Another very rich week in terms of readings and assignments. The readings on "Teaching Aural/oral Skills", especially the article by Lindsey Miller, Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials showed us that listening is still a neglected skill even though it is beginning to receive more attention. Though listening is a skill that could easily be developed in our classrooms, I sometimes wonder why some of my colleagues almost never try it in their classes. Nowadays with all these technology devices, listening should occur as frequently as possible. I used to have a five-minute listening activity as a warm-up almost every time I stepped in a classroom. Something I still remember and that makes me laugh is about my first teacher of English. She used to carry a heavy tape recorder in class for her listening lessons. Of course that was more than 30 years ago. Nowadays with mobile devices and software, the teacher can design his own listening material very easily. By the way, I would recommend this very easy-to-use open source audio editing software : "Audacity".
Teaching pronunciation is another skill to be developed. My question is whether we have to teach the phonetic symbols...
This week, we have been introduced social bookmarking. Though I am not knew to social bookmarking (I have been using Diigo), I do like Delicious.
Using Delicious is much more user-friendly and I think this is the social bookmarking tool I will be using
I devoted much time reading the sample reports in the course website. We have made another step further in our projects. Going through these sample projects was really a good thing, it gave me a clear idea of what is expected as far as the final project is concerned.
Week 3 is almost finished and I am looking forward to spending another great week with all my classmates and of course, Donna our great instructor.
Teaching pronunciation is another skill to be developed. My question is whether we have to teach the phonetic symbols...
This week, we have been introduced social bookmarking. Though I am not knew to social bookmarking (I have been using Diigo), I do like Delicious.
Using Delicious is much more user-friendly and I think this is the social bookmarking tool I will be using
I devoted much time reading the sample reports in the course website. We have made another step further in our projects. Going through these sample projects was really a good thing, it gave me a clear idea of what is expected as far as the final project is concerned.
Week 3 is almost finished and I am looking forward to spending another great week with all my classmates and of course, Donna our great instructor.
Hello Jules,
ReplyDeleteReading the sample reports is a very helpful step to proceed to make my own project report. I am still confused about having clear objectives.
As for teaching pronunciation, I think it very important and I use phonetic symbols to my students since Japanese has simpler sound system. I am sometimes cautious not to put too much focus on pronunciation so that my students will not be discouraged.
Sawako
Hello Jules,
ReplyDeleteteaching phonetic symbols is the question which cannot be easily responded. In my opinion, we do not have to teach students all symbols, but give them opportunity to recognise them passively. What I mean is they do not have to know how to do transcript but to be able to read words according to it. One of the most important symbols they should be aware of is that of marking stress since it may change the meaning of the word.
On the other hand, with the use of technology is much easier for our students to open online dictionaries and first to try to read how to pronounce the particular word and then to "play" and listen to the pronunciation of the word.
As you mentioned your teacher carrying a heavy tape recorder in class, having enough materials for listening is essential for students to acquire the language.
In your comment on my blog you asked me if there is really a problem of having the "mixture" of British and American pronunciation since we may speak about Englishes today. One of my university teachers insisted on using either British or American English otherwise we should be assessed with lower marks for not distinguishing the differences, especially in writing assignments. Now I am doubting her :-)
I am proud of being able to help my students with their pronunciation in order them to be intelligible to the others and be free to speak without being frustrated.
Monika