I burst out laughing today - in a recorded mock GCSE French oral which I was examining! As surely EVERYBODY reading this blog knows, the French word for "pupil" or "student" (at a push) is élève. Those two little marks on the first two Es of the word change the sound of the letter they sit on. Anyone with half a musical ear should be able to hear a difference between them and the noise you make when/if you pronounce the last, unaccented E. Not so my candidate today! He was telling me about his school: about how much he liked it, in particular the size and great range of activities, subjects etc etc and then he told me that there were about 850 elves running around it. I bit back the obvious witticisms about Santa and told him afterwards to practise learning French words by saying them ALOUD, and listening to himself. I remain convinced that a good accent and clarity of expression in any language comes from developing your ear, your aural capabilities, not your pronunciation and oral capabilities. You had to laugh though, although I suppose really you had to be there to hear the error!
