Perfect pronunciation?

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Clker

There are any number of ways to do that, of course. ("Per'fect" it, that is!) One place I would generally not begin with beginners or upper beginners, however, would be at the Merriam Websters Learner Dictionary and its "Perfect Pronunciation Exercises."  As noted in earlier posts, one place I might start however, one of my favorites, one very compatible with AH-EPS, is at English Accent Coach. The "difference" between the two sites is instructive. One begins with listening to words in sentence context; the other, begins with the sounds themselves, leads learners through a series of exercises (and games) and then extends to the sounds in words, etc. The EAC model is a good one, whether you use that specific site or do the same within your listening/pronunciation syllabus/curriculum. Most of the traditional pronunciation packages did something similar but did not have the technology available to make it fast and efficient, as does EAC.

Now EAC will probably not entirely agree with me that embodying them first gives learners a much better "touch" for the vowels of English, before they play the game there, but give Professor Thomson a break . . . he's listening.

So, once you finish Module 3 in AH-EPS, send your students over to EAC for some very fine, fine tuning. 

Disembodied anchoring strategies in pronunciation work

There are good sources of recommendations on how to integrate pronunciation into classroom instruction. Here is a nice 2004 piece by Levis and Grant which covers the basic options. (I recommend reading it before continuing if you are not familiar with that general framework.) Note that after identifying those aspects of pronunciation that should be attended to and setting up teaching contexts, they identify several (mostly visual, aural/auditory, cognitive/noticing) anchoring strategies:

(a) pointing out errors or processes
(b) providing formal rules
(c) oral repetition/practice
(d) writing something down on the board or in notes
(e) student discussion or analysis
(f) impromptu oral comments linking current issue to earlier work
(g) A further assumption is that the effects of relevant context, meaningful practice, communicative "cash value" and student initiative will do the rest. You'd think it would . . .

Clip art: Clker

Clip art: Clker

Previous blogposts here have explored in great detail why adding haptic-based anchoring is potentially so much more effective than traditional approaches alone which, for the most part, either (1) stop short of guiding the learner to efficient "storage" options for new sounds (with explanations, demands to "notice" or assumptions that uptake is the learner's responsibility, not the instructor's) --or (2) simply attempt to drill the changes into submission. In subsequent posts we will consider how to "hapticulate" or embody some of the strategies described by Levis and Grant.