ELT thoughts, news and updates

Manchester in summer is not always something to write home about, but this summer was different. Norwich Institute of Language Education (NILE) offered their first ever pronunciation teaching course, and I was the tutor and course designer. It took place as part of NILE’s summer programme at their Manchester site.

On the TESOL Spain website (click here), you can now see videos of various speakers from the 2016 conference in Vitoria, conducted by Gerard McLaughlin.

This course is aimed at teachers of English who wish to broaden their knowledge of the various issues involved in teaching pronunciation.

More information in the Talks section .

The 4th International Conference on English Pronunciation: Issues & Practices (EPIP) was a three day event in Prague.

I can’t remember ever having seen so many pronunciation-focused talks on an IATEFL programme as there were in Manchester this year. Too many to fit into a single PRONSIG strand day. What’s more, many of them were so over-subscribed that there wasn’t even space to sit on the floor, as I found out to my own disappointment. I did get to see a fair number, nevertheless.

Here are the phonemic chart for vowels and consonants. See a video explanation of the vowels here. Click on the jpegs below for either the colour or black and white versions. If you prefer a version with no mention of alcoholic drinks, choose the files with ME at the end of the title.

For myself and many other ELT professionals, Stephen Krashen is a legend. In the words of Wikipedia, for instance ‘He is credited with introducing various influential concepts ... including the acquisition-learning hypothesis, the input hypothesis, the monitor hypothesis, the affective filter, and the natural order hypothesis’. So naturally, he is a big pull at a conference.

Mike McCarthy gave the opening plenary at English UK Academic (North) conference last Saturday (Oct 4 2014), revisiting the topic of the grammar of spoken English. Spoken language, he pointed out, is in no way an imperfect, poorly realized version of the written form.

In a profession of many specialist interests, it's important to keep the big picture in mind in order to maintain a balanced and proportional outlook. Enthusiasms are great, but need to be kept in context. With this purpose in mind, I have been developing conceptual maps of aspects of ELT - so it's beginning to turn into an atlas. Click below for: