Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Text for Trainers and Advanced Students
Review: Although I find the second edition useable with students, in my opinion, it was written for the trainers. I used the first edition with far more student successes because each chapter was built on the preceeding ones and stuck to the basics. In contrast, the second edition is TOO full of the many intonation elements all jammed and crammed into each chapter. Frankly, I was hoping that the second edition would give us more practice examples to solidify the the basic intonation elements people need and most can absorb. Instead,by comparison to the first edition, the book is overfilled with way too much "stuff". Still, it's the best book on the market in it's class and I would highly recommend it to the trainers. I believe most students will have difficulty sorting out and dealing with the "details" in each chapter on their own. On the other hand, because of this jammed text, it is easily used for both intermediate to advanced level students ... you can get more bang for the buck.
Rating: 
Summary: A book suitable for the right application
Review: As an experienced language teacher and DOS at a language school, we have designed a short course around this book. Providing one keeps sound understanding of what language is made up of and what sound language teaching consists of,the Clear Speech book is extememly useful, fun, and interesting to both the learner and the teacher. Some of the exercises are a lot of fun. Informed language teachers realise that language is not infact just about discreet points of aspects of language i.e. language is largley about successful communication and involves all the skills and features including socio-linguisitic as well as purely linguistic. We know these days that language needs to be approached with an ecclectic perspective and the learners' needs foremost as part of a program. Part of any program should include pronunciation, so long as it is in balance. This book focuses on the wider influences surrounding pronunciation which affect overall fluency and language proficiency, for example, stress, intonation, timimg, rythum, syllable-length, patterning, problem sounds, and listening. Most importantly, I would argue that it is a very soundly designed book useful for serious language teachers which will help develop a personal monitoring system into the learners' language useage awareness, thus influencing significantly their fluency. In this context, the exercises are very beneficial. I am sure the book is not so focused as to ignore or intended to take the place of the wider needs and other macro skills that need more attention overall such as is found in general English classes etc, but offers a user friendly and relative set of exercises in a format that has continuity if desired, or can be utilised as a selective supplimentary tool. I would say Clear Speech is a book that should preferrably be teacher-taught to be truly effective.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent speech resource for advanced students.
Review: I got this book to help one of my advanced level students with her pronunciation. I was surprised at what the book really focuses on, and I have found it to be quite helpful. THE GOOD: 1) This book is different from other pronunciation books in that it only spends part of the time focusing on the sounds of English letters. Rather, it is organized into chapters based on other features of English, such as rhythm, linking, syllable length, stress, intonation and reduction. This is a wonderful "next step" for students who have had adequate practice with the sounds of English letters, but still have an accent. 2) It provides practice exercises that allow the student to practice more than one thing at a time. For example, one exercise allows the student to practice linking words while practicing the "sh" sound. 3) I think that the most valuable part of this book is the Clear Listening and Clear Speaking test at the beginning of the book. These allow teachers to get very specific responses from students, and then focus on the problem areas. THE BAD: While the book is great at helping students practice consonant sounds, it doesn't give much practice or help with vowel sounds. This is really my only complaint with this otherwise wonderful book. OVERALL: A great book that will help students fine tune their English speech. I recommend it for high-intermediate or advanced students. If students are looking for a good way to reduce their accents, or make themselves more understood by Americans, or even understand North American English better themselves then I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent speech resource for advanced students.
Review: I got this book to help one of my advanced level students with her pronunciation. I was surprised at what the book really focuses on, and I have found it to be quite helpful. THE GOOD: 1) This book is different from other pronunciation books in that it only spends part of the time focusing on the sounds of English letters. Rather, it is organized into chapters based on other features of English, such as rhythm, linking, syllable length, stress, intonation and reduction. This is a wonderful "next step" for students who have had adequate practice with the sounds of English letters, but still have an accent. 2) It provides practice exercises that allow the student to practice more than one thing at a time. For example, one exercise allows the student to practice linking words while practicing the "sh" sound. 3) I think that the most valuable part of this book is the Clear Listening and Clear Speaking test at the beginning of the book. These allow teachers to get very specific responses from students, and then focus on the problem areas. THE BAD: While the book is great at helping students practice consonant sounds, it doesn't give much practice or help with vowel sounds. This is really my only complaint with this otherwise wonderful book. OVERALL: A great book that will help students fine tune their English speech. I recommend it for high-intermediate or advanced students. If students are looking for a good way to reduce their accents, or make themselves more understood by Americans, or even understand North American English better themselves then I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: An EXCELLENT Pronunciation Course Book
Review: I split this book to create a 2-level pronunciation course for lower intermediate and higher students in Japan. The courses were extremely well received time and time again. The book is an excellent guide for such classes. I rated the book at 5-stars on its own merit. However, together with the audiocassettes I would have given it four and a half stars, as I believe the audio component needs to be available on CD for cueing purposes and ease of use. Teachers who have training in teaching pronunciation will probably be delighted with the book. Unfortunately, those instructors trying to use the book without the benefit of proper training in teaching pronunciation may not have the background to utilize it properly. I didn't bother with the tapes, as I felt it better to use my own pronunciation to model the targets. This allowed me to more easily adjust the speed, timing and rhythm of the exercises to meet the needs of the individual class groups. Students had an opportunity to practice the targets as a group and then individually during the listen and repeat sections. Afterward, the students generally loved the excellent pair work, which allowed them to further practice and master to some degree what they had learned. As much as it is a pronunciation course, listening skills are an equally strong component. The pair work was excellent in ensuring each student strove to achieve the listening and production targets. This book allowed mixed levels of students to work together harmoniously, challenge themselves in a very enjoyable and insightful way, and achieve real gains in their struggles to produce and understand spoken English. Students liked the limericks. I agree with the other reviewer who stated the diagnostic test with the book is an extremely useful tool ...in the hands of a qualified practitioner. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is useless without the cassete
Review: The book is worthless without the cassete. I don't recommend anyone to buy this. I didn't buy the cassete. It is kind of misleading not to mention that the book is not complete without the cassete and the cassete is not coming with the book, but have to buy separately.
Rating:
Summary: Haha!!
Review: This book in my view, is absolutely useless! I can't believe that for the money that is asked for this book, that the customer can actually get such a rotten deal. For starters, it only comes with two cassettes. Come on! How much information can one get in two tapes?! and most of the tapes are just people calling out sentences... if all i wanted to do was listen to sentences.. i'll be better off, watching some american tv or something.... This books was indeed disappointing! I thought that for the price, it had a little bit more to offer but I was dead wrong! :(
Rating:
Summary: not useful at all without cassete
Review: This book totally failed to meet my expectation. Although I only bought the book, i had the oppurtunity to listen to the cassete from one of my friend. But I should say, there are lot more better material you can get with the same amount of money. The picture in the book is boring and didn't help me in improving anything at all..
Rating:
Summary: not useful at all without cassete
Review: This book totally failed to meet my expectation. Although I only bought the book, i had the oppurtunity to listen to the cassete from one of my friend. But I should say, there are lot more better material you can get with the same amount of money. The picture in the book is boring and didn't help me in improving anything at all..
Rating:
Summary: THIRD EDITION CD - NOT SECOND EDITION!!
Review: This CD is for the THIRD EDITION book, not the second edition! Be forewarned! I bought it to use with my class, and it's definitely the wrong CD. I searched for the third edition book, but it isn't available. Why would the CD be published before the book? It doesn't make sense.
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