The Lifelong Learning ProgrammeThe Comenius Sectoral Programme

Individual mobilitiesIn-service training for Teachers and Other Educational Staff

Grant from Comenius grants: € 1550Grant from European Social Funds: € 700Total grant: € 2250

Course organizer:English Language Teaching CentreUniversity of EdinburghEdinburgh, UKhttp://www.ials.ed.ac.uk/

Training period:1.08 – 12.08.2011

“Pronunciation for Language Teachers”

See the description of the training course at:

http://www.ials.ed.ac.uk/teacher/courses/Summer07/Pronunciation.html

The course title

The course was attended by English-language teachers from 3 continents:

Brasil: 1 Germany: 1 Italy: 3 Japan: 2 Poland: 4 South Korea: 1 Spain: 7 Romania: 1

Due to the geographical dispersion of the participants, the experience was more than Europe-wide!

Participants

Articulatory setting; The articulatory organs; Classification of consonants; Consonant clusters; Vowels; Connected speech – assimilation, deletion,

catenation;

Areas covered by the training activity

English sounds and spelling; Multi-sound values of English letters; Rhythm and stress – word stress, sentence

stress; Intonation and paralinguistics – prominence,

tones, functions of intonation; Drama activities.

Areas covered by the training activity (cont.)

The theoretical approach to teaching pronunciation was delivered by a specialized, university-level trainer from the University of Edinburgh;

This theoretical approach was complemented by 12 hours of individual work in the language laboratory, including exercises from published materials, shadow reading and reading aloud.

The teaching methods

It is important to become aware of the way in which you are physically articulating the sounds!

Voiced or voiceless plosives?

An easy way of measuring the length of the sounds

An easy way of measuring the length of the vowels

You can’t teach pronunciation without using the phonemic chart!

Pronunciation “domino” game

Support from the trainer

Working in the language laboratory

Exercises from published materials in the language laboratory

Hi-fi equipment

Speakers of different nationalities have their own specific difficulties in articulating English sounds: the Koreans find it almost impossible to pronounce the phonemes “v” and “f”;

In the same manner, individual students may have their own difficulties in understanding and producing pronunciation;

English pronunciation must be given appropriate attention during the English-teaching classes. Didactic games are an excellent way of teaching pronunciation. Drama activities, for instance, can enable the students to practice the paralinguistic features of pronunciation, among others.

What I have learnt from this course:

http://www.phonemicchart.com/http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/johnm/flash/flashin.htmhttp://www.youtube.com/macmillanelthttp://www.fonetiks.org/http://www.soundspronapp.com/http://www.cambridge.org/elt/resources/skills/interactive/pron_animations/index.htmhttp://accent.gmu.edu/http://phonphon.pbworks.com/w/page/16499744/FrontPagehttp://www.soundcomparisons.com/http://www.photransedit.com/Online/Text2Phonetics.aspxhttp://www.photransedit.com/

Useful websites for teaching pronunciation

http://www.llp-ro.ro/llp.php?id=247&d=41&menu

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