Since my college decided to go online, I have been reading heaps of articles and blog posts on how to adapt my face-to-face EFL lessons to working on Zoom. I’ve found great ideas and resources shared by colleagues from all over the world! I have been experimenting with Zoom and adding the interaction patterns on my lesson plan to make sure that they continue to be student-centred. I’m lucky enough to have access to the IWB files of the books I teach, which makes it super easy to keep my lesson plans as close to what they actually are when I teach face-to-face, which I originally thought was the best thing to do. However, as I was finishing up my lesson plan for this Monday, I came up with two very important questions that I think we should all be asking ourselves:
So I did a little bit of research and sat down to think about ideas to share with colleagues so we can all help each other get through this crisis and come out stronger, more knowledgeable, and better prepared for the future. I have decided to break it down into different sections, which coincide with the different stages in a pronunciation class, as described by Celce-Murcia, Brinton and Goodwin (2010): 1. Description and analysis 2. Listening and discrimination 3. Controlled practice 4. Guided practice 5. Communicative practice 1. Description and analysis In this first stage, it is important to introduce the articulatory features of/differences between the aspects being taught. Doing this face-2-face would appear to be the best way, as students can actually see you producing the sounds and they can copy your articulation, right? Now think about doing this online: students can still see you through the webcam, and even better, they get a close-up view of your mouth without you having to get uncomfortably close! When learning how to articulate sounds, seeing the teacher is essential, but seeing your own articulation is just as vital. With Zoom, students can activate their cameras and look at their own mouths while saying the target sound. This will allow them to compare and contrast their articulation with that of their teacher and help them develop self-monitoring skills. Another good thing about doing this online is that there’s great resources out there to enhance the learning experience, such as the University of IOWA’s website (https://uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/), where students can see and play with the articulation of all (American) English phonemes. Consider sharing your screen with students as you show them how the tip of the tongue touches the upper teeth to produce the English dental fricative sounds. These visual cues will help students compare and contrast these sounds to their L1 sounds in an easier and more amusing way. At this stage, you and your students can also do a bit of silent mouthing. You can read words without producing sound, just mouthing silently, and have students write in the chat what word they think it is. Students can also do this in main sessions or Breakout Rooms. If you’re working on suprasegmental features, such as stress patterns, rhythm, intonation, you can tap the rhythm on the table, wave your arms around, clap, or indicate these features with your fingers. Students can also guess what word/phrase you’re producing based on the stress pattern or intonation. 2. Listening and discrimination This stage could be pretty straightforward and as close to what a face-2-face listening and discrimination exercise would be like: you can use the whiteboard function in Zoom to write some minimal pairs and ask students to comment in the chat what word/sound they hear. The good news is, there are heaps of online resources to use for this purpose, which you can share through your own screen, or give students the links to work more autonomously in Breakout Rooms. It’s always important to check in on them if they are working in groups, as they may need some guidance. Here’s some links I have found with all kinds of minimal pairs (vowels, consonants, stress patterns, intonation patterns) https://www.speech-language-therapy.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13:contrasts&catid=9:resources&Itemid=117 http://www.manythings.org/pp/ 3. Controlled practice How do we drill? It might be a bit difficult to have all students repeat at the same time in a main session, I mean, you can of course unmute them all and try it out, but the truth is you’re not going to be able to hear mistakes, or even know who’s who. I don’t think drilling just for the sake of drilling is a good idea. If you cannot give them feedback on what they are saying, what’s the point of repeating? They will just fossilize mistakes! When students are working on listening and discrimination in their Breakout Rooms, join in and take this opportunity to do some drilling. Give students words, phrases or sentences with audio so they can listen and repeat. Ask them to listen to each other in pairs and give each other feedback. If you do this in smaller groups as they work with the links/activities you’ve provided them, you’ll get to hear them properly and give them good feedback. It’s also less daunting for students, as they might not like to be put on the spot in front of everyone else. 4. Guided practice There’s loads of games and activities online that make our lives so much easier. I have compiled some activities I personally liked, but I am sure there are many more out there if you just type in what sounds/patterns/features you want your students to practise. I have been thinking about the interaction patterns for this stage, and I have come to the conclusion that you can adapt any of these activities to whatever pattern you feel more comfortable with. You may want to divide students into Breakout Rooms and give them digital copies or links for them to work in groups. Make sure you check on them regularly to give them some feedback. Some of these activities you can do in a main session by sharing your screen and asking students to provide answers through the chat, but bear in mind that you will have to encourage students to do these activities aloud at home (they need to speak/listen to figure out the right answers!), but unfortunately they are going to have to be muted. You can also give these links and activities to students to work on individually as part of classwork or for homework even. Here’s a couple of examples for you:
Take a look at these mazes you can download online: mazes for word stress: https://www.englishclub.com/esl-worksheets/pronunciation/stress.htm mazes for segmental phonetics: http://hancockmcdonald.com/sites/hancockmcdonald.com/files/file-downloads/SoundNotSpelling_0.jpg http://hancockmcdonald.com/sites/hancockmcdonald.com/files/file-downloads/maze%20heat%20hit.jpg http://hancockmcdonald.com/sites/hancockmcdonald.com/files/file-downloads/Corner%20to%20Corner%20worksheet.pdf
Some examples for you to look at: https://7f5acaa2-276d-411c-bf6c-8d9b96b7783b.filesusr.com/ugd/271a60_65f1d7afa99d46db89231f86a3f97118.pdf https://7f5acaa2-276d-411c-bf6c-8d9b96b7783b.filesusr.com/ugd/271a60_db6f62e1b88045cdad1f460b8f88856d.pdf For more ideas and resources take a look at these links. Like I said, you can give these to students to practise individually, or you can project these on your screen and play together. http://www.englishmedialab.com/pronunciation/regular%20past%20pronunciation%20ending%20sounds.htm http://www.esltower.com/PRONUNCIATION/interactive/homonyms-pre-intermediate/index.html http://www.englishmedialab.com/pronunciation/odd%20sound%20out.htm http://www.englishmedialab.com/pronunciation.html http://www.manythings.org/pp/ http://www.eslstation.net/quia-pron-activities.htm http://www.cambridge.org/elt/resources/skills/interactive/pron_animations/index.htm Other common activities you do in the classroom can be done online, too. For example, you can open the chat and ask students to write as many words as they can think of with the vowel sound or stress pattern you have taught. You can turn this into a competition to make it more fun, and you can then use these words for syntagmatic or paradigmatic drills. You can also use them for your communicative practice activity. 5. Communicative practice Don’t forget to include this last step in your lesson. Students will never fully acquire the sounds of English if they don’t get the chance to practise them in a freer and more spontaneous way. Give them a communicative task to work on in pairs or groups and divide them into Breakout Rooms. Make sure the task you give them requires them to use the specific features you have worked on. For example, if you give them role-play cards, also give them words to use that contain the vowel contrasts you have worked on. You can turn any speaking activity into a pronunciation communicative practice activity if you just give them some words or phrases to use! Take a look at these role-plays a colleague and I have created to work on vowel contrasts: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MNYqLyb31RNb7aX98DU7_WOdh8PDD09q/view?usp=sharing You can also ask students to prepare individual presentations, record themselves (try http://soundcloud.com or http://voicethread.com) and then share their presentations on your virtual classroom, or your padlet wall (http://padlet.com). Once they have all uploaded their work, give them instructions to listen to each other, give feedback, make comments or ask questions. It’s always a good idea for students to record themselves when doing speaking activities. Now that we’re teaching online this has become so much easier! Let’s take advantage of this and encourage students to take ‘progress shots’ of their speaking. They will feel very proud in a couple of months or even years when they see how far they’ve come! I hope this has helped you come up with ideas of how to teach pronunciation in your online lessons. If you have tried other resources and tools, I would love to hear from you. I’m new to online teaching and I am still trying to figure out what to do and how to do it. For some reason, teaching skills and grammar seems a lot easier, and that is why part of me was afraid that moving online would inevitably mean less chances to work on pronunciation. For someone like me, who enjoys teaching and learning about Phonology, that’s a scary thought! Let’s take this opportunity to re-think the way we teach pronunciation in our classes, and come up with new ideas to enhance the experience. A big thanks to Marina Cantarutti for her contributions. She's been curating online content for several years now and it's come in handy!
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One of the most important things I've re-discovered during my days at Pacific is that I'm very passionate about teaching: no matter who I teach, what I teach, where I teach, I would never give it up, and I'm certain no other career path would ever make me as happy.
Teaching in the US has been quite an interesting experience. Although I'd had briefly taught college students before, I was mostly teaching at secondary school back home, and the classroom dynamics are way too different. Secondly, I had never taught my mother tongue before, and that's been the biggest challenge. I guess that being a foreign language teacher back home has had its advantages when it comes to dissecting the language and breaking it down for students to make connections and make sense of it. However, I still struggle to find answers to questions about the language I had never asked myself before. The setting has also made this experience so enriching: there are plenty of resources available, and I feel that it'll be hard to go back home to chalk and blackboard (or marker and whiteboard, so innovative!) But in spite of the fact that circumstances are different, the act of teaching remains the same, and my passion for it, intact. This is why I have decided to reflect on it by writing this blogpost on the 13 reasons why I love teaching (since 13 reasons why is such a trending topic!). So here they go: 13. because I've had amazing teachers and professors who have shown me how important these "mentors" can be in your life, both as a professional and as a person. I will never forget my dearest Spanish Lit teacher and how much I looked forward to her classes every week. Her outlook on life, on social issues, her pragmatism, her passion... such an amazing human being! 12. because I hope I can inspire young people to become who they want to be. Education gives people the opportunity to be free, to have options, to be critical thinkers, and to make life choices that will accompany them wherever they go. 11. because I LOVE social interactions. I enjoy being surrounded by people, hearing their stories, exchanging ideas and opinions. Some people say that teaching is a lonely profession, and although it might be true for some, I don't completely agree. You might not share as much with colleagues if you don't take the time to do so, but you will inevitably be part of a team with your students inside your classroom. 10. because I learn from my students as much as I learn from the books. This is a cliché for sure, but that doesn't mean it's not true. Students have taught me in so many different ways: by sharing their experiences and ideas with the class, by asking questions I had no easy answer for, by challenging me to spark interest in them (oh that's a big challenge!), by pushing me out of my comfort zone and into the "I've-never-experienced-this-before area" 9. because teaching a foreign language allows me to encourage students to open their minds to new cultures. Globalization is a fact and we can all see it happening. However, to be ready to embrace it, there are a few values we should foster if we want to become global citizens. A foreign language opens the door to new ways of life, different value systems, as well as points of contact between cultures. It's fascinating! My life would be so incomplete without the amazing international friendships I've made throughout the years! 8. because being a teacher encourages me to pursue further studies. I don't know if this is just because I was born a nerd and because I enjoy studying and learning as much as watching Netflix in my free time, or because all teachers have it in them, but this life-long quest for knowledge is unstoppable. 7. because all these years I've been teaching, I've created wonderful bonds with students. As a student assistant, teacher assistant and teacher I have met amazing people and shared unforgettable experiences with them. They have made me smile, laugh, get angry, and even cry inside the classroom, and because emotions are always at stake when it comes to human interactions, bonding is inevitable. 6. because when classes end, I feel empty. After so many days together, so many memories, so many and varied emotions, how could I not feel sad? And this sadness quickly transforms into joy when I think about how much these people mean to me, and even more when I realize how much they've grown and how proud it makes me feel. Yeah, like a proud mom. 5. because I have fun inside the classroom. Isn't it like the perfect combination? Some people wait until they are done with work to have fun, and although I look forward to my social life, I have to admit that I find teaching fun. 4. because we have the power to create a safe space for students. It's not easy being a teenager: relationships with friends and family can be tough, and there is always so much drama going on, so many pent-up feelings that need to be voiced. Sometimes students just want to be listened. 3. because we can be role-models for students. I know most of the students I've had would never ever consider teaching as their career path. However, I still hope that I have (or will) spread my passion for teaching and learning to inspire them to be passionate about ANYTHING. 2. because I teach values as much as I teach grammar and vocab. Being a language teacher is just an excuse, really, although I am crazy about Linguistics and love torturing students with their syntax and pronunciation, at the end of the day I just hope they've learnt about life, about kindness and tolerance. 1. because I feel I can make a small contribution for the greater good. I might not bring world peace, or stop corruption, or even make all my students happy, but I still think that it is through education that we can change the world, step by step Hey, folks!
Long time no see.. literally and virtually, right? So this post, as the title suggests, will be all about Phonetics. For the past month, I have been trying to tune in my ears to discover trends in American pronunciation, and to my surprise, there is much more to talk about than I expected! I came to the US with the idea of doing research in thie field and eventually compile an activity book to teach American pronunciation back home. Having knowledge of RP/GB as background, would help me make a contrastive analysis of distinctive features, like the different types of "o" sounds, or the flapped /t/ and /d/, the dark /l/ in all positions and so on. But I have discovered that it's much more overwhelmingly different than I originally thought! Today I’m going to discuss some vowel variations I found interesting, but I also have some more things to say about suprasegmental and other segmental features. Disclaimer! So... I've been here for a month and a over a week now, and these are the features I've been able to isolate so far. I haven't done much research yet, just read a little bit about some of these features, and I haven't carried out any type of test, just asked some friends how the say certain words and if they rhyme with some other words to see what their perception of these sounds was. What I mean to say is that this is by no means a reliable source, just a starting point for future research. 1) Vowels My previous (and limited) knowledge of General American made no substantial distinction between the GB FLEECE, KIT, DRESS and STRUT vowels and the American ones, whereas the rest of the vowels were, according to my perception, the ones that were clearly different. For example, it is common knowledge that the TRAP vowel is more advanced, although I didn’t know before that before /m, n/ the tongue position for this vowel is raised and sometimes even followed by a glide. This, I have learnt recently, is called /æ/ tensing. I also knew that there was no distinction between the LOT vowel and the BATH vowel in words such as “dog” and “father”, and I also knew that some words that in GB take the THOUGHT vowel are sometimes produced with this same vowel [ɑ], but it was never clear for me when this took place. For those speakers who make no distinction between these sounds, the variant they use is this back vowel which may sometimes be produced with rounded lips. I have come to realise that it is possible a speaker to speaker variation or a regional characteristic. My original plan was to try and see which spellings corresponded with which type of “o” sound, but it appears to be much more complex than that. Those speakers that have a different vowel for words such as “pot” and “thought”, produce the first one as a centralized, rather advanced, back vowel [ä], and the second one higher up in the mouth with a more rounded lip position. A vowel that was way more different than I expected was the STRUT vowel. My previous perception, without actually giving it much thought, was that that it was more advanced than the GB one. However, when one of my professors kept of repeating the world “culture” I couldn’t help but write it down in my notebook with a question mark. Probably because of the influence of the dark /l/, this vowel is way more retracted than I previously thought. I kept on repeating the GB version in my head to compare it with this one and given that both are affected by the velarized resonance of the dark /l/, I came to the conclusion that these are two different sounds. I asked a friend to say the word for me several times, and to tell me if he thought this word rhymed with “pull” and he said it did. That got me thinking about both vowels actually, the STRUT and the FOOT vowel, especially when followed by a dark /l). To my perception, the latter sounds opener than the one in GB, and the former is rather retracted and maybe even somewhat closer than its GB partner, and both sounds strike me as similar to the RP LOT vowel, only somewhat closer and with less (or no) lip rounding. As far as diphthongs are concerned, I knew that American English –being a rhotic accent- would have less sounds than GB, so I knew I wouldn’t hear many (if at all…) centering diphthongs. I also knew that the starting point for the PRICE and FACE diphthongs would be more advanced. But there were some diphthongs that got me thinking and although I’m not sure about their occurrence and whether it is a speaker to speaker or a regional variation or whether it only affects some words or all, I felt it was worth writing about them! The first one is the diphthong in the word “yeah”, which I expected it to be some sort of a central glide, though I knew that it is basically non-existent in contemporary GB. I’ve heard different versions of this word, both of them with a monophthong. The first one was similar to the /ɛː/ sound found in GB, only shorter and more open. The second version was a vowel similar to the bath vowel, but also shorter and closer. Or at least this is what my ears have perceived… I’ll look into it soon! The other expression that I wrote down as “interesting” is the word “so”. Phonemically, this word is transcribed with the closing diphthong /oʊ / in American English. However, I have heard many speakers produced a monophthong that just omits the close vowel at the end. I have found this change when speakers are hesitant, fishing for words or making connections in their minds as they speak. I haven’t heard this diphthong change in any other contexts so far. I had actually planned to write more and cover some consonants and intonation patterns, but this post ended up being way longer than I expected, so I’ll keep my thoughts for the next one! Looking forward to reading your comments (hopefully I’ll learn some more from you!!) |
AuthorI'm Lucia Fraiese, an EFL teacher from Buenos Aires, Argentina, teaching English to international students in Perth, Western Australia. I have specialised in Phonetics and Phonology, and have taught General English, English Literature, English Phonetics, and Spanish as a Foreign Language. I'm also a Fulbright Alumnus. Take a look at the 'about' section for more information! Archives
March 2020
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