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Portfolio 3

The particular problem I have with these words are that I’ve always found them difficult to pronounce, more particularly because of my first language. I notice that many people around me who also speak Spanish have some problems with these words as well or they had a hard time learning to pronounce them perfectly. Even though I can now pronounce them well overall I still struggle sometimes.

I think to improve even more regarding the pronunciation of these words, what I could do is practice them more and also when I’m talking to someone else don’t overthink how to pronounce the words because sometimes I do that and I find that when I overthink this, I tend to pronounce them wrong. So, I think it would be better to just speak as fluently as I can and with practice I will eventually improve even more.

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Portfolio 3

1.      Fifth - fɪfθ

2.      Restaurant - rɛstrɒnt

3.      Literally - lɪtərəli

4.      Adult - ædʌlt

5.      Button - bʌtn

6.      Curious - kjʊərɪəs

7.      Jewelery –

8.      February - fɛbrʊəri

9.      Entrepeneur -

10.   Foreigner - fɒrɪnə

11.   Infrastructure - ɪnfrəˌstrʌkʧə

12.   Hierarchy - haɪərɑki

13.   Literature - lɪtərɪʧə

14.   Mountain - maʊntɪn

15.   Quantity - kwɒntɪti

16.   Comfortable - kʌmftəbl

17.   Yes - jɛs

18.   Architecture - ɑkɪtɛkʧə

19.   Suit – sut

20.   Maintenance  - meɪntənəns

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Portfolio 2

Fifth website: ESL library

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Portfolio 2

Fourth website: Ted Talks

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Portfolio 2

Third website: HelloTalk

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Portfolio 2 

Second website: Duolingo 

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Portfolio 2

First website: Merriam-Webster dictionary 

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Portfolio 1.5

Peer feedback 

I haven’t had a lot of opportunities when someone who is a native speaker and has a close relationship to me has corrected me on my pronunciation.

The only person who is close to me and a native speaker is my cousin who lives in the United States. Unfortunately, I don’t see her a lot, but I had the opportunity to visit her this summer, so I had to speak English all the time whenever we went out and she corrected sometimes on things I had to work on such as the ones I mentioned before, especially the sounds of letters in English that I mix with the Spanish sounds.

And obviously the English teachers I’ve had so far, they correct me on those simple things about pronunciation which I am constantly trying to improve, but as I mentioned before I can make myself understood even though I have an accent.

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Portfolio 1.4

Top 5 problems 

Over the years I’ve been speaking English I’ve been having the opportunity to constantly be improving, but also I have noticed some issues along the way. Especially, since I am studying in an English-speaking country I noticed it more because everyone surrounding me speaks English unlike when I used to study in Mexico. This way I have even more areas of opportunity to keep improving. 

1-  The first thing I noticed I need to work on is in the pronounciation of some words that the sound in English is lighter than the sound in Spanish, especially the letters y, r, h (since the sound of H is similar to the J in Spanish but lighter)

2-  When I am speaking English for academic reasons such as an oral presentation, I tend to repeat a lot of words such as “like, really, and”. This is mostly because I get nervous doing presentations, but I sometimes do it as well in non formal situations.

3-  My experience when I don’t understand someone else speaking English is usually when they have a really strong accent and they still don’t know most English vocabulary.

Another situation would be sometimes when the person I am talking to is a native speaker that speaks too fast. I usually can understand well but there can be situations when this happens.

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PORTFOLIO 1.3

Regarding my diagnostic recordings feedback, I realized that there are some words that I still struggle pronouncing well, mostly the ones who have longer vowels such as “these” and “they’re”. I think I mostly have this problem because I usually speak a bit fast therefore sometimes, I make longer vowel words into short vowels.

Another issue I noticed is that I mispronounce some letters in certain words, because my native language is Spanish, I can sometimes mix up the sounds in both languages.

And lastly, regarding the second task which was about improvising a short speech, as I mentioned before I struggled improvising it which led me to repeating words and mispronouncing words which I usually don’t have problems with.

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PORTFOLIO 1.2 

I included this recording because I find it to be the one I have struggled with the most. The assignment was to improvise a short speech no more than two minutes, I always get nervous when I must record myself and even more when I improvise something so that is why this recording turned out not so good. The part where I struggled the most was to get my ideas together so that led me to repeating a lot of words such as “really” and mispronouncing some words which I usually can pronounce well.

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Portfolio 1.1

When speaking English, I feel confident overall because I have been learning English since I was a kid and I have been studying in Canada for over two years which helped me develop oral skills and forced me to always communicate in English since it’s the language spoken in Canada. When people who English is their first language hear me, they understand me well most of the time and when they have a bit of trouble is because of my accent. 

I consider my accent is not too strong, but it is still there so sometimes I can say some words in a different way, but I can make myself understood.