Say It : English Pronunciation App 📲🎤

This application is developed by Oxford University Press aims to improve the clarity of English learners’ pronunciation and, therefore build their fluency and confidence while speaking English.

Students can start using it by simply typing a word or doing one the tests after selecting their language level. Then, they can tap to hear the phonemes of the word and listen to their pronunciation. After that students can record themselves and then the app turns that recording into a soundwave to make it possible for students to analyze and compare their pronunciation to the model.  

                         

Those soundwave models help students see the places of stress markers in a word and compare the pronunciation of the words according to the similarity of two soundwave shapes. They can play their recording slowly to notice the differences in pronunciation. Finally, they can rate their final pronunciation and send the audio of their recording to their teacher or friend.

The practices in this app can be useful for different age groups but especially adolescents and adult learners who already have some knowledge in the English language and vocabulary but want to rapidly improve their speaking skills for their job, school, or some language exams like IELTS, TOEFL, etc. The app comes with 100 sample words, 4 tests, and 12 sounds. There are also more than 35.000 English words and some other tests in the upgraded version of the app. There are two accent choices as British English and North American accent.     

There is also a teaching guide giving tips for teachers and demonstrating how the app can be used in the classroom environment. I think that’s a very useful feature for the teachers who would like to use the app with their students in class through connecting the app to the smartboard or giving some homework to their students from the tests on the app. Some useful features of the app could be useful for sharing and studying in also private lessons.

I’d suggest learners save their recordings and create a list of words they’d like to practice regularly. To sum up, I think ‘Say It’ is a convenient tool for teachers but also students who want to improve their English speaking and pronunciation skills.