We often present at ELT conferences and events. Just select the title below if you're looking for the handout or download from a talk or workshop you have attended.
Download the materials for the IP Athens workshop at the bottom of the page. Find lots more materials here. Find a video of Mark teaching with these materials here.
Download slides and other materials at the bottom of this page! Pronunciation crosses two domains: it is part language - like grammar or vocabulary, and part skill - like speaking or listening. This unique position makes pronunciation teaching interestingly varied – and potentially very enjoyable too.
In this session we’ll be trying out several listening activities. They all serve to help raise our awareness to the listening processes we employ and, simultaneously, demonstrate ways we can make the fruits of listening activities available for classroom inspection and reflection.
FREE WEBINAR!: Watch a recording here! Pronunciation is multi-faceted on account of its unique position on the boundary of language and skill, and the fact that it is both productive and receptive.
In this talk, we’ll see how the evidence of the ears can be influenced and thus is not as stable as we suppose. Having said that, an expert listener successfully employs a range of processes in order to understand what’s being said, but, obviously, it’s not so easy for the non-expert listener.
In this talk, I will aim to make some of the following points:
1. Not all pronunciation features are of equal importance for intelligibility.
2. The more common an accent variant, the more likely it is to be understood.
3. English has become a global lingua franca: “post-ELF” pronunciation teaching assimilates this fact.
4. Mutual intelligibility does not depend on accent homogeneity.
In this talk, I will try to explain and illustrate the following conclusions:
1. Not all pronunciation features are of equal importance for intelligibility.
2. The more common an accent variant, the more likely it is to be understood.
3. English has become a global lingua franca: “post-ELF” pronunciation teaching assimilates this fact.
At the beginning of the workshop, participants will do a paused transcription activity to bring the listening processes employed by expert listeners to a level of consciousness. Expert listeners usually understand what they hear with a seemingly high degree of automaticity and lack of effort.
Findings of research into the processing of spoken language point to the constructive nature of listening. In this talk, we’ll look at how L1 listening comprehension is influenced by various elements and compare this to the L2 listening endeavour. We’ll also exchange ideas on how we could possibly exploit this information when teaching listening to adults.
What does pronunciation teaching look like, once we assimilate the basic fact that English is a global lingua franca? In this presentation, we will explore that question. We will look at which aspects of pronunciation are essential for intelligibility and which aspects are more optional. We will look in more detail at how this distinction manifests itself on a phonemic chart.
