Korean Job Discussion Forums

[losing_touch]

My academy is one where students spend 40 minutes with a Korean teacher to go over the basics. This includes the typical drilling and killing. It does not incorporate any kind of communicative based activities. I am pretty much free to do as I see fit. I have mostly intermediate students at this stage in the game. There is a curriculum, but I find it lacks any kind of true communicative rationale. I am trying to change this. I figure that since the students are getting their fill of traditional Korean teaching, I will branch out and experiment a little bit. My students are required to give speeches on Friday, so I cannot change that. They must write their speeches, but I do not allow them to use the written form on speech day. Instead, I am trying to incorporate proper writing techniques for students through speech writing. Personally, I think a journal activity would be more effective. Nonetheless, do you have any comments regarding my draft plan for the upcoming week? It is as follows:

Vowel Sounds � American English has 15 vowel sounds. This is an experiment. This week incorporates Task Based Language Teaching focusing on the segmental feature of vowel sounds in American English. It is designed for one week, but two weeks may be more appropriate, as it is a difficult subject for non-native speakers.

Day 1: Introduction to Vowels
� The following colors represent the vowel sounds used in American English: Gray, Red, Orange, Mustard, Wood, Olive, Brown, White, Silver, Blue, Turquoise, Green, Purple, Rose, Black
� Intensive drilling to ensure colors are pronounced correctly.

Day 2: Introduce Color Vowel Chart
� http://www.american.edu/tesol/color%20vowel%20chart1-98.pdf
� http://www.american.edu/tesol/color%20phrase%20vowel%20chart.pdf
� The color vowel chart should be shown to students. More drilling of the colors and words to be used in the Vowel Sounds Discovery Activity to follow. Ensure students understand the meaning of the words to be used.

Day 3: Task Based Vowel Discovery Activity
� Students should be put into small groups. Each student will get the same number of cards if possible. The students should know how to say each word correctly from the previous two days. Students must work together to pronounce the word correctly and place them into the appropriate category. There are 15 categories represented by the color. Each category will have 4 additional words that correspond to the color.
� Teacher intervention should be minimized. Students should work together to listen to, compare, and correct what they hear from each other.

Day 4: Speech Writing
� Each student should be given an opportunity to talk about what they learned for the week. Each student will be given a different vowel sound to speak about. The speech should be 5 sentences. The sentences should not include the greeting or closing. Students should identify 5 words that match their target vowel sound. Students should be paired for this process as an additional task to facilitate their learning of the vowel sounds.
� The speech writing should follow proper paragraph form including indentation, periods, and capitalization.

Day 5: Speech Presentation

[losing_touch]

Yes, I realize this lesson is based on segmentals, but I think the students will appreciate that before I dive into more suprasegmental aspects of spoken English like word stress, intonation, etc.

[meangradin]

I'm no expert on these matters, but aren't there 18/19 vowel sounds?

There are 13 front/back sounds alone, plus schwa, and

ur in urge
er in father
y in my
oi in oil
ow in cow

[losing_touch]

American English has 15 vowel sounds. There are variations with dialect, but generally it is accepted that there are 15 in standard speech.

[meangradin]

out of curiosity, what are the 15?

[losing_touch]

http://www.american.edu/tesol/color%20vowel%20chart1-98.pdf

[meangradin]

thanks for the link.

how do you regard these two sounds? They were not listed in the 15.

ur in urge
er in father

The American book I teach from includes them as vowel sounds, with the difference being strength of articulation and that the softer sound can never occur in the initial position.

[losing_touch]

For my dialect, father would fall under "olive".

Urge would fall under "purple".

[meangradin]

do orange and olive have the same initial sound?

Respectfully, I just don't see how the er in father could = olive. Where are you from?

[losing_touch]

[Katchafire]

Father and Olive are aw sounds? So .. Fawther, awlive?
Sounds almost South African - depending how you pronounce the 'aw'. (I say 'or').

For me (NZ) Father - the ar from car .... and Olive - the o from pot.

I've always found it fascinating comparing the vowel sounds from various places.