Hi Colleagues,
I'm teaching a conversation and pronunciation class this term and want a go-to resource that will help me identify common pronunciation issues by L1. Ideally, I would do face-to-face and/or recorded assessments for my whole class but I don't see that happening soon enough given the length of this summer class and the class size. For the short-term, I want details about Ukrainian, Mongolian and Portuguese. I'm really good at going down rabbit holes and getting distracted by all the fabulous research out there. That is something I want to avoid completely with this effort! If you are aware of a resource with such detail, I would appreciate learning about it.
Thanks!
Ellen
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Instructor, Arlington Education and Employment Program (REEP)
Comments
Hi Ellen, I know what you mean about those pesky rabbit holes! They are hard to avoid.
Here are a few things that I found doing a quick search for the languages you are working with.
Mongolian
Ukrainian
Portuguese
Some members may have more ideas for you. Best of luck, Ellen!
Cheers, Susan Finn Miller
Moderator, English Language Acquisition CoP
I also highly recommend Learner English by Swan and Smith. It compares many languages to English and is very specific in describing the interference points.
Laurie Martin, Adult Learning Resource Center
Thank you so much, Laurie and Susan, for your recommendations of resources that detail pronunciation issues for Ukrainian, Mongolian, and Portuguese speakers. I have a copy of Learner English on the way and I've delved into the Mongolian resource. It turns out I have a bit of time to do assessments from voice recordings of each student. I'm using the diagnostic passage from the Teaching Pronunciation appendices (Celce-Murcia, Brinton, Goodwin, et al). So, my students' L1 interference will have a better and more informed look and listen. All good.
Ellen Clore-Patron, REEP
Our community is a great place to pose questions and request ideas from colleagues across the country. We are all the richer for it!
Ellen, I'm glad you mentioned Teaching Pronunciation by Celce Murcia and colleagues. Anyone interested in learning more about the complex task of teaching pronunciation would benefit from this book. I would say it's the best primer out there.
Cheers, Susan
Having resources to help incorporate pronunciation lessons into multi-skills classes and dedicated speaking classes is invaluable. I've just begun teaching a pronunciation class so I'm revisiting some of the resources I have at home to create my plans. Here are some of the resources I have and like for both purposes:
Betsy Parrish has published at least one edition of Teaching Adult ESL: A Practical Introduction that provides a good 15 pages about teaching pronunciation. It has three sections, including one about what to teach and and another with different approaches to pronunciation instruction. If you need some motivation to get started teaching pronunciation in a dedicated fashion, she makes a good case for it. I also like her controlled practice activities a lot.
Susan and I mentioned the Teaching Pronunciation text previously. I can't emphasize enough how many ideas and activities it provides in its 550+ pages. Those ideas make teaching pronunciation for both accuracy and fluency much easier. It also emphasizes communicative practice which is really accessible for planning purposes with the multitude of activities. It is a textbook you can find it on Amazon beginning at about $25 used. The hardcover is about $130. I've used the text enough to have to tape my edition's soft cover back on! It's marvelous.
I'm also a big fan of using the Color Vowel system. Investing the time to learn and practice with Color Vowel is invaluable. The approach uses a color-coding system to isolate and classify vowels along with a lot of ways to maximize its use. It's definitely an excellent alternative to teaching with the phonetic alphabet. Good stuff.
That's my bit anyway.
Ellen