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!
In one-to-one pronunciation teaching, we must assess what the individual student needs and find the best way of providing it. We can’t use a pre-determined syllabus or ‘set-piece’ pronunciation materials. Instead, we need to be flexible enough to negotiate and adapt both syllabus and methods. For this, we need to keep three questions in mind:
Have fun in class and raise awareness of how pronunciation affects listening at word level and across words. Find the teacher's notes and worksheet pdf below, plus a video/karaoke of the song, and an audio-only mp3.
This is a fun awareness-raising activity based on a video - see below. There is also an audio-only version available to download. See also Yes, today and Hay chewed.
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.
