I will be hosting an IPA session on silent modelling of the vowels and consonants in English. I would love to see you all there on the 18th January at 6.30pm or thereabouts.
My method is taken from what is called 'Silent Way' the brainchild of Caleb Gattegno. Adrian Underhill has successfully utilised this method and teaches using the silent model. This workshop will essentially model what he does.
Here is a link to how Adrian approaches the IPA and silent modelling.
The central question is; Is teaching pronunciation a physical act or a mental act? Grammar and lexis are often seen as mental representations of language and teachers find these 'easier to teach' than aspects of phonology. Teachers (especially non native teachers) find the teaching of pronunciation difficult. Often trainee teachers find drilling a difficult technique to master for a wide variety of reasons and often don't see the utility of it during a preliminary training course. Language learners across the world know though that drilling makes a big difference to their mastery of language.
We will discuss silent modelling and a whole lot more. I would like to talk to you about aspects of phonology such as prosody, contrastive and lexical stress and the role of teaching intonation- this is a particular challenge. I believe there is no consistent approach to teaching intonation. ELT literature offers nothing accessible to the English language teacher. We all know our learners need explicit help with intonation but there is little if not nothing on how to teach it and improve our learners ability in this area.
Here is a good website to get an idea about Silent way and improving the teaching of pronunciation
I look forward to seeing you there.
Will Tichener
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