Text to Speech

This is a great websites for pronunciation practice.

Pronunciation is always a big struggle for ELLs. Starting from my own experience, I always have a headache about the pronunciation, or my own accents. Though almost all the language learners have their own dictionary or electric dictionary which provide phonetic symbol or authentic pronunciation, sometimes it is still confused or a challenge for ELLs to pronounce a longer phrase or sentence.

This websites provide several cartoon characters that user could choose their accent and gender. Traditional dictionary just only has single gender voice or British/American English. Then the user just simply text the language and click “say it” button and the website will read out aloud the text for you.

Though it is a text to speech website, I think it could be adapted to daily teaching process, especially for those who have strong accents or always unsure about their pronunciation. When ELLs learn a language, it is always helpful to have someone demo the right speech whenever and wherever they need.