LCD720

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LCD720 05/06/09

• New directions in teaching pronunciation
• Pronunciation in the curriculum

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Announcement

• Homework assignment
• Graded hw on interfaces due today
• Lesson plan / final paper
• Due next week (May 13, 630pm)
• Questions at the end of class
• Course evaluations
• http//www.qc.cuny.edu/courseevaluation
• See info on Blackboard and my webpage

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Issues in implementation
Today

• Techniques
• Curriculum
• Assessment and evaluation

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Traditional techniques

• What techniques have we discussed so far?
• Using the International Phonetic Alphabet
• Listening discrimination
• What else?

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Other techniques and strategies

• Multisensory teaching
• Authentic materials
• Fluency building
• Techniques from psychology and drama
• Using technology in pronunciation teaching (in
  two weeks)

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Multisensory teaching

• Using other modes to represent sounds
• Use of color in Silent Way
• Use of hand gestures to visualize intonation
  contours
• What else?

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Multisensory teaching

• Using other modes to represent sounds
• Visual/auditory reinforcement
• Tactile reinforcement
• Kinesthetic reinforcement

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Authentic materials

• Authentic materials
• Magazines, cartoons, advertisements
• Jokes, anecdotes
• Music, clips from TV
• Why use authentic materials?
• Can be more interesting relate to real life
• More up-to-date
• How to use these materials
• Spelling-sound correspondence Shopping for
  sounds
• Vowels or homophones jokes

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Fluency building

• Fluency vs. accuracy
• Goal Practicing pronunciation to achieve
  automaticity using communicative exercises
• Speaking about the same topic repeatedly and/or
  speaking about a range of topics
• Speaking in a challenging and interesting setting
• Discussion wheel (game)
• Personal collage

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Fluency building

• Characteristics of fluency and dysfluency
• Dysfluent speech
• Long pauses
• Many pauses short fluent runs
• Lack of prominence and clear intonation patterns
• Hesitations, repetitions, corrections
• Fluent speech
• Quick responses in conversations
• Something to say on any topic
• Fast speech rate
• Often trade-off with accuracy

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Techniques from drama

• Role play
• Dialogues
• Interviews in character
• Your opinion Are more readily able to pronounce
  English in a target-like manner when they assume
  a role? Why?
• Shadowing
• Repeating speech simultaneously with the speaker
• Or mirroring also repeat the speakers gestures,
  eye movements, body posture
• What can students learn from shadowing?

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Discussion

• What challenges do teachers face when using
  authentic materials?
• In what ways does fluency building seem like a
  valid undertaking for pronunciation teachers?
  What reservations might teachers and students of
  pronunciation have about fluency exercises? How
  might these reservations be overcome?

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• Curriculum

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Variables that influencethe language curriculum

• Learner variables
• Setting / language community
• School / institutional variables
• Target language
• Methodology

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Variables that influencethe language curriculum

• Learner variables
• Age, proficiency level, cultural background
• Aptitude, learning style
• Prior exposure, prior instruction
• Knowledge of other languages
• Motivation, educational/occupational needs
• Setting / language community
• Second/foreign language
• Mono/multilingual

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Variables that influencethe language curriculum

• School / institutional variables
• Teacher knowledge of phonetics/phonology,
  motivation, accent
• Curriculum and materials audiovisual facilities
  availability of tutor class size
• Target language
• Distance from first language segmental,
  suprasegmental
• Methodology
• E.g. Audiolingualism vs. Communicative Approach

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Objectives

• Selecting objectives
• You cant teach everything
• What has priority?
• Sequencing objectives
• You cant teach everything at once
• What will be taught first? What should/can wait?
• Needs, frequency, teachability
• E.g., you cant teach the plural noun allomorphs
  /z, s, ?z/, if the students cant distinguish
  /s/-/z/
• Presentation of objectives
• What teaching techniques will be used?

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Reflection

• How do learner variables influence the selection
  of teaching objectives?
• How would foreign vs. second language setting
  influence your syllabus design?

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Case study

• Low-proficiency adult immigrant students with
  emerging literacy skills
• Description of the population, setting, etc.
• Objectives
• Selection
• Arrangement/sequencing
• Presentation
• Application to other populations

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Case study - Description

• Low-proficiency adult immigrant students with
  emerging literacy skills
• Linguistically and culturally mixed
• Mostly Spanish and Hmong
• Recent arrivals
• No L1 literacy emerging or L2 literacy
• Prior instruction limited to listen and repeat
• 25-40 students per class open entry, open exit
• Whole language approach life skills and basic
  linguistic skills
• Student-produced and authentic materials

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Case study - Objectives

• Low-proficiency adult immigrant students with
  emerging literacy skills
• Numbers and letters
• Phone number, address, name
• Perception and production of certain vowels and
  consonants
• Initial and final consonant clusters when reading
• Linking and blending when reading
• Rising and rising/falling intonation when reading

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Case study - Selection

• Low-proficiency adult immigrant students with
  emerging literacy skills
• Whole-language approach no predetermined agenda
• Error analysis of students output
• Focus on intelligibility, rather than accuracy
• Focus on literacy
• Focus on segmentals at word level
• Focus on suprasegmentals at phrase and sentence
  level

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Case study - Sequencing

• Low-proficiency adult immigrant students with
  emerging literacy skills
• Guided by student errors
• Word reading before sentence reading
• Segmentals before suprasegmentals

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Case study - Presentation

• Low-proficiency adult immigrant students with
  emerging literacy skills
• Creating word bank of new words in text
• Segmentals
• Articulators (lips, tongue, teeth)
• Choral and individual listen and repeat
• Reading in pairs, teacher circulating
• Suprasegmentals Linking, blending and intonation
• Teacher reads text as model
• Students repeat chorally, phrase by phrase

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Case study - Application

• Low-proficiency adult immigrant students with
  emerging literacy skills
• Applicable to other literacy courses
• If the population is more homogenous, the
  students needs will be more defined
• E.g., parents or factory workers

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Case study

• Form groups of two or three (not more!)
• Choose and define a population that you have
  taught or expect to teach
• Describe the population in terms of age,
  proficiency, prior instruction, etc.
• Design a pronunciation course. Include info
  about
• Objectives
• Selection
• Arrangement/sequencing
• Presentation
• Application to other populations
• Hand in at end of class. Will be posted on
  Blackboard.

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• Questions about lesson plan / final paper?

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Next week

• Read Chapters 11 and 12
• Lesson plan / final paper due
• May 13, 630pm