Phonology

When considering English phonology, you are most likely to be concerned with the following:


 * phonemes - mostly dealing with vowel sounds and consonant sounds, not necessarily the letters as they are written e.g. 'throw' has 3 phonemes but 5 letters.
 * syllables
 * lexical stress
 * connected speech
 * prosody
 * stress
 * rhythm
 * intonation
 * variations of pronunciation such as accent

Learners of English may have very different problems with phonology depending on their level and their first language (L1). A difficulty can also be that unlike some languages e.g. Russian, there is no standard pronunciation, though there have been attempts in various English speaking countries to create one e.g. RP in England. You can find a good repository of English varieties at the dialects archive.

Phonology resources for particular L1s
Cantonese https://cle.ust.hk/online_resources/advice/english/pronunciation/p7/

Mandarin https://magoosh.com/toefl/english-pronunciation-resources-for-native-chinese-speakers/

Thai https://eltplanning.com/2018/08/20/correct-pronunciation-errors-thai-speakers-english/ https://englishspeaklikenative.com/resources/common-pronunciation-problems/thai-pronunciation-problems/ http://www.tedpower.co.uk/l1thai.html

Phonemes
There are around 44 separate sounds or phonemes in English. You can find practice of many of these on the BBC website or this Tools for Clear Speech website.

Connected speech
English links together words in a variety of ways inculding merging (e.g. ho(t)dog) contraction (e.g. I'll) liaison (e.g. wentoRome) and intrusion (e.g. through the(y)ages). These features cause a particular difficulty when listening to speech of normal or fast speed. Some exercises for practicing these can be found here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/connected-speech-2 though bear in mind that different English language accents will change the features e.g. the example Law(r)and order would not be typical in many accents.

Prosody
Prosody relates to how longer stretches of speech (usually longer than individual words) are spoken, enabling us to, for example, highlight information but also it is an essential part of the clarity of phrases and sentences. Prosody includes pausing, tempo, loudness and pitch, though other words are used such as rhythm, intonation, and stress.

Appropriate stress on the right words: You will find a good introduction to the idea https://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/sentence-stress.htm and also here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/english-sentence-stress and here https://www.wordstress.info/word-stress/sentence-stress/

Stress and intonation are looked at here https://www.thoughtco.com/practice-stress-and-intonation-1211971 - the page is mostly aimed at teachers but would be useful for students too.

An option to work on various aspects of prosody include shadow reading where you repeat something after you listen to it. You can use pretty much anything for this. This website https://breakingnewsenglish.com/2103/210327-olympic-torch-relay-l.html gives some added options including being able to slow down the speed. VLC software also enables you to reduce the speed without too much damage to the natural sounds of the language.

Intonation
Intonation involves changes in pitch within stretches of speech. The changes can influence the message becasue we might sound bored, angry, confused, assertive, and so on. You can find an easy introduction to intonation here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/using-intonation and some examples of pitch in questions here https://pronuncian.com/pitch-lessons

Some games you can play with other learners that practise intonation https://www.onestopenglish.com/methodology-tips-for-teachers/skills-teaching-english-intonation/146622.article

Articulation exercises
Articulation and elocution are two words that are associated with training the clarity of your speech and contain exercises for mouth and breathing, among others. Generally, there are a range of elements that can be worth working on https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Voice_Acting/Basic_Voice_Acting_Skills and more specifically https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Voice_Acting/Enunciation_Exercises

There are many voice recognition technologies around these days which can be useful to give instant feedback on your pronunciation clarity. Features on many of the latest versions of MS word contain speech recognition and also reads texts. Other voice recognition ideas are here https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/best-speech-to-text-app