University

of Mohammed Kheider Biskra Faculty of Letters and Foreign Languages

Department of Foreign Languages Division of English
Module: Phonetics Teacher: Mr. Aounali
Level: 1st Year (LMD) Semester : One

First Homework in Phonetics

Exercise 1: In an exploratory essay, search on web or on books the main differences
between the English sound system (specifically vowels) and your mother
tongue language (Chawi, Arabic, French)
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....
....
....
....
....

Exercise 2: Write the common phonetic symbol for each set of vowels then:
Circle the words that contain a high vowel:

suit

got

meet

mud

sat

Circle the words that contain a low vowel:

wad

lead

lad

rude

weed

Circle the words that contain a front vowel:

caught

cat

Circle the words that contain a back vowel:

weep

coop

Circle the words that contain a rounded vowel: me

us

kit

put

kitten

cop

good

blood

him

who

but

Exercise 3: In the following sets of words, the sound of the vowel is the same in every
case but one. Circle the word that has a different vowel sound.

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Exercise 4: Give/provide two minimal pairs for each set of vowel sounds
/i:/ & /e/ // & /u:/ // & /e/ // & /u/

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...

...

...

...

...

...

...

Exercise 5: Circle all the // vowel sounds and underline the /i/ vowel sounds (two examples are given)

Big,

green, people, busy,

listen, office,

pizza,

dinner,

repeat, Peter,

scheme,

inn,

please,

scene,

ready, byte.

Exercise 6: Label the following diagram

Recommendations: for accurate practice, try to pronounce loudly the sounds you want to learn then
listen and repeat to the words which contain those sounds. You can refer to the B ook of Peter Roach
in order to revise vowels and consonants articulation or to listen to them recited in English
Pronunciation in Use (Elementary) . You can go to BBC English Online to practise more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/pronunciation

gd lk nd hpi hldez
nd j: tam
N.B: you can download this document and some phonetics lectures in PDF format from these links:
http://www.scribd.com/wanglais/documents or https://www.facebook.com/groups/217344448289216/files/

N.B: The homework must be rendered back after the holidays on the first week of the New Year 2015

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