IATEFL PronSIG's Pre Conference Event this year was called Practical Pronunciation Teaching. There were a range of talks that had something for teachers at all levels. In this post, I will give a short outline of each of the talks given at this PCE.
Laura Patsko - How to identify pronunciation priorities in the multilingual classroom
In this session, Laura described to us the steps she takes to decide on what pronunciation features her learners need to develop to be intelligible in an ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) context. She did this by anticipating what areas her learners are likely to have based on their L1. She mentioned that we should not allow stereotypes to influence this step, but rather anticipate based of facts such as those outlines in published literature, and a grid she developed as part of her MA. Deciding on the pronunciation priorities for each set of learners, should be done by looking at what issues overlap.
Another important step in deciding the priorities is to observe your learners and notice what it is that they need. Laura gave an example of a dictation activity that she uses, and she demonstrated how to go about this. You can find the handouts and more information about Laura's needs analysis process here.
Jane Setter - Flipping Intonation! Making focus on practice practical.
Jane's decision to introduce the idea of the flipped classroom in her intonation lectures at the University of Reading came about from feedback from her students. They felt that there was too much theory happening in class and that they needed more practical lessons. For anyone who isn't sure, the flipped classroom means that the learners do the homework before to prepare themselves for the next lesson so that they can discuss any problems they have in the lessons and spend more time putting the language focus into practise.
Jane showed us how she makes her own videos explaining the theory. She then posts the video onto YouTube and her students watch this before going to class. That way, they have plenty of time for practice in class.
Roselyn Young - Articulatory settings: a practical demonstration
In this session, Roselyn demonstrated how to get in touch with the physicality of pronouncing sounds using French as a model. She used the chart designed by Pronunciation Science which is based on the Silent Way. For many of us, it made us realise how difficult it is for our learners to get in touch the articulators that we require to make sounds in a different language. We starting by discovering a few individual sounds, and then built up those sounds to make words and short phrases. For me, I finally learnt how to make the French oo sound, such as in the word toute.
Sophie Farag - Maximising pronunciation practice through blended learning
Sophie works for the American University in Cairo. She explained to us how there was little or no pronunciation work included in the curriculum, and so she had to find the tools to be able to increase her learners' awareness and build their confidence in both listening and speaking. She gave the details of a number of online tools and mobile apps that she used both in class to compliment pronunciation homework. She also outlined the various difficulties and technical issues she faced throughout the project.
Robin Walker - IDEAS for teaching pronunciation
Robin gave a very entertaining and energetic talk on being creative when it comes to pronunciation teaching. He used the acronym IDEAS as guide to how we should teach pronunciation and showed us different activities that he has used by following this guide. Some of his main ideas included demonstrating pronunciation to our learners rather than explaining it to them. Making associations, for example, colours and anecdotes, can be a memorable and fun. Also, try to make pronunciation engaging by taking pronunciation off the page. You can find out more about Robin and his work here.
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