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Embrace your errors and turn them into success! 💪Common errors and tips to improve your speaking skills             

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Embrace your errors and turn them into success! 💪Common errors and tips to improve your speaking skills             

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Cindy Carina Gonzales Alvarado 20191007495

Isis Gabriela zepeda García 20191006795

Jesús Leonardo Santos Luna 20191005593

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Understanding and Correcting Errors in Language Learning

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Understanding and Correcting Errors in Language Learning

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Error analysis is a systematic method used in linguistics and education to examine and understand the mistakes language learners make. Specifically, it involves identifying, documenting, and analyzing these errors to determine whether they follow a pattern. As a result, educators can adjust their teaching strategies to better meet learners' needs, ultimately improving the language acquisition process.

Moreover, errors should not be seen as failures but rather as natural steps in language learning. They provide valuable insights into a learner’s progress and reveal areas that require further instruction. By analyzing these mistakes, teachers can identify patterns that suggest gaps in knowledge or misconceptions. Consequently, they can implement more targeted and effective teaching interventions.

In particular, pronunciation errors are a common challenge that can greatly affect communication. These mistakes often stem from factors such as a learner’s native language influence, limited exposure to native pronunciation, or insufficient practice. To address this issue, teachers can use various strategies, including modeling correct pronunciation, providing phonetic transcriptions, and encouraging repetitive practice in a supportive environment.

Ultimately, effective correction of pronunciation errors requires a balance between constructive feedback and a positive learning atmosphere. For instance, techniques like minimal pairs help learners distinguish similar sounds, while technology, such as language learning apps, can enhance pronunciation skills. By creating a safe and encouraging space for learners to experiment with pronunciation, teachers can boost their confidence and overall language proficiency.

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Spanish speakers often struggle with English word stress, as it follows unpredictable patterns that can change a word’s meaning, leading to pronunciation errors and communication difficulties.

In English, stress placement can change the meaning of a word. For example, "record" is pronounced RE-cord as a noun but re-CORD as a verb. Spanish speakers often apply their native stress rules, leading to errors in words like photograph (PHO-to-graph) or information (in-for-MA-tion). As a result, incorrect stress can make speech sound unnatural and harder for native speakers to understand.

Misplaced stress can cause misunderstandings and make it difficult for learners to express themselves clearly. Additionally, struggling with pronunciation may affect a speaker’s confidence, making them hesitant to communicate in English. Since rhythm and stress play a key role in spoken fluency, mastering them is essential for effective communication.

Spanish speakers can improve word stress through listening exercises, repetition drills, and visual aids. Consistent practice helps them internalize correct stress patterns, leading to clearer and more natural speech.

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How to Stress Words in English (Pronunciation - Beginner Level)

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Exercise #1: Identify the Stress

Instructions: Read the following pairs of words aloud. Identify which syllable is stressed in each word. Use capital letters to indicate the stressed syllable.

1. Object (noun) - OB-ject
Object (verb) - ob-JECT

2. Permit (noun) - PER-mit
Permit (verb) - per-MIT

3. Contest (noun) - CON-test
Contest (verb) - con-TEST

4. Refuse (noun) - RE-fuse
Refuse (verb) - re-FUSE

5. Increase (noun) - IN-crease
Increase (verb) - in-CREASE

6. Project (noun) - PRO-ject
Project (verb) - pro-JECT

7. Address (noun) - AD-dress
Address (verb) - ad-DRESS

8. Record (noun) - RE-cord
Record (verb) - re-CORD

9. Export (noun) - EX-port
Export (verb) - ex-PORT

10. Suspect (noun) - SUS-pect
Suspect (verb) - sus-PECT

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You should watch a video on word stress in English pronunciation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ90E0g3JXE

Practice saying the following sentences, paying attention to the word stress in the bolded words.

1. She will present the present to the team.

2. Can you record the meeting on the record?

3. I need your advice on how to advise the new students.

4. The export business is thriving, but we need to export more goods.

5. The project is due soon; we need to project the timeline accurately.

6. This is a complex process, so we need to carefully process the information.

7. The company's contract states that they will contract new employees annually.

8. They will permit the construction only if the permit is approved.

9. We will produce more items once we receive the fresh produce.

10. The conduct of the team was exemplary, and they will conduct the meeting.

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The TH sound in English is one of the most difficult for Spanish speakers because it does not exist in Spanish. In words such as think (/θɪ ŋk/) or this (/ðɪ s/), it is required to place the tongue between the teeth and blow softly to produce the correct sound. However, many Spanish speakers replace /θ/ with /t/ or /s/, pronouncing think as tink or sink. Similarly, the sound /ð/ in words like this or that is usually pronounced as /d/, saying dis instead of this.

This error can cause comprehension problems, as there are many words in English that depend on the correct pronunciation of TH. For example, three (three) and tree (tree) have completely different meanings, but if you pronounce three as tree, the communication can become confused. Another common case is think (thinking) versus sink (sink or sink), which could change the meaning of a sentence completely.

To correct this error, it is important to practice the language position and repeat words with TH aloud. Exercises like reading word lists with TH, recording and comparing to native pronunciation can help. It is also useful to use mirrors to check the correct placement of the tongue and avoid replacing the sound with /t/, /s/ or /d/. With constant practice, Spanish speakers can improve their pronunciation and make themselves understood more clearly.

Link to practice the pronunciation of the th sound: https://youtu.be/wCkONOv2JJM?si=KcHkdD_2fzIKC2Qh

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How to Pronounce TH | The ULTIMATE Guide for English Learners!

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Instruction: Read each sentence aloud, focusing on the correct pronunciation of the TH sound. Repeat each three times.

1. ❌ I tink he is right. → ✅ I think he is right.

2. ❌ Dis is my new car. → ✅ This is my new car.

3. ❌ Dey are my best friends. → ✅ They are my best friends.

4. ❌ I went to de store. → ✅ I went to the store.

5. ❌ Dat book is interesting. → ✅ That book is interesting.

6. ❌ Tank you for everything! → ✅ Thank you for everything!

7. ❌ My moder loves coffee. → ✅ My mother loves coffee.

8. ❌ I am going wit my brother. → ✅ I am going with my brother.

9. ❌ Dose apples are delicious. → ✅ Those apples are delicious.

10. ❌ Thursday is de best day of de week. → ✅ Thursday is the best day of the week.

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How to Pronounce the TH Sounds in English (Voiced and Voiceless TH)

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Use this video to improve your skills.

Main causes of the -ed pronunciation error.

Spanish speakers tend to pronounce

-ed as /ɪd/ in all words, adding an extra syllable unnecessarily, also lack of /t/ and /d/ sounds because in Spanish, these sounds are often weak or dropped, making them harder to pronounce in English, unfortunately Spanish speakers tend to be confuse between voiced and voiceless sounds.

Spanish does not strongly distinguish between these sounds, making it difficult to choose between /t/ and /d/ and lastly spanish speakers tendency to add syllables, since past tense verbs in Spanish often add syllables (jugaste, trabajaron), many apply this incorrectly in English.

The past tense ending -ed is pronounced in three different ways: /t/, /d/, and /ɪd/.

1. Pronounced as /t/ When the base verb ends in a voiceless sound (a sound made without vocal cord vibration), -ed is pronounced as /t/.

Voiceless sounds: /p/, /k/, /f/, /s/, /ʃ/ (sh), /tʃ/ (ch), /θ/ (th as in “think”)

Examples:

• Helped → /helpt/

• Stopped → /stɒpt/

• Watched → /wɒtʃt/

• Laughed → /læft/

• Missed → /mɪst/

A common mistake: Saying “helpɪd” instead of “helpt”.

2. Pronounced as /d/ When the base verb ends in a voiced sound (a sound made with vocal cord vibration), -ed is pronounced as /d/.

Voiced sounds: /b/, /g/, /v/, /z/, /ʒ/ (as in “measure”), /dʒ/ (as in “judge”),vowels, and nasal sounds like /m/, /n/, /ŋ/

Examples:

• Played → /pleɪd/

• Called → /kɔːld/

• Loved → /lʌvd/

• Enjoyed → /ɪnˈdʒɔɪd/

• Opened → /ˈoʊpənd/

A common mistake: Saying “playɪd” instead of “pleɪd”.

3. Pronounced as /ɪd/

When the base verb ends in /t/ or /d/,

-ed is pronounced as /ɪd/, adding an extra syllable.

Examples:

• Wanted → /ˈwɒntɪd/

• Decided → /dɪˈsaɪdɪd/

• Needed → /ˈniːdɪd/

• Started → /ˈstɑːrtɪd/

• Invited → /ɪnˈvaɪtɪd/

A common mistake: Saying “wantt” instead of “wɒntɪd”.

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-t, -d or -id? | Past Tense -ED verb endings | English Pronunciation

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Say each word out loud and classify it into /t/, /d/ o /ɪd/.

1.Helped

2.Called

3.Needed

4.Stopped

5.Played

6.Wanted

7.Dressed

8.Loved

9.Decided

10.Finished

11.Opened

12.Laughed

13.Waited

14.Enjoyed

15.Watched

⇓ ⇓ ⇓ ⇓ ⇓

Correct answers

/t/ → helped, stopped, dressed, finished, laughed, watched

/d/ → called, played, loved, opened, enjoyed

/ɪd/ → needed, wanted, decided, waited

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Exercise #2: Complete with the correct pronunciation.

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Exercise #2: Complete with the correct pronunciation.

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Fill in the blanks with /t/, /d/, or /ɪd/ based on the correct pronunciation of the -ed ending:

1.Worked ______

2.Changed ______

3.Expected ______

4.Danced ______

5.Smiled ______

6.Shouted ______

7.Touched ______

8.Agreed ______

9.Added ______

10.Dreamed ______

11.Missed ______

12.Rained ______

13.Needed ______

14.Watched ______

15.Planned ______

⇓ ⇓ ⇓ ⇓ ⇓

Correct pronunciation.

1.Worked /t/

2.Changed /d/

3.Expected /ɪd/

4.Danced /t/

5.Smiled /d/

6.Shouted /ɪd/

7.Touched /t/

8.Agreed /d/

9 Added /ɪd/

10.Dreamed /d/

11.Missed /t/

12.Rained /d/

13.Needed /ɪd/

14.Watched /t/

15.Planned /d/

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The "sh" and "ch" sounds are two sounds commonly confused by some English learners.

It is important to remember that both these sounds are unvoiced. Also, be aware that the tongue should not be visible at any time, the jaw is nearly closed, and the lips are relatively close to each other when producing both the "sh" and "ch" sounds.

The SH sound doesn't exist in Spanish, so it can take some getting used to for Spanish speakers! One potential mistake is saying SH as S ("she" becomes "see"), which happens when you don't draw your tongue back.

It can also be mispronounced as CH ("che" instead of "she"), especially since the CH sound is present in Spanish.

To create /J/, the "sh" sound, you want to force air between center of the front of the tongue and the back of the tooth ridge. The sides of the blade of the tongue can touch the side teeth, but this is not necessary. Finally, you want to keep the lips slightly tense and forward a little to produce the sound.

If the /f/ sound is hard for you to make, start by making an /s/ sound, as in see. Next, continue making that sound while you move your lips from that position into a tiny circle, almost like a kiss. This should create a sh sound naturally.

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Digraphs CH and SH - Learn to Read for Kids!

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Instruction:

Your task is to practice saying them out loud, paying attention to the difference between "ch" and "sh." I've marked the sounds in each word to help guide you:

"ch" Sound:

1. Chat /ʧæt/

2. Chair /ʧɛər/

3. Chocolate /ˈʧɒk.lət/

4. Chop /ʧɒp/

5. Cheese /ʧiːz/

"sh" Sound:

6. Ship /ʃɪp/

7. Shirt /ʃɜːt/

8. Shine /ʃaɪn/

9. Shower /ʃaʊər/

10. Shop /ʃɒp/

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How to pronounce Ch and Sh sounds | Help your child read fast

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Pronunciation is a common topic among people learning English because it plays a key role in communication. These activities have helped me a lot to identify mistakes and find ways to correct them, turning small errors into significant improvements. Through this activity, I learned to recognize and reinforce those little mistakes we often make without realizing it. This is important because I won’t carry these same mistakes into my future teaching.

I plan to apply what I’ve learned from our blog and other resources by taking notes on common pronunciation errors and practicing the tips and solutions I find. As a future teacher, I want to use blogging as a classroom tool and dedicate time to helping my students refine their speaking skills.

During this process, I realized that Spanish speakers often struggle with pronunciation because they strongly associate Spanish with English. Many find it hard to separate their native language from the one they are learning. This challenge becomes even greater because Spanish is pronounced exactly as it is written, whereas English has many unpredictable sound variations, making pronunciation difficult for Spanish speakers. I really enjoyed looking for images that truly represented the mistake. Honestly, it was frustrating when I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted, but in the end, I got great results!

On the other hand, the most difficult part was designing the exercises. At first, I had some ideas, but when I noticed that my classmates had already used similar ones.

I used my imagination and came up with different ones. It was a bit challenging, but in the end, I felt proud of the results.

By: Cindy Gonzales

I learned a lot from doing this project. Pronunciation is crucial for us and not making mistakes through learning is impossible that is why I found fascinating doing this research to select the errors Spanish speakers usually do. Even though we are have no experience teaching and either in correcting errors, we did out best and I found this project challenging for myself, at the beginning I didn’t knew how to start it but everything took place and result as a fantastic blog.

In the future if I have the challenge to use it as a student I will take it, through making this project I learned tons and it helped me to improve my English; thinking if as a teacher I will use these types of tools and it is an extra resource, of course I will take advantage of it since it is an amazing tool for teaching and makes students bring out the best in creativity.

I have notice some errors though this process of learning English and I never thought about making exercises to improve pronunciation but through this project I notice it is not easy to create exercises and even more of pronunciation. I took it as a way that those exercises were for my little beginner since I made many of these mistakes and made them easy to understand.

The best in this project was the team work, I loved how we communicate and did not argue about anything, it was a fluent work and my classmates were brilliant with their ideas, I liked that all the members participated in creating the blog.

Although we had issues like deciding which errors include in the blog but everything turned out great, I liked the result.

By: Isis García.

Throughout this experience, I learned that identifying pronunciation errors requires not only knowing the phonetic differences between English and Spanish, but also understanding how these errors affect communication. I realized that many Spanish speakers make similar mistakes because certain sounds, such as TH or the difference between CH and SH, do not exist in Spanish. Designing exercises to correct these errors made me reflect on the importance of a practical and structured teaching.

As a student, this experience will help me pay more attention to my own pronunciation and look for effective strategies to improve. In the future, if I teach English, I know that it is not enough to correct mistakes: it is essential to explain why the mistake and offer specific exercises that help learning. One thing I liked about this blog was seeing how small changes in the way of explaining and practicing can make a student go from frustration to confidence in their pronunciation.

Of course, there were challenges as well. Sometimes identifying the most common mistakes required researching and comparing sources, as each person can make different mistakes depending on their experience with the language. In addition, designing effective exercises was a challenge, as they must not only correct the error, but also motivate the student to practice continuously. Despite these difficulties, I believe that this experience has given me valuable tools which I will be able to apply both in my learning and in teaching others.

By: Jesús Santos

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Kady, S. (2025, 29 de marzo). Error Correction Techniques in English Language Teaching. My TEFL Solutions. Recuperado de https://myteflsolutions.com/error-correction-techniques/

Autor desconocido. (2024, 31 de agosto). How to Master English Word Stress for Better Pronunciation. Learn English Online. Recuperado de https://www.learnenglish.net/2024/08/31/how-to-master-english-word-stress-for-better-pronunciation/

Rachel's English. (2013, 11 de junio). Word Stress and Syllables [Video]. YouTube. Recuperado de https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PODs-dJOWP0&t=10s

Rachel's English. (2013, 11 de junio). Syllable Stress: Patterns for Two-Syllable Words [Video]. YouTube. Recuperado de https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ90E0g3JXE

EnglishClub. (s.f.). How to Pronounce -ed. Recuperado el 1 de abril de 2025, de https://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/-ed.php

English Path. (2021, 18 de junio). ED Pronunciation: A Helpful Guide!. Recuperado el 1 de abril de 2025, de https://www.englishpath.com/blog/ed-pronunciation-a-helpful-guide/

Trusler, T. (2018, 12 de abril). Pronunciation of Past Tense Endings. Ellii Blog. Recuperado el 1 de abril de 2025, de https://ellii.com/blog/pronunciation-of-past-tense-endings

Aprender Inglés Americano. (s.f.). Cómo pronunciar el sonido TH en inglés. Aprender Inglés Americano. https://www.aprenderinglesamericano.com/portfolio-items/como-pronunciar-el-sonido-th-en-ingles/

English Addict with Mr Steve. (2020, 12 de septiembre). PRONUNCIACIÓN EN INGLÉS: cómo pronunciar "TH" correctamente [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gi8NWWYTOo

BBC Learning English. (2018, 5 de septiembre). How to pronounce the 'th' sounds | BBC Learning English [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/wCkONOv2JJM