I got my first teaching job in 1984, working at a large boy's secondary school in El Obeid, Sudan. This experience made it very clear to me that there's a lot more to teaching English than just being able to speak the language!
Watch the video for a brief explanation of this pronunciation point. Download the jpeg image. Ask your students to work in pairs and read it aloud. Explain that it is written wrongly and ask them to work out what it should say.
The opening plenary was a presentation by Russell Stannard on the use of screencapture tools as a ´revolutionary´ way of providing feedback to students. Screencapture tools effectively create a video of what´s occurring on a (portion of) computer screen, including highlighting, cursor movements and so on, plus the voice of the user as picked up on the microphone.
Here is a short quiz, ideal as a fun warmer or finisher, on the topic of the internet. Find the audio and script below. For a harder quiz, try Watery World.
Thank you for coming to my talk on Pronunciation as a Listening Skill. As a follow up, I'd like to provide links to all the material mentioned in the session. First of all, the authentic listening about Facebook comes from Unit 50 of this book.
Perhaps the most important part of effective teaching is the ability to motivate our learners. Part of this ability lies in the personal style of the teacher. But motivation can also be boosted by well-selected and well-prepared methods and means.
What’s your ELT footprint? This is one of the questions we will look into in “A Map of ELT” at the English UK North academic conference in Leeds on Saturday Oct 8th. After looking at the map and how it is organized, we’ll consider how it may be used for teacher reflection, critical awareness and for a ‘bigger picture’ perspective on topical issues in ELT.
Ray Parker argued that, regarding stress-timing and rhythm, we have tended to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The notion that natural spoken English has a regular rhythm, he says, has been discredited by the research, but our response has been to abandon both that, and any attention to stress-timing.
Mark: Great pronunciation event at the weekend. Adrian Underhill shared insights in how sounds are articulated and relate to one another (see his blog on the phonemic chart here).
