At Level Up Academy we place a great emphasis on teaching pronunciation. All of our teachers have knowledge of International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and know the different parts of the lips, tongue and jaw move to produce sounds accurately. Teachers don't just correct mis-pronunciations, we help you understand where to put the tongue, the position of the lips and how open your jaw should be. 

 

After studying at Level Up Academy, you will be able to read the special phonetic transcription that will tell you the exact pronunciation of new words. The spelling isn't always a good guide to the pronunciation. If students get the wrong vowel is is very hard for listeners to understand.

 

After studying at Level Up Academy, you'll be able to understand the difference between different accents such as Australian, British and American. For example the words "hot" and  "dog" have the same vowel. The tongue is at the back of the mouth and the mouth (jaw) is fully open. For British and Australian speakers of English it is /ɒ/, which is used in words like "job", "lock" and "wash" (ʤɒb, lɒk, wɒʃ . However, American speakers of  English the sound is /ʌ/ where the tongue is in the middle of the mouth and the mouth only half open. This sound is also in words such as: sun, none and duck (sʌn, nʌn, dʌk).   

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The result is that the there are two accents which all native speakers can understand. British English produces the snack as /hɒt dɒg/ whereas Americans say /hʌt dʌg/.