Intelligibility is the art of being understood by others. Many students think they need to speak a language flawlessly and with a native-like accent to make themselves clear, but this is not quite true.
While there is a correlation between proficiency and intelligibility, even students of lower general proficiency are capable of expressing what they mean, in a way that the listener understands, if they are using good intelligibility practices.
Being understandable in a second language is often extremely important in work environments, especially as the world becomes more connected and job markets more competitive.
Intelligibility is a vital aspect of communication but it is not exactly a skill in itself. Instead, it is a combination of fluency, pronunciation, and managing your speed of speech. To reflect how important this is for language learners when studying, traveling or at work, we use an Intelligibility Index as part of our Versant English Test scoring.
This index is based on factors affecting how understandable speech is to fluent English speakers. These include things like speed, clarity, pronunciation and fluency. Ranging from 1 (low) to 5 (high), the Intelligibility Index shows how intelligible someone’s speech in English is likely to be in a real-world situation.
Let’s go into some activities and exercises you can try in class to help your students improve their intelligibility with their English and speaking skills.
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There are a number of factors that influence a student’s spoken English. Here are some ways to start building it into your classes.
Making a recording can be a good way of getting a clear picture of someone’s current manner of speaking and understanding in what ways their clarity might be improved. You can do this using a smartphone or laptop computer in class or outside of it.
There are plenty of ways to encourage students to speak. Have them answer an open question; for example, ask them to talk for a minute about a topic they are passionate about or tell each other what they did at the weekend.
Listen to the recordings and help them analyze their speech. Identify parts with low levels of intelligibility. This may be related to their pronunciation, how fast they speak, the amount of hesitation, repetition, etc.
You could even take this further by asking another fluent English speaker to listen to the recording and give honest feedback about which parts they found difficult to understand.
Afterward, it’s important to explain why it was difficult to understand and what can be done to improve their intelligibility. The activity below may help.
Listening is a vital part of intelligibility. After all, students have to be able to hear a word before they can say it. Listening also takes focus away from how words are written on the page.
This is key because speakers fluent in English tend to blend words together, so pronouncing each word perfectly in isolation is not a good goal. This kind of practice reinforces poor English pronunciation.
That’s where shadowing comes in.
Shadowing is a useful listen-and-repeat activity that students can use for speaking practice almost anywhere.
Shadowing involves trying to say the same words as the speaker at about the same time (or as fast as possible), for about 30 seconds at a time. Students can pause, try again, and even record and listen back to their own versions. Just like when you sing the words of a song you already know well, you are trying to match the speaker’s pronunciation and pace as best you can.
This will help your students focus on how fluent English speakers modulate speed, use intonation, and blend words together. By repeating what they hear, students can improve their intonation, connected speech and overall fluency.
This simple but fun activity will help your students focus on their individual problem sounds. It will also get them to listen to each other carefully.
Throughout the lesson, as you listen to your students speak, identify a number of words that reflect the pronunciation challenges your students face. Write the words on the board and group the words by phoneme, for example:
/i:/ Heat, Sheep
/ɪ/ Hit, Trip
Above, we can see an issue with the /i:/ and /ɪ/ sounds (the long and short “i”). Once you have enough words to work on, write a list of numbers on the board. Explain that each number has a corresponding word.
1 – Hit 4 – Hat 7 – Head
2 – Heat 5 – Heart 8 – Hood
3 – Hot 6 – Hurt 9 – Hid
As you can see in the above example, the words only differ by one phoneme (heat/hit, hot/hat, heart/hurt, etc.). This will make the exercise more challenging and useful for the students.
Next, identify the vowel sound in each word and write their phonemic symbols on the board.
Drill the sounds and the words until you are confident your students can repeat them successfully. There are a number of phonemic charts online, that can help you identify the phonemes and model the sounds for your students.
Then test the class by calling out a number and having them shout out the corresponding word. Then call out a word and get them to tell you the number. Deal with any problems that arise.
Put students into pairs. Have them read out their phone number only using the words in the list (note they can use a real number or invent one).
Their partner should listen and write down the number which corresponds with each word they hear. They should then swap roles and do the same again.
Finally, get students to check and see whether the number their partner wrote down is correct. Monitor and go back and drill any of the sounds with which students had the most problems.
While problems with individual sounds may occasionally impede understanding, we should also focus on other aspects of pronunciation such as word stress, sentence stress and intonation.
Keep a note of any new vocabulary that comes up during your class. At the end of the lesson, take five minutes to review it with the students. Write each new word on the board and record the word stress using the oO method:
Use ‘o’ to highlight unstressed syllables and ‘O’ to highlight stressed syllables. For example, the stress is on the second syllable of the word “behavior”:
Be-hav-ior = oOo.
The stress is on the first syllable of the word “Saturday”:
Sat-ur-day = Ooo
This has the advantage of recording unstressed as well as stressed syllables. Next, drill this new vocabulary until your students get the hang of it.
To make drilling more interesting, you can also add an element of drama! Have students say the words while expressing different emotions. Ask them to secretly choose an emotion (angry/happy/sad/excited), then say the word and have the other students guess it.
You can also drill whole phrases or even sentences. Backchain drilling is an excellent way to do this and build confidence in lower-level English learners. It involves breaking phrases into sections and having students repeat them after you, from the end of the phrase to the beginning, in this way:
“the test”
“pass the test”
“I’m going to pass the test"
As well as individual sounds and word stress, back chaining also allows you to help students with their intonation and you can also use it to introduce strong and weak forms. Working on multiword expressions and longer phrases with your students will also be helpful.
Employers, schools and organizations use theVersant English Testto assess an individual’s level of English. It covers the two skills of listening and speaking and also includes an Intelligibility Index rating alongside the GSE, Versant and CEFR scores.
This allows students, teachers and employers to see how easily others can understand the candidate.
The following list shows how the index is scored:
This scoring rubric offers a way to assess your students’ intelligibility based on the method used in the Versant English Test.
By giving them lots of support and pronunciation practice and nurturing their confidence to speak without worrying too much about making mistakes, you can help them to improve their clarity over time, allowing them to communicate in clear, understandable spoken English.
In a previous blog, we shared somestrange English phrases that might have left you with some questions. The English language is full of peculiar phrases that can even confuse fluent speakers. In today's post, we'll take a look at a few more such phrases to help you expand your repertoire.
English is the second most widely spoken language – it is estimated that nearly two billion people worldwide can speak English at a useful level. That means they can hold a conversation with other English-speaking people.
A report by the attests the importance of the English language to the world, and says thatsecond-language English speakers far outnumber fluent English speakers. It also recognizes how being able to speak English can give individuals a competitive edge over others. If you're asking the question, "Why should I learn English?", read on to find out more...
What is it about music that helps boost your English skills, confidence and pronunciation? A song can provide an emotional connection between the music and the listener, providing learners with new ways to express their feelings. Music and rhythm have also been shown to benefit memorization, which is a key component of learning.
Here are some of our favorite lyrics to some of our favorite songs:
The Beatles are the best band to help you learn English. There are many Beatles songs with catchy melodies and simple lyrics, but Blackbird captures the Fab Four at their most poetic:
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
This song is a great way to help learn the days of the week (that may be obvious). Love is also a very popular English word, so this one is for all the romantics out there.
Always take a big bite
It’s such a gorgeous sight
To see you eat in the middle of the night
Another one for the lovers, Ed’s heartfelt lyrics are huge in the mainstream pop charts. Here, he tells the sweet story of long-time love in this ballad and he’s becoming one of the world’s most sought-after songwriters.
Take me into your loving arms
Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars
Place your head on my beating heart
This classic from Morrissey and co was voted runner-up in VH1’s Top Lyrics poll, for the lyrics: So you go and you stand on your own, and you leave on your own, and you go home and you cry and you want to die’ but it’s the opening lines of the song that are the most intriguing. Firstly, they’re adapted from George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch and include some rather clever double meanings – namely ‘son’ (sun) and ‘heir’ (air).
I am the son
And the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
This was Neil Young’s only number-one hit single from 1972’s Harvest album. He uses simple lyrics and melodies to tell his story of searching for true love.
I’ve been in my mind
It’s such a fine line
That keeps me searchin’ for a heart of gold
And I’m gettin’ old
U2 is the second-best band to help you learn English and frontman Bono is the second-best male artist to help you learn (edged out by Justin Timberlake). The chorus was inspired by a moment during a performance in New York City, when Bono saw the audience lit up and shouted, “Oh, you look so beautiful tonight!”
And I miss you when you’re not around
I’m getting ready to leave the ground
Oh you look so beautiful tonight
In the city of blinding lights
These lyrics are a good use of repetition and rhyme, which is excellent for helping memorization. Most people consider this a love song, but that’s a common mistake. In 1983, Sting was interviewed for New Musical Express and explained: “I think it’s a nasty little song, really rather evil. It’s about jealousy and surveillance and ownership.”
Every move you make and every vow you break
Every smile you fake, every claim you stake, I’ll be watching you
Every move you make, every step you take, I’ll be watching you
Dylan’s whimsical, poetic lyrics might be difficult for an English language learner to interpret, but that doesn’t mean they’re not a pleasure to listen and sing along to.
Hey! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you
This song takes you through the daily goings-on in a typical household in the 80s. This song has been around for a while now but is a story that most people can still connect with. This is an excellent song for understanding the concept of nostalgia!
I remember way back then when
everything was true and when
we would have such a very good time
such a fine time
Sadly, Otis Redding lost his life in a plane crash shortly after this song was recorded, and it was released after his death. His lyrics are quite reflective, provoking both contentment and sadness. You can really imagine yourself sitting on the dock with his simple yet descriptive words.
Sittin’ in the morning sun
I’ll be sittin’ when the evening comes
Watching the ships roll in
Then I watch them roll away again
No list of standout turns of phrase would be complete without Leonard Cohen, a man whose songwriting process is so painstaking he’ll often spend years on the same song. When quizzed on his process, Cohen once said it often took so long because, “After a while, if you stick with the song long enough it will yield.” It’s interesting to note then that, even for a master of the English language, the words don’t always come easily. Everybody Knows remains a firm favorite among fans, with the majority of lines starting with the words ‘Everybody knows…’ It’s a lengthy song, but for the sheer beauty of its words and phrasing, the opening lines are a highlight:
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows that the good guys lost
