Current Trends in English Pronunciation Teaching Websites

1. Current Trends in English Pronunciation Teaching Websites NadègeNeta Northern Arizona University

2. Introduction • Introduction • Current trends • Trend #1: Explicit illustration of sound production • Trend #2: Minimal pairs • 3 websites and their classroom applications • What’s missing? • Create supplementary material!

3. Your personal experience • Do you know any ESL/EFL pronunciation website? • How have you used them in your classroom?

4. Current Trends • See synthesis table Trend #1: Explicit illustrations of sound production Trend #2: Minimal pair drilling exercises

5. Trend 1: Explicit illustration of sound production • Images from Rachel’s English

6. Trend 1: Explicit illustration of sound production • Video clip from Rachel’s English

7. Trend 1: Explicit illustration of sound production Beneficial if: • focuses on jaws and lips • shows tongue movement • includes manner & place of articulation (Celce-Murcia et. Al, 2010)

8. Trend 2: Minimal pair exercises (listen & repeat)

9. Trend 2: Minimal pair exercises • sheeporship.com: http://www.shiporsheep.com/page1.html • manythings.org http://www.manythings.org/mp/m30.html

10. Trend 2: Minimal pair exercises In all the websites! • Popular: learners respond to their perceived needs (Derwing & Rossiter, 2002) • But, do not take into account functional load & intelligibility principle (Levis & Cortes, 2008) • Not contextualized (Celce Murcia et al., 2010)

11. Importance of Context

12. What’s missing? • Balance between segmentals & suprasegmentals • Segmentals: individual sounds • Suprasegmentals: intonation, pitch, linking, stress • Feedback (Neri, CucciariniStrik, & Boves, 2002) input output feedback

13. A quick look at 3 websites • Rachel’s English http://www.rachelsenglish.com/ • LiveMocha http://livemocha.com/ • Pronuncian http://pronuncian.com/

14. Rachel’s English: Applications • Assign specific sound lessons • Practice: Imitation exercises • Pronunciation lessons in context

15. Rachel’s English: Imitation Exercise

16. Rachel’s English: Pronunciation in Context

17. Live Mocha: Applications • Follow your students’ progress • Create a community of learners • Connect with other languages & cultures • Learners help each other

18. Live Mocha: learners help each other

19. Pronuncian: Applications • Assign specific sound lessons • Resource to create lessons • Listen to free Podcasts (+ transcript)

21. Your impressions?

22. Develop supplementary material • http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/13758009/az-tesol-presentation • Personalized material • Focus on specific features • Feedback possible • Contextualized pronunciation • Communicative setting • Use a movie-making website in your classroom!

23. Xtranormalhttp://www.xtranormal.com/

24. Xtranormal Tutorial • Tutorial: xtranormal_tutorial_screencast.wmv

25. Uses in the language classroom: • Record lectures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH31hbUyLMY&feature=related • Simulate social encounters • Recreate historical scenes: http://www.xtranormal.com/historic_figurez • Interview famous people: http://www.xtranormal.com/futbol • Lead political debates: http://www.xtranormal.com/fmprez_showpak • Direct a fiction movie

26. Endless opportunities Develop creativity • Work on pragmatics • Work on accuracy Record your lectures • Work on writing skills Pair Task Individual Task • Work on fluency

27. 3 versions

28. My experience with Xtranormal • NAU Program in Intensive English • Level 1 students (beginners) • 1 class session • Free: basic version • Handouts

29. Questions?