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and i find it really helpful to follow this information/experience swap
Telephone English courses
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
Accents?
I will have to teach some telephone English courses on my new job. We have in-house modules to teach (that I am not free to share outside the organization, sorry.)
I do wonder, though, about how to go about teaching accents. Several staff who work the phones are unable to understand Indian, British, and Australian accents. They also have difficult with Japanese accents, but I told them I would have difficulty understanding them myself.
We have a fairly international organization. I was thinking of recording some of our staff's accents. The problem is that the British and Indians tend to have very high-ranking roles, and I hate to ask the CEO to come do a recording session.
Does explaining how the vowels are pronounced differently in different dialects before presenting a tape of the dialects help some students? I saw a chart of this with American English in Dialectology class as a university student, but I don't know if it will actually help students learning to recognize new accents.
I do wonder, though, about how to go about teaching accents. Several staff who work the phones are unable to understand Indian, British, and Australian accents. They also have difficult with Japanese accents, but I told them I would have difficulty understanding them myself.
We have a fairly international organization. I was thinking of recording some of our staff's accents. The problem is that the British and Indians tend to have very high-ranking roles, and I hate to ask the CEO to come do a recording session.
Does explaining how the vowels are pronounced differently in different dialects before presenting a tape of the dialects help some students? I saw a chart of this with American English in Dialectology class as a university student, but I don't know if it will actually help students learning to recognize new accents.
To continue from Link_H's post...
I once worked for a training centre that was helping a large French pharmaceutical group as they took over a company in the US. My boss persuaded the company to send him to the US with a cameraman, where he interviewed many of the employees. The interviews were about their jobs, their work responsibilities and also hobbies and interests. On his return, we made tapes and videos to use in the classroom.
Anyway, it was a great success. The French employees had access to very 'authentic' materials, and the Americans were glad to help out and to be involved.
So, why not try to interview some of the 'top brass' ? It could have positive effects beyond the realms of language training. What would be the effect if the staff see that the CEO is a keen fisherman or that he has 2 daughters ?
Just one thing though - try to keep your interviews short (or edit them to make them short). There's nothing worse then searching a long tape to try to find the bit you want to use in the classroom. Also, if you want to make transcripts, short interviews take much less time to prepare.
I once worked for a training centre that was helping a large French pharmaceutical group as they took over a company in the US. My boss persuaded the company to send him to the US with a cameraman, where he interviewed many of the employees. The interviews were about their jobs, their work responsibilities and also hobbies and interests. On his return, we made tapes and videos to use in the classroom.
Anyway, it was a great success. The French employees had access to very 'authentic' materials, and the Americans were glad to help out and to be involved.
So, why not try to interview some of the 'top brass' ? It could have positive effects beyond the realms of language training. What would be the effect if the staff see that the CEO is a keen fisherman or that he has 2 daughters ?
Just one thing though - try to keep your interviews short (or edit them to make them short). There's nothing worse then searching a long tape to try to find the bit you want to use in the classroom. Also, if you want to make transcripts, short interviews take much less time to prepare.