Bazaar vs Bizarre - English Grammar - Teaching Tips
In this video, we break down the difference between "bazaar" and "bizarre". These two words often cause confusion because of their spelling and similar pronunciation. The word ?bazaar? refers to a market, usually found in the Middle East, such as in this example: The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world. ?Bizarre?, on the other hand, is an adjective and a synonym for "strange". "Everyone stared at the student who wore the bizarre outfit to school," is a good example for the word. We hope that this explanation clears up any confusion about the two words.
Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next.
Saying foot instead of food, or hand instead of hunt, or ass instead of us can really make a difference when communicatin.
For most Spanish speakers it is quite difficult to get used to pronouncing the eleven vowels that English has since we only pronounce five, so we sound unnatural and many times we mispronounce words that may bring confusio.
A way a clearly understand this was comparing one of my country?s native language, Quechua, which has only three vowels, and people who were born speaking it an learn to speak Spanish have sometimes difficulties to be understood because they replace similar sounds by using the sounds they know like learners of English do not only with vowels but also with consonant.
This is going to keep on happening if students are not taught to pronouns vowels and consonants differently to their mother tongu.
Besides the correct pronunciation of words in which students may sound funny or difficult to understand, there is the characteristic of putting the correct intonation to a sentence or statement or phrase in which native speakers can convey different meaning with the same sentence just by changing the intonation or stressing different words in the same sentenc.
This could place the student in the difficult situation of not understanding what a native speaker is trying to conve.
To this we must add that a lot of sound in English are linked and for most of us who are not aware of this fact, cannot understand what is said or we might understand something completely differen.
A statement pronounced with different intonation can mean something differen.
It can be an affirmation, a question, a correction, or a confirmatio.
Plus, if we are not aware of the little difference in pronunciation of words, the listener could get a different meaning like when saying: sink, think; food, foot; live, leave; in consequence, the teaching of pronunciation is importan.
On the other hand, it is often ignored because of the lack of knowledge of the different aspects of the pronunciation like primary stress, secondary stress, rhythm, intonation, links of sounds, et.
Another reason why pronunciation is ignored is because teachers still believe that grammar and vocabulary are more important to teach and that vocabulary is not teachabl.
They believe that students will acquire the pronunciation having contact with the languag.
Finally, most teachers were not taught vocabulary explicitly, so they simply do not consider it to be taugh.
