IPA Learning Centre

Our aim is to promote the teaching and learning of English phonetics in Hongkong. Our teaching centre, the IPA Learning Centre, is an Education Bureau registered school located in Kowloon. We provide high quality English phonetics (IPA) and pronunciation courses for people at all levels of spoken English.

The course "Practical English Phonetics and Phonology" is one of our most popular choices. We are very proud to say that the quality and popularity of this course has been key to establishing the good reputation of IPA (HK). Mr Derek Kwok, the Course Lecturer, is an experienced phonetics educator with over 10 years teaching experience in English phonetics. His innovative teaching techniques and moderate sense of humour make the complex phonetics principles all the easier to understand.

The courses "English Phonetics Classes for Students" and "Practical English Phonetics and Phonology for Teachers" have provided students and teachers of English in HK with a better channel through which to understand the most important theories and key skills in pronunciation and many other features of spoken English.

As this Web Site comes into existence, we can now offer our students of phonetics with continuous learning and practice support. The pages under our "Club News" section are especially dedicated towards this goal. We believe that through this Web Site, the students of IPA (HK) will be able to further enrich their knowledge of English phonetics and pronunciation even after they have completed our courses.

 

Today's selected word:

eight, height
我女兒從前所就讀的幼稚園,有外籍老師教授phonics,自此她偶然會以字母拼讀生字。有次她把heiɡht /haɪt/拼讀成hate/heɪt/,這個情況並不出奇,當小朋友懂得讀eiɡht,那麼前面加一個字母h ,heiɡht自然應該讀hate! 這點正好顯示依賴字母拼音的限制;事實上字母ei可以產生至少9個不同的讀音:

1 /iː/ - e.ɡ. ceilinɡ /ˈsiːlɪn/
2 /e/- e.g. leisure /ˈleʒə/
3 /ə/ - e.ɡ. foreiɡn /ˈfɒrən/
4 /ɪ/ - e.ɡ. herein /ˌhɪəˈrɪn/
5 /eɪ/ -e.ɡ. neiɡhbour /ˈneɪbə/
6 /aɪ/ -e.ɡ. eiderdown /ˈaɪdədaʊn/
7 /eɪə/ - e.ɡ. deity /ˈdeɪəti/
8 /ɪə/ - e.ɡ. weird /wɪəd/
9 /i ɪ/ - e.ɡ. atheism /ˈeɪθiɪzəm/


The Myth of Phonics系列
在香港盛行的phonics課程弊病, 是把字母拼音簡單化, 令人覺得英語很有規律,
只要肯花時間學習, 終會能見字讀音及改善默書(串字). 但學了多年後, 依然有很多字不會讀或讀錯, 默書串字又不見得大有進步, 才知phonics的原意不在拼音串字, 但已經浪費了不少光陰.
很多人對Phonics存有誤解,要了解清楚,可收看「英語發音網上講座

-Derek Kwok
E.D.530468