Love your English Consonants Repair Workshop!!!

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This is big. I love English consonants, most all of them. I didn't always. My relationship with them changed when I was introduced to Lessac's Use and Training of the Human Voice. In Lessac's system each consonant is identified with a musical instrument of the (classical, Western) orchestra. To "do" the consonant, then, the student "impersonates" the instrument, perhaps even by acting out the

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movement associated with it. (My favourite, by the way is the N-trombone.)

Our haptic approach takes Lessac as a point of departure and adds touch and conscious attention to movement in various ways. Of course, most good consonant work entails some degree of tactile and kinaesthetic awareness. (Speech therapists have an advantage on us in being licensed to actually touch their patients! We use coffee stirs instead!)

May 23rd, 2015 at the BCTEAL Annual Conference at UBC in Vancouver, BC we'll be doing the FIRST Consonant Repair Workshop EVER! We have been trying to get this proposal accepted at a conference for several years now with no success. (I do not give up easily!) The basic comments from reviewers have often been something to the effect of: "Who cares?" "Segmental issues (vowels and consonants) are not that important." "Not a high priority!"

That attitude is changing, as research points out how for some learners from diverse L1's (such as Vietnamese) certain consonant issues can be exceedingly disruptive to intelligibility and need to be addressed early in instruction.

Join us!

Here is the abstract:

This workshop presents haptic-based (movement plus touch) techniques for improving pronunciation of select English consonants. Depending on participant preference, included are: th/th, f/v, l/n, r, s/z, sh/zh, y, w, voiced final consonants and initial consonant aspiration. It is appropriate for relatively inexperienced instructors of middle-school age learners and older.