Job Discussion Forums

[Theriel]

Hey all!

I'm a teacher here in Finland, have been around on Dave's for a while, but disappear for long periods of time. Anyway, I was planning on heading to SE asia for some travels for 4 months or so, and was thinking of working in Vietnam for 2 of those.

I have an MA in Phonetics, 2 years experience teaching Articulatory Phonetics at the University of Helsinki, and then about 8 years teaching General and Business English on the side, as well as some personal training in English phonetics.

I think my qualifications are pretty good, but was wondering what my chances are of offering month long phonetics courses, either on English or a general articulatory phonetics course (so that you have a good grasp of sounds when you learn a new language, no matter what it may be).

Any thoughts? I'd be basically squeezing myself into a niche where there isn't one, and for some people the subject may be slightly esoteric. I can always do English if Phonetics isn't really interesting for people, but my passion is making funny noises, and I have to say my class IS useful if you want to learn new languages

Ther

[mach114]

I don't think I have ever seen a course like that at any of the language schools. There might be a chance for you to teach at Vietnamese Universities. The pay at those universities is really low. You might try approaching RMIT. I am sure you could find a good teaching job, just not necessarily teaching Articulatory Phonetics. Here is RMIT's address.

http://www.rmit.edu.vn/

[Theriel]

Thanks, I'll email them and see what they say.

And I'm not really sure that I ever saw the course offered almost anywhere, to be honest. It's a very small-niche sort of field. I've seen English pronunciation courses offered here and there, but aside from SIL's course in England and my own, I suspect these sorts of general articulatory phonetics courses are few and far between. There are more than likely under 10 in the world.

One other option that came to mind would be teaching teachers how to teach pronunciation. Do you think that might have any luck? I've met a lot of teachers who tend to avoid the pronunciation aspect of teaching because they don't really know how to explain how to make a sound, so if the student struggles with it, they just move on to other areas.

Either way, if the pronunciation stuff doesn't fly, I've taught English enough that I can always just do that, too.

Don

[mcsensei]

Theriel, I would say that your biggest hurdle would be that you only plan to be in VN for a couple of months. If you were here 6 to 12 months it may be more feasible to set up a course like that for students and / or teachers.

I have a lot of expereince teaching pron in Japan, the US and in Vietnam. Currently, I run a pron clinic at my school. I've also had graduate classes in phonetics and phonology, but I did not focus on theoretical linguistics.

PM me and if you would like to meet up when your in HCMC.

Good luck!

[akaness]

Hello, Ther:

I'm an American EFL trainer in HCMC for 18 months now - I specialize in American English speech/pronunciation.

Yes, I am finding some interest here in phonetics / pronunciation. The interest, however, does not match the need. Vietnamese, like Thais, are almost universally trained to pronounce one word at a time - even at language centers run by foreigners. Disastrously, these people are not trained to associate sounds with letters and they are not reoriented to the consonant-dominance of English.

The only phonetics course I've found was taught by a Vietnamese fellow. His academic grasp of phonetics seemed reasonable, but he had no practical method for imparting articulation skills to his students. He also had some serious articulation shortcomings of his own, of course.

The need is profound, the interest is modest.