What happens when you're assigned to teach the pronunciation class that no other teacher wants?

In Episode 87 of The Teacher Think-Aloud Podcast: An ELT Podcast, hosts Anna and Shay welcomed me for an in-depth conversation on "Teaching English Pronunciation with The Color Vowel Chart®."  Together, we looked back at how a high-stakes classroom challenge at the University of Maryland in 1999 sparked what would become the Color Vowel Approach for teaching spoken English and, alongside dear colleagues and collaborators, my life's work.

Whether you are an ESL/EFL instructor, adult literacy tutor, or online language coach, this interview covers how stepping away from phonetic transcription and rejecting prescriptive notions of pronunciation opens new doors for spoken English clarity, student engagement, and teacher confidence.

What We Covered in Episode 87:

• My University of Maryland Origin Story: How working with international teaching assistants led me to abandon  overly-technical IPA materials in favor of a color-based vowel chart created over a single weekend.
• Navigating Speech Communities & Accent Diversity: Why effective spoken English instruction should celebrate accent variation (like the Don vs. Dawn or the different ways we can say egg ) instead of pursuing prestige accents and perpetuating native speakerism.
• Walking Through the 'Mouth Village': Invited to describe the Color Vowel without any visual reference, I spontaneously devised this new metaphor during the interview, and to my surprise, it works quite well! Listen in to learn how visual and kinesthetic sound tools help us teach word stress, rhythm, and vowel contrasts without getting bogged down in phonetic jargon.

"When we lead with spoken English first and give learners a visual anchor, we stop overthinking and start building real speech clarity." — Karen Taylor

You can watch our complete video discussion directly on YouTube below: 

Looking for an effective ESL pronunciation teacher training course?

Discover how our visual sound methodology simplifies spoken English for both you and your learners. Visit colorvowel.com to access our audio-interactive chart and explore our upcoming teacher training modules