Let’s talk about solutions for those pronunciation problems that are persistent and pervasive for students learning English, even for advanced students. Every language has its interference points with English; case in point–Japanese students nearly always struggle with L and R. Even after mastering the production of L and R in isolation, or in single syllable words, the problem persists in multi-syllable words or complex sentences, when L and R occur in proximity. Vocabulary. Delivery. Regularly. It can be a nightmare for otherwise skillful English speakers. Begin with good foundations: review formation of L and R with http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/, and strategies with Jennifer ESL’s YouTube videos for R and L: go to YouTube, search for JenniferESL, and watch her R and L videos #5A – 5C.
Next, find the words where R and L really matter, and work on them. I recommend a couple of websites in tandem to help students address the problem. First, we go to: www.wordbyletter.com where we type in something like “words ending with “larly”, for example; the website generates words that have this feature. Students then make their own pronunciation lists by selecting words that are already in their repertoire, or related to their studies or work.
Then we find larger chunks of language where the most problematic R and L words can be searched, with the second website: www.americancorpus.org, where we create a list of language environments in which each of the target words can be found. At American Corpus, and other corpus sites, one can search for examples of a target word or phrase across a wide range of texts, from magazines and newspapers and academic journals to recorded speech. This gives us examples of the word in varying phrase and sentence arrangements, offering many opportunities to tackle the target sounds in new pronunciation and intonation settings.
Practice should be slow and careful at the start, with successful production of the target sounds as the first goal. As the speaker’s tongue becomes more agile and comfortable with the required movements, they increase their speed, but only to the point they can produce the sound without error, and with correct intonation. It’s important to have repeated, successful experiences with the target sound, and it’s important for the brain and the tongue to coordinate a new set of actions that must eventually become automatic.
Once learned, students can use this strategy independently. It can bring advanced students a great deal of satisfaction, just to know there is something they can do to continue toward their goal of mastering the interference problems they are experiencing.