Developing the skill of self-monitoring plays an important role in English Language Learners’ abilities to improve their pronunciation. As students practice a particular pronunciation skill, you can choose applicable questions or prompts to teach your students to self-monitor. With consistent, guided, and explicit instruction and practice, students will learn to self-monitor on their own.
There are three different approaches to asking self-monitoring questions or prompts. Each approach can
be used alternately or simultaneously on any particular occasion that self-monitoring instruction is being
given. A description of each approach is as follows:
1) Self-monitoring prompts based on one’s pronunciation of sounds already learned.
2) Self-monitoring prompts based on one’s realization of sounds not learned.
3) Self-monitoring prompts based on phonetic self-awareness: noticing gaps between what one wants
to say and what one can say.
Examples of prompts for each category are provided below. Choose any combination of the questions/
prompts, or create your own to fit the unique needs of your students. The format in which you provide
guided self-monitoring instruction is up to you. You can ask the questions in a teacher-fronted manner, or
you can create a worksheet with a list of questions for the students to respond to, either in a check-box
format or in an open-ended format, depending on your students’ needs and abilities.
I. Self-monitoring prompts based on one’s pronunciation of sounds already learned:
On the syllable or word level, did I say the following sounds/words correctly? (Circle “Yes” or “No.”)
Vowel Yes No
Consonant Yes No
Blend Yes No
Voiced sound Yes No
Voiceless sound Yes No
Plural sound Yes No
Suffix Yes No
Sound of y Yes No
Sound of -le Yes No
Murmur diphthong Yes No
Digraph Yes No
Digraph blend Yes No
Special Vowel Sound Yes No
Sight Word Yes No
