Different Voices - Speech in Actionspeechinaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Different-Voices-programme.pdfDifferent Voices A one-day pronunciation event organised by IATEFL PronSIG - [PDF Document] (2024)

Different Voices

A one-day pronunciation event organised by

IATEFL PronSIG and hosted by the University of Brighton

Plenary speakers: John Wells & Adrian Underhill

Checkland Building, Falmer Campus

University of Brighton

Saturday 8th October 2016, 10am – 5pm

Practical Information

How to get here

The next two pages of this programme have information on thetransport options. There is also an interactive map and tabs fordifferent transport options here:https://www.brighton.ac.uk/about-us/contact-us/maps/brighton-maps/index.aspx

By train, there is a good service to Brighton from London(Victoria, Clapham Junction, St Pancras, London Bridge) and fromGatwick Airport. Also, Southern trains run along the south coastand link Brighton with Hove, Worthing and Portsmouth to the westand Lewes, Eastbourne and Hastings to the east. From Brightonstation, the Falmer site is just 9 minutes away by train followedby a few minutes’ walk. Trains on the Saturday morning run asfollows:

Brighton platform 8 at 9:01, 9:19, 9:31, 9:49 After the event,there are also regular trains back:

Falmer platform 1 at 17:20, 17:35, 17:51

By car, the Falmer campus is just off the A27 at the BrightonUniversity/Amex Stadium exit. Take the B2123 south, and turn rightinto Village Way. You can park in the ‘top’ car park, the first youwill come to, on your left hand side. If you are disabled, with abadge, then you can get access to the lower or northern part of thesite and can park outside Checkland House. Take the right fork atthe site entrance and use the call button on the barrier to requestentry. The postcode for the Falmer site is BN1 9PH.

Catering Please note that, to keep registration fees low, we arenot providing lunches but we will

be offering refreshments during the morning and afternoonbreaks.

Brighton station offers many facilities where you can buy lunchto bring with you and

there is a Costa coffee shop in the Checkland Building.

https://www.brighton.ac.uk/about-us/contact-us/maps/brighton-maps/index.aspxhttps://www.brighton.ac.uk/about-us/contact-us/maps/brighton-maps/index.aspx

There is a footpathleading to the campus

Note:restricted

vehicle accessto site

Car parkingfor residences

Subway fromUniversity of Sussex

to the station andsouth side of A27

Great Wilkins

B2123 The D

rove

A27

Village Way

Falmer Station

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Sussex Health& Racquet club Health

& Racquet club car park

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Permitholders

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Hard Courts

Artificial trainingpitch

Permit holdersonly

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Note: newtraffic light

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Westlain House

Mayfield House

Falmer Library

Small Hall

Ringmer House

Paddock Field

Checkland Building

FalmerSports Centre

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Expres

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Comm

unity

Stadiu

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Falmer campus

University site/building

Accommodation

Train station

Bus stopB

Library

Parking

Footpath

Bike sheds

P

key

Grand Parade campus isin central Brighton. Moulsecoomb campus is2km, and Falmer is 7kmfrom the centre of town.

By trainFrom London Victoria: Southern trains run to Brightonthroughout the day. Journey times range from 50–90 minutes.FromLondon Bridge: First Capital Connect trains start in Hertfordshireand pass through the city of London and down to Brighton.From eastand west: Southern trains run along the south coast and linkBrighton with Hove, Worthing and Portsmouth to the west and Lewes,Eastbourne and Hastings to the east.

By coachNational Express coaches depart for Brighton from LondonVictoria coach station 18 times a day.

By planeGatwick international airport is 30 minutes by road andrail from Brighton. The M23/A23 connects Gatwick to Brighton andthe London–Brighton rail link passes through the airport which hasits own station.Heathrow international airport is on the M25 whichconnects with the M23 at junction 7. There is a direct coach linkto Gatwick or you can take the underground from Heathrow to LondonVictoria.

By carFrom London: the M25/M23 link provides road access fromLondon and the rest of the country.From east and west: the A27 andthe A259 provide access to Brighton. The A259 runs along Brightonseafront.

For Moulsecoomb, Grand Parade and Varley Halls from the A27eastbound take the slip road towards Hollingbury, go straight overthe roundabout then down Coldean Lane. There are signs to theUniversity of Brighton at the bottom of Coldean Lane.

For Falmer stay on the A27 eastbound until you see the signs tothe University of Brighton.

From the west there are signs to the University of Brightonbefore and after Falmer bridge on the A270.

Getting around BrightonBoth Moulsecoomb and Falmer sites areaccessible by cycle lane, have their own local railway stations andare well-served by regular bus services.Moulsecoomb buses: 24, 25,25A, 28, 49 and 49a.Falmer buses: 25, 25A and 25C.Grand Parade isbased in central Brighton so at the heart of the bus network andeasily reached on foot and by bike.

We recommend you use a journey planner when visiting theuniversity for up-to-date travel information. Our addresses can befound on the back cover of this booklet.

For a journey plannervisit www.theaa.com.For train timesvisitwww.nationalrail.co.uk.For coachdetailswww.nationalexpress.com.

Making your way to Brighton

Schools basedin Brighton

Grand ParadeSchool of Architecture and Design (Designdepartment)School of Arts and Media

Pavilion ParadeSchool of Humanities

MoulsecoombBrighton Business School School of Computing,Mathematical and Information Sciences School of Environment andTechnology School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences School ofArchitecture and Design (Architecture department)

FalmerSchool of Applied Social ScienceSchool of EducationSchoolof Nursing and MidwiferyBrighton and Sussex Medical School

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Programme

Time Session A Session B Session C

10.00 – 10. 10 Welcome

10.10 – 11.10 Plenary: John Wells

Don’t be frightened of intonation!

11.10 – 11.35 Coffee break

11.35 – 12.15 Martin Sketchley

Five practical ideas

to incorporate

pronunciation during

lessons

Michael Vaughan-

Reeves

The do-it-yourself

tongue-twister kit: a

workshop

Yuko sh*tara

A set of

keywords

representing

vowel phonics

for Japanese

EFL learners

12.30 – 13.10 Adam Scott

Applying synthetic

phonics in adult ESL

courses

Richard Cauldwell

Mountains not

monotones: peaks

and valleys in oral

presentations

Beata Walesiak

UnPolishing

pronunciation –

teaching

pronunciation as a

separate skill

13.10 – 14.00 Lunch

14.00 – 15.00 Plenary: Adrian Underhill

…somewhere in the air, floating, not reachable…

15.00 – 15.25 Tea break

15.25 – 16.05 Andy Cubalitt

Teacher, I dunno!

Wat’emgonna do?

Marina Cantarutti

Guiding questions

and integrative ideas

to make “pron-

tegration” happen in

the classroom

Piers Messum

Teaching speech

sounds: two bad

ways, and two

good ones

16.20 – 17.00 Lindsey Clarke

Medium rare or

medium well? Getting

the segmentals right:

a lesson plan

Liam Tyrell

So long to

benign neglect -

how to teach

intonation for

attitude

Roslyn Young

Using a phonemic

chart to show

dimensions of

English beyond its

sounds

2

Plenary Speakers

John Wells is Emeritus Professor of Phonetics at UCL. Among hisbooks are Accents of English (CUP 1982), English Intonation (CUP2006), Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (Pearson Education, thirdedition 2008), and now Sounds Interesting (CUP 2014) and SoundsFascinating (CUP 2016).

Don’t be frightened of intonation!

English has a rich intonation system, but one that can seemdaunting both to teachers

and to learners. We should concentrate on those teaching pointsthat can readily be

understood and learnt.

Native speakers are used to coping with regional variation inintonation. Fortunately,

this means that they are also pretty tolerant of many learners’deviations (errors?).

Furthermore, most English sentences can be given a variety ofpossible intonation

patterns: for the learner, there are typically numerous rightanswers to the problem of

what intonation would be acceptable. On the other hand, thereare also conversational

patterns with virtually fixed intonation.

Overall, intonation should be less daunting than grammar andvocabulary. The most

important goal should be mastery of tonicity (aka accentuation,aka placement of the

nucleus/tonic). Most learners need not worry about fine detailsof pitch contours in tone

contrasts.

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Adrian Underhill I’m a trainer, consultant, author and speaker.Also a past President of IATEFL, current IATEFL ambassador, andseries editor of Macmillan Books for Teachers. I’m author of SoundFoundations: Learning and Teaching Pronunciation, and Sounds: ThePronunciation App. I'm exploring the notion of humans asfundamentally ‘learning beings’, and the role of improvisation,playfulness and intuition in learning, especially in complex andmessy settings.

…somewhere in the air, floating, not reachable…

Betty, an Italian teacher of English, described her experienceof learning the sounds of

English as follows “…Sounds I did not know were somewhere in theair, floating, not

reachable. I only used the ear, which was not prepared to graspthe sound. (But) … as

soon as the sound became physical it gained a form and preciseidentity and thus

became more recognisable…” (Betty, July 2016)

Sixteen teachers of English (with 9 mother tongues) met for 2weeks this summer to

explore a methodology of physicality. How can we enable learnersto use their

proprioception to get behind the neuro-muscular habits of theirfirst language/s and

reconnect with the muscles that make the difference? And howdoes that in turn affect

what the ear can discern?

In this session we will explore and review some of theactivities we developed, consider

some participants’ comments, and discuss implications for ourteaching.

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11.35 – 12.15

A - Martin Sketchley

Five Practical Ideas to Incorporate Pronunciation DuringLessons

The teaching of pronunciation is given a lower priority thanother areas of teaching (i.e.

grammar or vocabulary) and much of this stems from teacherconfidence. The workshop

will look at five exciting and practical ways that teacherscould immediately incorporate

pronunciation into their lessons so they could be used in classimmediately.

In this workshop, attendees will have the opportunity toparticipate in five practical

activities as well as develop confidence and ideas when wishingto incorporate elements

of pronunciation into their lessons. It is expected thatattendees have some prior

knowledge of the phonemic chart/script so that they canparticipate in one of the

activities. However, all the other four activities do notrequire any prior knowledge of

the phonemic script.

The workshop will first look at minimal pairs for both vowel orconsonant sounds and

activities which could be used to enhance the teaching ofminimal pairs. The second

activity will look at silent pronunciation to focus on theproduction and articulation of

words, sentences or questions. The third practical idea willlink between phonemic

symbols and spelling. The fourth idea shall raise awareness ofhom*ophones and the

relationship between spelling and sound while the finalpractical activity will look at

developing word stress.

It is hoped that this session will complement other talks andworkshops during the day

and that attendees will be inspired to incorporate and developtheir personal skills so

that more priority is given towards the teaching ofpronunciation.

Martin Sketchley has been an English language teacher for over10 years in South

Korea, Romania and the UK. He is Young Learner Co-ordinator atLTC Eastbourne, a

Trustee for English in the Community and also runs theaward-winning blog: ELT

Experiences.

Website: www.eltexperiences.com

Email: [emailprotected]

B - Michael Vaughan-Rees

The do-it-yourself tongue-twister kit

This workshop, which concentrates on ear-training, is bothinteractive and

competitive. The early part can be used with near beginners, andthe sequences

gradually become longer as the learners’ vocabulary increases.Note that the tongue-

twisters which emerge are mainly created by the students ratherthan given out ready-

made by the teacher.

You start by showing the group the following sequences

http://www.eltexperiences.com/mailto:[emailprotected]

5

a) Kenneth bought some carrots

b) Polly bought some peaches

c) Shirley bought some sugar

then ask what each has in common. They may mention thestructure, the rhythm or

whatever, but persist until someone points out that the initialsound in person and thing

is the same. (Not the initial letter, which is why I use Kennethand cabbage.)

Replace the examples with

a) Kenneth bought some carrots

b) Cathy bought some carrots

c) Carol bought some carrots

And this time ask how they are different. Someone willeventually realise that in a) the

person and the thing bought have just the one initial sound incommon, but that in b)

there are two, and in c) there are four (consonant / vowel /consonant / vowel).

You then divide the class into groups, having provided somespace for each group to

write new two-word sequences, person and thing bought. Differentparts of a white

board would do, or rolls of paper on easels. However, it’s notjust a question of writing

them down; the groups have to correctly identify how manyinitial sounds are the same.

And on we go with the sequences gradually lengthening e.g.

Kenneth collected a kilo of cabbages

Clever Kenneth collected a kilo of cabbages

Clever Kenneth collected a kilo of Canadian cabbages.

(In real classes, how far you go will obviously depend on theirlevel).

Michael Vaughan-Rees co-founded the PronSig way, way back andfor many years

remained the group’s co-ordinator as well as editor of ‘SpeakOut!’. To those interested in pronunciation he is probably bestknown for ‘Rhymes and Rhythm’ and ‘Test your

Pronunciation’ (the latter now, sadly, out of print).

C - Yuko sh*tara

A set of keywords representing vowel phonics for JapaneseEFL

learners

In Japan, audio teaching materials used in EFL are mostlyGeneral American

(GenAm). This paper proposes a table summarizing therelationship between vowel

phonemes and their simplest spellings with particular referencesto vowels before

/r/. For EFL learners, rhoticity is an advantage of GenAmpronunciation, but its

systematic laxing of vowels before prevocalic /r/ is not.

Using the words in mpi, inc’s set of 4 DVDs (2010) on phonicsfor young Japanese EFL

learners, General American lax vowel phonemes /ɪ, ɛ, æ, ɑ, ʌ/appear in such words as

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Tim, pet, mat, not, and cut, whereas tense/diphthongal vowels/aɪ, i, eɪ, oʊ, u, aʊ/ appear

in such words as time, Pete, mate, note, cute, and house. Thephonemes /aɪ, aʊ, ʊ/ do

not change their qualities before /r/ in words showing ‘≡/aɪ/’(tire or tie), ‘≡/aʊ/’ (sour or cow), and ‘≡/ʊ/’ (poor or foot),but most other vowels seem to

change their qualities into half-long, lax ones. Following thepronunciation of Merriam-

Webster’s Dictionary App (M-W), the most typical spellings forthe phonemic sequences

/ɪr, ɛr, ær, ɑr, ʌr, ɔr/ before a vowel should be

respectively, as in experience, parentage/sincerity,parody/parrot, starry, currency, and

forestry. M-W seems to incorporate this laxing more readilyabout the qualities of

vowels in antepenultimate positions than in penultimatepositions. In M-W, the

spellings and in hurry, currency, squirrel, and sirup/syrup haveboth [ɚ]

and [ʌɹ] pronunciations without any regional labelling, whereas[ʌɹ] is not possible for

‘≡[ɚ]’, because is used heavily in writing /ɛr/ and /ɪr/ in suchwords as

merry, sincerity, experience. Modern RP speakers might be using[ɛː] as well as [ɛ] or

[e] in words like sincerity under American influence,phonemicizing the vowel together

with SQUARE.

Yuko sh*tara teaches English at Jumonji University inSaitama-ken, Japan, and has taught 15- or 30-week-long courses inEnglish phonetics in six universities in and around Tokyo over thepast 17.5 years. She studied phonetics under supervisions ofShigeru Takebayashi, Michael Ashby, and John Wells in thischronological order.

12.30 – 13.10

A - Adam Scott

Applying synthetic phonics in adult ESL courses

This practical session offers hands-on experience with classroomactivities which

integrate synthetic phonics decoding strategies into teaching,providing takeaway

materials and ideas to promote phonemic awareness and accuratedecoding. Tasks

demystify the phonological complexities of English spelling andpronunciation for

students and teachers alike, and raise awareness of howsynthetic phonics produces

wider gains in learners’ skills and systems development.

Synthetic phonics is the evidence-based English L1literacy-teaching approach legally

required in UK schools, and increasingly applied in the USA andAustralia. Research

into L1 decoding strategies has overturned traditionalconceptions of dyslexia, and

promises to transform our understanding of how ESL learnerdifficulties lead to

confusion and plateaus. Findings show that language decodingstrategies and phonemic

awareness heavily impact development in all skills and systems,thereby extending

synthetic phonics’ relevance to L2 acquisition and offeringexciting new directions for

ELT.

Phonological awareness and decoding are key to languagedevelopment—when

learners fail to decode words, they cannot understand what theyread or hear. Whole-

7

word, prediction, and analytic approaches restrict vocabularystorage, disassociate

word meaning from sounds, and concentrate on meaninglesselements of words:

consonant clusters, rhyming sounds, and word length. Syntheticphonics, by blending

and segmenting phonemes rather than studying the larger soundunits of analytic

phonics, builds systematic pronunciation/spelling knowledge andstrategies for

handling problematic utterances or written words.

Participants will be led through a series of classroomactivities which integrate

synthetic phonics across the curriculum and demonstrate itspotential to transform our

teaching experience and improve learners’ phonemic awareness anddecoding skills.

Supported by research findings including my own classroominterventions, I highlight

how synthetic phonics teaching improves reading, listening,comprehension, vocabulary

learning, decoding of new lexis, word and sentence stress,grammatical and lexical

collocation use, and production of natural connected speech.

Adam Scott has been teaching since 2005, working at St GilesCollege in Brighton for

the last eight years, where he is a teacher and CELTA trainer.He has a strong interest in

teacher research, and enjoys integrating current findings intoclassroom practice. Adam

regularly presents at ELT conferences, and is also a freelancematerials writer.

B - Richard Cauldwell

Mountains not monotones: peaks and valleys in oral

presentations

Using Audio Notetaker software (by Sonocent), I will demonstratematerials which

were successfully used to teach postgraduate students to maketheir presentations more

engaging by making full use of the contours of speech. From astarting point of extreme

use of monotone, they learned to make their speech mountainous,and much more

engaging for the listener.

Postgraduate students on pre-sessional English courses at theUniversity of

Birmingham have to give ten-minute presentations which areassessed by examiners. In

the summer of 2015 I used Sonocent's AudioNotetaker to helpstudents (preparing for

MSc and PhD degrees in Electronic, Electrical, and ComputerSystems Engineering)

improve their pronunciation of vowels, and - most importantly -to make their speech

less monotonous. AudioNotetaker allows teachers and students toexchange soundfiles,

annotate them, and colour code them to highlight features thatare in focus. It also

enables images to be set alongside the soundfiles, todemonstrate the range of peaks

and valleys that are essential to making speech mountainousrather than monotonous,

with the overall aim of making their speech sufficiently clearto be intelligible, and

sufficiently varied - in terms of contours - to engage theirlisteners.

Richard Cauldwell has taught in France, Hong Kong, Japan, and atthe University of

Birmingham in the United Kingdom. He is the author of theaward-winning Streaming

Speech and Cool Speech. [emailprotected]

https://www.sonocent.com/en/

8

C - Beata Walesiak

UnPolishing pronunciation – teaching pronunciation as aseparate

skill

Beata would like to address the question of the effectiveness ofteaching pronunciation

as a separate skill in large groups. She would like to commenton the challenges behind

her course and present some of the techniques and tools sheresorts to raise her students’

pronunciation awareness.

The Open University at University of Warsaw (UOUW) embodies theidea of Life-Long

Learning by offering adult non-university students the chance toparticipate in courses

conducted by university scholars and lecturers, whose goal is toencourage the pursuit

of knowledge and practical skillsdevelopment in a given field.The UOUW framework

has proved conducive to the evolution of the UnPolish yourEnglish series of courses

dedicated solely to teaching pronunciation as a separate skillwith the help of modern

technologies.

In the talk Beata would like to share with a wider audience themain assumptions

behind her course, its design and structure, as well as theteaching strategies and

techniques employed, which draw on the experience and practicalexpertise of the most

renowned specialists in the field of pronunciation teaching,such as Adrian Underhill,

John C. Wells, Jane Setter, Mark Hanco*ck, Piers Messum and manymore. Also, she

would like to present the statistical data compiled from studentquestionnaires, which

outline the course participant’s profile, their expectations andneeds, and their

motivation to embark on the pronunciation journey. It isnoteworthy what common

characteristics such a heterogeneous group displays when itcomes to the perception of

pronunciation learning.

Finally, Beata would like to comment on the challenges andlimitations behind teaching

pronunciation to large groups, as well as the effectiveness ofher course when it comes

to raising pronunciation awareness and helping overcomephonological fossilisation or

articulatory

9

15.25 – 16.05

A - Andy Cubalitt

Teacher, I dunno! Wat’emgonna do?

This presentation and workshop will give participants a glimpseof how a non-native

English teacher tackles pronunciation in an EFL classroom in anAsian context. The

speaker will present gamified approach dealing Englishpronunciation. Participants will

make and take home materials relevant to the session.

Effective communication is of greatest importance. Using amedium of instruction that

is not your primary language used in daily life, besidesgrammar, listening, speaking,

reading, and writing, pronunciation is among the many challengesto learning a

language. In pronunciation, word stress, sentence stress,intonation, and word liaison

all influence the sound of spoken English, not to mention theinfluence of American or

British Accents, and/or the World Englishes.

There are too many complexities involved in Englishpronunciation for learners to

strive for accent reduction or a complete elimination of accent,but improving

pronunciation will boost self-esteem, facilitate communication,and possibly lead to a

better job or at least more respect in the workplace.

This presentation and workshop will give participants a glimpseof how a non-native

English teacher tackles pronunciation in an EFL classroom in anAsian context. The

speaker will present gamified approach dealing Englishpronunciation. Participants

will make and take home materials relevant to the session.

Andy Cubalitt is currently a lecturer at Naresuan University,Thailand. His research

interests include, educational management, curriculum design,language learning and

acquisition (ELT), and teaching and learning style. He lovestravelling.

B - Marina N. Cantarutti

Guiding questions and integrative ideas to make“pron-tegration”

happen in the classroom

This talk will explore previous research and classroom-basedquestions and planning

ideas to empower teachers for “pron-tegration”, that is, theknowledge and practice of

what pronunciation features to teach, and how and when to teachthem, alongside other

areas and skills in the EL curriculum.

Pronunciation in the English lesson is sometimes seen as anaspect that can take care of

itself. The reasons for this have been widely described in theliterature (Celce-Murcia et

al, 2010; Jones et al, 2016, Grant et al, 2014), being fear andlack of knowledge more

frequently reported. However, pronunciation is an integral partof each and every

English language skill and content area, and thus, should bepresented alongside these

if we really expect our students to use language in the realworld.

10

“Pron-tegration” (Cantarutti, 2015), that is, the knowledge andpractice of what

pronunciation features to teach, and how and when to teach them,needs to be based on

proper training and research, but to actually make it happen, italso requires a few

doses of common sense, creativity, and confidence. This can onlybe achieved when

teachers feel empowered in their own classrooms to makedecisions away from fear.

It will be claimed during this presentation that being able tomake selections on “pron-

tegration” is possible and feasible, as it mostly involvesasking the right questions

about existing connections between phonetics and otherlinguistic content, and ways of

planning integrative tasks (Celce-Murcia et al, 2010;Cantarutti, 2005; Cantarutti,

2015; Jones et al, 2016).

This talk will introduce a “question kit” leading on to thepresentation of a set of

techniques and sample activities to inspire teachers to linkpronunciation to the

teaching of grammar, teaching of grammar, vocabulary, readingcomprehension,

literature, listening and speaking skills.

Marina Cantarutti is a graduate teacher of English as a ForeignLanguage (ISP

Joaquín V González, Argentina), specialized in Phonetics andPhonology, and

Discourse Analysis. MA in English Language (Universidad deBelgrano). Former

lecturer in Practical Phonetics in Buenos Aires, Argentina. PhDstudent in Language

and Communication. [emailprotected]

C - Piers Messum

Teaching speech sounds: two bad ways, and two good ones

There are different ways of teaching the pronunciation of speechsounds. ‘Listen and

repeat’ is the best known but gives the worst results. Preparingstudents with intensive

listening is better, but I will explain why any form oflistening is actually not a good

starting point. I will describe and demonstrate the two goodways.

According to Celce-Murcia et al (1996/2010:2), the two main waysin which pronunciation is taught are by the Imitative-Intuitive andAnalytic-Linguistic approaches. The principal exercise associatedwith the former is ‘listen and repeat’. The principal exerciseassociated with the latter might be called ‘listen and say’,because additional ‘information’ – beyond a spoken model – has beengiven to the students, so that their production is a more consciousand considered act of saying. This information usually includesintensive listening practice, given on the basis that you have tobe able to hear a sound before you can say it correctly.

In complete contrast to these ‘listen first’ approaches, theArticulatory Approach treats pronunciation as a motor skill, andencourages motor experimentation on the part of students, with theteacher acting as a source of continual feedback but withoutproviding a spoken model.

Current teaching of speech sounds gives disappointing results,and it is almost always done using a ‘Listen first’ approach. Ifone tracks the movements of a student’s attention during copyingexercises, it is straightforward to see why it is the approach

11

that is at fault. In the Articulatory Approach, a more naturallearning paradigm is exploited.

I will demonstrate the coaching aspect of the ArticulatoryApproach using Japanese as the target language, and then show theplace that native speaker models can play as students become moreskilled learners.

Piers Messum is a teacher and a director of PronunciationScience Ltd (www.pronsci.com), a company that trains teachers inhow to teach the pronunciation of English and other modernlanguages. He has a PhD in Phonetics from University CollegeLondon. Contact him at [emailprotected]

16.20 – 17.00

A - Lindsey Clarke

Medium rare or medium well? Getting the segmentals right: a

lesson plan

How can we target and practise the specific sounds our learnersstruggle with? I recently

taught a group of Brazilians who had pronunciation issues whichwere blocking their

communication. Without knowledge of Portuguese, I didn’t knowwhich English sounds

were problematic, and had to identify them. I will share myexperience and demonstrate

a student centred activity for practising segmentals.

Often misunderstanding in the classroom is down to pronunciationissues, and I would

argue that this can be a potentially fruitful teachingopportunity. Such an incident

recently happened to me. I was discussing food with amonolingual Brazilian group of

A1 students, and someone was trying to say either ‘medium rare’or ‘medium well’, I

didn’t know which. Obviously this could lead to a problem in arestaurant! I decided to

investigate further. I will outline the steps:

1. Demonstrating need for focus

● establishing if they could hear the difference by asking themto identify which phrase I was saying

● asking them to do the same, first in pairs, then in open classwhen I tried to identify which one they said.

● analysing their production for the problematic sounds. The twomain issues were /r/ and /w/.

2. Physicality

● showing and describing the physical difference between theirproduction and mine.

3. Practice

● eliciting vocabulary with the target sounds

www.pronsci.com

12

● asking learners to write a mini story using this vocabulary ●learners practice reading the story out loud with the correct

pronunciation, students in other groups hold up the rightphoneme on a

card when they hear the sound.

I’ll show the mini-stories the students produced and inviteparticipants to come up with

their own. I’ll then demonstrate the final activity by askingaudience members to hold

up cards with the target sounds as a volunteer reads out one ofthe stories. I will then

invite comments and feedback from the audience.

Lindsey Clarke has been teaching English for 10 years, mainly inItaly, but also in

London. After finishing the Cambridge Delta this year, shestarted an MA in Applied

Linguistics at Durham University, where she is currently based.She blogs about a more

student-centred approach to teaching, particularly for EFLexams.

B - Liam Tyrell

So long to benign neglect - how to teach intonation forattitude

The complicated nature of attitudinal intonation means that itis often neglected in

classrooms where the hope is it will be learned by osmosis. Thissession aims to

challenge that neglect by providing some concrete examples ofactivities that can be

used to introduce and practice this tricky, yet invaluableaspect of English

pronunciation.

This talk will be divided into 3 sections.

Section 1 - 13 minutes - Firstly I will introduce attitudinalintonation - what it is used

for and how it works. I will talk about ‘benign neglect’ - theapproach seemingly

advocated in the literature and offer some reasons why thisbenefits neither teachers

nor learners. I will then propose an alternative approach -controlled tendency

exploration.

Section 2 - 13 minutes - Secondly, I will talk about thechallenges for teachers in terms

of analysis of tendencies and provide some simple suggestions onhow they can do this

more efficiently. I will also highlight differing notationstandards and offer advice on

adopting one for use in class.

Section 3 - 13 minutes - Thirdly, I will discuss some of themain problems involved in

teaching intonation for attitude as I see them. I will thenattempt to provide solutions to

these problems by showing different tasks that can be used inclass. I will focus firstly

on techniques for language clarification and then on activitiesto be used for practice - I

will then briefly comment on ways of providing feedback for thisarea. I will also

highlight the possibilities that exist in the use of technologyfor teaching and learning

attitudinal intonation.

Section 4 - 6 minutes - Finally, I will accept questions andcomments from the audience.

13

Liam Tyrrell is an EFL teacher from Dublin, Ireland where he hasworked in private

language schools since 2009. He recently completed his DELTA inInternational House,

Buenos Aires and returned to Dublin to work. Liam has a keeninterest in

phonology, particularly suprasegmental aspects and the study ofaccents.

C - Roslyn Young

Using a phonemic chart to show dimensions of English beyondits

sounds

Simple phonemic charts make English pronunciation clearer bydisplaying an inventory

of its sounds. Organising a chart so that it also displays thestress and reduction systems

make these transparent too.

I will present such a phonemic chart and show how you can makeit a reference point

for all your pronunciation teaching.

English is different from most languages in that it can beanalysed as having three

different types of sounds: vowels, consonants and the schwafamily of sounds. These last

can be distinguished from the vowels on a number of grounds thathave revealed

themselves to be pedagogically profitable.

English is also different because it has three levels of stressprominence: stressed

syllables, syllables with full vowels which are unstressed andreduced syllables.

Both these dimensions of the language have to be mastered bylearners if they are to

pronounce English well.

Existing phonemic charts show the sounds of the language but notthese other

dimensions. Because teachers are unaware of the nature of schwa,they struggle to

teach it in a way which helps students, and because they are notaware of how stress is

only one aspect of prominence, they struggle here too.

There are two overarching tasks in pronunciation teaching: thatthe students experience

a conceptual change so as to properly move out of thepsychological constraints of L1,

and that they develop the new motor skills needed for the motoraspects of L2 that are

new. A chart that integrates sounds, stress and reduction is apowerful tool for the first

of these tasks because it confronts students with the reality ofEnglish as an L2. It is a

powerful tool for the second if the teacher gets the students tointeract with the chart

and learn to produce the gestures needed for each sound.

Roslyn Young is a teacher, a teacher trainer and a researcher inpedagogy. She is the

author of several books and many articles on learning in generaland language learning

in particular. Her main interest is the teaching ofpronunciation.