Tuesday, May 20, 2014

New pronunciation teaching videos by Adrian Underhill!

Credit: Youtube.com
Macmillan has just released the first of Adrian Underhill's new pronunciation teaching video series. Here is the announcement from his blog, AdrianPronChart.wordpress.com. Adrian has always been one very tuned in to the visual/physical side of pronunciation teaching. His Pronunciation Chart is excellent. Aspects of that framework were instrumental in the design of the Essential Haptic-integrated English Pronunciation (EHIEP) framework.

The complete video series, planned to be 35, 3-minute videos should be a good complement to the Acton Haptic English Pronunciation System (AH-EPS) haptic video program. Knowing Underhill, it will, I'm sure, provide a thorough and entertaining presentation for both teachers and learners. (Once a little more of it is available, I'll review it in depth and link it to our work.)

What he typically does well is provide understanding of key elements of (British) pronunciation for learners and instructors, a wide range of applicable techniques--especially kinaesthetic--and practice opportunities/guidelines following from that. If that is what you are looking for, you probably cannot find a better video-based source. (If you are still more dead-tree-bound, Gilbert's work is my recommendation as a good place to begin.)

By contrast, for a number of reasons, AH-EPS:

  • Does not do as much explicit explanation and metacognitive management
  • Is haptic-based rather than kinaesthetic
  • Presents a more restricted set of formal features to work with
  • Uses a vowel chart that is the mirror image of the AdrianPronChart
  • Focuses on doing some limited teaching for the instructor, in class
  • Sets up impromptu, spontaneous modelling and correction of pronunciation
  • Is designed primarily for instructors with little or no background in pronunciation teaching

A most welcome addition. Check it out.





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