die hede is ongeveer 60 leksikografiese werke — woordeboeke,naamlyste, woordelyste — gepubliseer in 'n reeks metatale van Engels tot Hausa self. Hierdie artikelgaan die historiese ontwikkeling van die groter studies aan die hand van hulle tipe en funksieas algemene naslaanwerke, gespesialiseerde werke, opvoedkundige werke, en terminologiesewerke na. Vir elke werk is daar 'n algemene bespreking oor sy grootte, akkuraatheid van die fonologiese,leksikale en grammatikale inligting, en die toereikendheid van sy definisies en illustratiewemateriaal. 'n Volledige lys van die leksikografiese werke is ingesluit. Sleutelwoorde: AANLEER VAN TAAL, ARABIES, DIALEKTIESE VARIANTE, DUITS,ENGELS, ETIMOLOGIEË, FONETIESE TRANSKRIPSIE, FONOLOGIE, FRANS, GRAMMATIESEKATEGORIEË, HAUSA, LEENWOORDE, NAAMLYSTE, NEOLOGISMES, NIGER,NIGERIË, ORTOGRAFIE, RUSSIES, STANDAARDDIALEK, STANDAARDISERING,

This study examined the writing skills of first-grade students who are English Language Learners (ELLs) or Native English Speakers (NESs). We examined the roles of transcription and oral language skills on contextualized spelling, writing fluency, and writing quality outcomes for ELL and NES students. Thirty-four ELLs (Mean age (A) = 78.03 months, SD = 6.28), and 35 NESs (A = 78.79, SD = 5.40) matched on receptive vocabulary completed measures of real word and pseudo word reading, reading comprehension, expressive and receptive vocabulary, handwriting, single-word spelling, writing fluency, and written composition (narrative and expository). The compositions were scored for length, contextualized spelling, and quality. Differences between groups were mostly non-significant, except for handwriting; ELL students performed better than their NES peers. Linear regressions were used to predict contextualized spelling, writing fluency, and writing quality separately for both groups. Results showed that single-word spelling was a predictor of contextualized spelling for both groups. For writing fluency, both handwriting and single-word spelling were predictors for ELLs, and single-word spelling was the only predictor for NESs. For writing quality, expressive vocabulary was the only predictor for ELLs, and single-word spelling was the only predictor for NESs. The results highlight the important role of expressive vocabulary, beyond the role of receptive vocabulary, in writing quality for young ELLs. Implications regarding writing acquisition and instruction for ELLs are considered.

The accurate pronunciation of English vowels is central to intelligible speech and academic success in multilingual higher education environments. This study examines the pronunciation challenges faced by Joundation students at a South African university, focusing on how first language interference and limited phonetic training affect the production of English vowel sounds. The study is grounded in the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH) and the Speech Learning Model (SLM), which explain how differences between learners' first language (1.1) and the target language (1.2) phonological systems contribute to pronunciation errors. A mixed-methods research design was employed, combining quantitative analysis of recorded oral reading tasks with qualitative phonetic transcription and interpretation using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Findings indicate that students frequently substitute unfamiliar English vowel sounds with those from their 1.15, simplify diphthongs, and omit schwa vowels in unstressed syllables. These errors reduce speech intelligibility and confidence in academic communication. The study contributes to existing knowledge by providing a context-specific analysis of vowel pronunciation difficulties among South African foundation students, highlighting the phonological and pedagogical implications for English language instruction in multilingual contexts. It further recommends explicit phonetics instruction, integration of pronunciation technology, and teacher training as practical strategies for enhancing students' oral proficiency and overall communicative competence in higher education.

English pronunciation training for real-world communication tasks is crucial in EFL learning because it is essential to learners’ listening comprehension and speaking competence. As the e-generation emerges, computer-assisted pronunciation training (CAPT) has begun to receive more recognition in academic institutions for pronunciation learning. Despite its prevalence, dubiety still remains in regard to its effectiveness in pronunciation and learners’ perception. This paradox has motivated researchers and language instructors to probe other means of effective pronunciation instruction. In the present study, the researcher aims to explore the effects of mobile-assisted pronunciation training (MAPT) on L2 learners’ pronunciation performance. The results revealed that MAPT learners not only held a more positive attitude toward the training course and the mobile application but also made significant improvements in pronunciation. Moreover, there was a non-significant interaction between learners’ English proficiency level and teaching methods.

Listeners readily adapt to variation in non-native-accented speech, learning to disambiguate between talker-specific and accent-based variation. We asked (1) which linguistic and indexical features of the spoken utterance are relevant for this learning to occur and (2) whether task-driven attention to these features affects the extent to which learning generalizes to novel utterances and voices. In two experiments, listeners heard English sentences (Experiment 1 ) or words (Experiment 2 ) produced by Spanish-accented talkers during an exposure phase. Listeners' attention was directed to lexical content (transcription), indexical cues (talker identification), or both (transcription + talker identification). In Experiment 1 , listeners' test transcription of novel English sentences spoken by Spanish-accented talkers showed generalized perceptual learning to previously unheard voices and utterances for all training conditions. In Experiment 2 , generalized learning occurred only in the transcription + talker identification condition, suggesting that attention to both linguistic and indexical cues optimizes listeners’ ability to distinguish between individual talker- and group-based variation, especially with the reduced availability of sentence-length prosodic information. Collectively, these findings highlight the role of attentional processes in the encoding of speech input and underscore the interdependency of indexical and lexical characteristics in spoken language processing.

This paper explores the perceptions of English language learners about YouGlish (https://youglish.com/) as language support at the resource level. Data were collected through a focus group interview (FGI) with nine elementary EFL students in Turkey following a twelve-week website utilization. Findings indicated that authentic input, content diversity, and extracurricular learning opportunities were cited as strengths of the website, while the lack of progress checks and assessments and a competitive learning environment were viewed as weaknesses. Incremental pronunciation improvement at the segmental level was also reported by the participants. In addition, intelligibility, career opportunities, and emulation were cited as drivers of their desire for pronunciation improvement. Important implications for second language pronunciation learning and teaching were drawn.