For convenience, we've collected together here the guides and articles on other pages of the site that will be particularly useful for users of our English charts.

The PronSci Rectangle charts are organised along articulatory lines. Each rectangle represents a sound of English.

The following document explains the layouts for British and American English, and includes black and white versions of the charts with IPA symbols (as below), first in a design suitable for self-study and then in a bolder design for the classroom wall.

These can be freely reproduced as A4 sheets or larger posters.

You can see the first of three linked videos describing the reasons for the layout here.

Note that while the charts can be used to support any approach to the teaching of pronunciation, they are well adapted to those who use an Articulatory Approach.

The Rectangle charts exist in variants devised for specific teaching situations: where time is very short, where IPA symbols form part of the curriculum, where new teachers feel they need IPA cues, etc. 

For those who are interested, the theoretical underpinnings for the layout of the Rectangle charts are described in the download below. 

These charts can be used in two different ways: either (1) as simple phonemic charts or (2) using some advanced features which enable the teacher to work in a more sophisticated way on stress and reduction.

In the arrangement of the sounds on the charts, note that:

1. The vowels, as well as the consonants, are organised by the movements needed to produce them.
2. The vowels are presented as either high or low energy, at the top and bottom of the chart respectively. This clearly differentiates the 'normal' vowels from schwa and the other reduced vowels.
3. The consonants, in the middle section, are arranged by place and manner of production as conventionally done. But their grouping also reflects the distinctive articulatory setting of English.

We have written three guides to pointing: explaining why and how to point, and discussing some other practical issues.

In the third section of the following article, we give practical advice about using 'times tables' for practising the English articulatory setting and problematic sounds.

You can see the first of two linked videos discussing the English articulatory setting here.

Note that Cuisenaire rods and Gattegno's wall pictures for the Silent Way can be purchased through The Cuisenaire Company.