Job Discussion Forums

[ozinasia2010]

Hi Guys,

I'm doing the CELTA in a month or so and have been trying to get my head around phonology (i've never done it before). Does anyone know of any good resources on the internet to learn about phonology? Also, is the phonology in the CELTA very intensive, or just introductory? Thanks!

[nickpellatt]

I took a Trinity course rather than a CELTA, but I guess the principles of the course will be the same. Like everything on the short but intensive course, the subjects are really just introduced rather than studied for ages.

Phonology is basically the sound of the language, and this was covered in two areas really, both of which have major relevance to the language learner.

We had one or two input sessions on how native speakers actually speak. By this I mean how we run words together, miss out some sounds, and actually use language in a way that is different to how individual words may appear in a pronouncing dictionary. For example, 'D'ya wanna cuppa tea'. Easily understood to us (at least in the UK) but a lower level language student may think 'd'ya' is a single word (and not recognise it) and then not understand it.

Teaching students these patterns of speech with weak forms and ellision of sounds can help them understand and follow natural patterns of speech.

The second part of phonology we used on my course, which is again closely linked to the above, is the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, which shows students how words should be pronounced, or how they are actually pronounced when combined with weak forms and sentences. Again, this wasnt beaten to death on the course, but studied on one or two input sessions. I recall doing a game activity with IPA, where we had questions and answers written in IPA which needed translating.

The knowledge of both was then meant to be used in our teaching practice.

Im sure you can find an IPA alphabet online somewhere, and if you use dictionary.com you can see the IPA for each word. On my course we used IPA in classes to give students, so they could see how to pronounce key words ... checking with dictionary.com will help to make you familiar with how it works ... and you can play with it as well. Using my example earlier in the post, you could even write my sentence in IPA for practice to see how it works.

'Do you want a cup of tea?' written in IPA will look different to
'D'ya wanna cuppa tea?' and it is looking at examples of that nature that will probably be part of the course. Having a basic working knowledge of this will be more than 90% of other trainees have.

[ozinasia2010]

Thanks a lot for your reply. I've had a look at the IPA chart and have had a go at stringing some sentences together. My main worry was that it was going to be really intensive. I had a look at some intro phonology courses at some different uni's and it went straight over my head! Once again, thanks for the reply.

[fluffyhamster]

Do a search here on Dave's for 'IPA' with me 'fluffyhamster' as author and you'll get about a dozen resulting threads, several of which (especially the ones started by 'Littlebird') have lists of resources for learning about phonetics and phonology, if not some discussion about a CELTA task or two, or about issues in pronunciation teaching generally etc.

[nickpellatt]

[norwalkesl]

Phonology will only be 2 days at most in your CELTA during intake sessions. A basic working awareness is all they are looking for you to have.