Job Discussion Forums

[john123]

Greetings.

I've slaved away in recent weeks in my attempts to develop several of my students' communication skills - and also see whether teaching connected speech is met with approval from two people who had been used to rocking up and having a good old chat with their previous teachers. Sure, they are very communicative B2 level students, but I am adamant that fluency is a perception. In my opinion, therefore, only with a healthy smattering of connected speech features (vowel to vowel gildes, schwa, catenation etc..) can they advance beyond B2.

One of the students is well into his connected speech. The other one, whose receptive skills are lacklustre, is overwhelmed by it all.

Interesting period though - I never thought that I would delve into depths of phonology.

I suppose this is more of a general discussion type post, but I am in Poland. Any experience or comments?

Regards
John

[Richfilth]

I bring pronunciation up every few months, but not many students are receptive to it. They won't immediately considerate a necessary element of high-level English in the way that tenses and article mastery is, so you have to be prepared to convince them that speech training is important.

I normally use a mix of videos to demonstrate how speech manners are connected to character perception, and training materials from all over the place. Headway Advanced has some very handy pages with speech exercises, and one of the vintage speech books is How Now Brown Cow by Mimi Ponsonby (very old-school).

If students struggle it's worth giving them Phonology 101 with a drawing of the mouth, and working through the alphabet to explain the manners of articulation. I'm not suggesting you explain alveolar fricatives, but this link (http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~danhall/phonetics/sammy.html) should explain how the mouth moves based on what sound you're making.

[TwinCentre]

Whilst I found many Asian students receptive to phonology and connected speech, prominence etc etc, in Poland it was often met with blank stares, so I taught it to them in a very non-obvious way...through example rather than any explanation....they can pick it up sub-consiously...almost.

[Master Shake]

With kids it's so easy. I just tell them 'we're going to sing a song' or 'do a chant' and they enjoy it.

With adults, I really try to sell it to them first. I give them my spiel about how most communication problems are caused by poor pronunciation, not grammar or vocab mistakes. I testify that many English speakers complain that Poles sound like robots when they talk. Then I explain how Polish is a stressed-timed language but English is syllable-timed and that's why you have these problems, yadda yadda....

Usually, they'll at least give some pron and connected speech activities a try after this.

Catch 22 alert: The students who are good at and like these activities are the ones who already have good pronunciation. The ones who suck at and hate them are the hopeless robots.

[Sashadroogie]

[Master Shake]

Sorry, English is stressed-timed and Polish is more syllable-timed. Some linguists disagree as to whether Polish is actually stress or syllable-timed.

Good thing I got it right in class.

[ecocks]

The part you nailed though is that the ones who need it least are the ones most likely to take to it and enjoy it.

I truly detest this whole "don't want to be embarrassed" attitude in this region (not just Poland but also the FSU countries). A co-worker who did a couple of years in China related he saw far less of it there or in Indonesia than this region. You actually get a sullen response and complaints sometimes that the teacher MAKES me talk in front of others.

I appreciate nervousness and stage fright but....you can't learn to swim if you don't get in the water.

[sparks]

This should help you shake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUMM5eCvi8w

[scot47]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochrony

[Master Shake]

[Richfilth]

I've used Fork Handles before, but you do need to pre-teach a lot of vocab, and the final joke always falls flat. F-U-N-E-X works a lot better, but does nothing for connected speech.