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Download the tools you need for English Pronunciation and Phonetics
If you have any question, please contact ckliu@mail.ntpu.edu.tw
A tentative schedule for English Pronunciation and phonetics at NTOU
Course schedules

Instructor: Ching Kang Liu
(National Taipei University)
Tel. (2)8674-6633; E-mail: ckliu@mail.ntpu.edu.tw
Office: Room 6633, Humanity Hall

Class Schedule: Every Tuesday and Thursday, July 1-29, 2008

Textbooks or references
Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D. M.,, & Goodwin, J. M. (1996). Teaching Pronunciation. NY: Cambridge University Press (Crane in Taipei.)
Avery, P. & Ehrlich, S. (1992). Teaching American English Pronunciation. NY: Oxford University Press.
Shockey, L. (2003). Sound Patterns of Spoken English. MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Website of this course
http://web.ntpu.edu.tw/~ckliu/pronunciation/ntou2008.htm


Course Description [Top]

This course will be a mixture of lectures, discussions and practices. It is assumed that all attendants are already familiar with most common knowledge of English phonetic symbols (e.g., KK or IPA) and basic rules of English pronunciation. This course, therefore, focuses on revisiting the English phonetic theories and how they can be applied to instruction of English pronunciation in class or to self-modification of the trainee's English pronunciation.


Instruction [Top]

1. Explanation

The instructor will introduce and explain the materials covered in each lecture, including basic theories, physical features of sounds, and explaining how to employ different instruments to aid instruction of English pronunciation.

2. Practice

There are two types of practice: one is the drill part in class led by the instructor; the other, drills outside class. All the materials needed for self-paced drills will be available on the website posted above and all attendants are expected to do the drill after each section of the class materials is completed.

Assessment and Evaluation [Top]

A pretest and a posttest will be given at the beginning and ending of the workshop. Quizzes (or pop quizzes) will be given almost every lecture. Reviewing exams will be given when every two or three sectiions are completed. Other forms of formative evaluation (including assignment and participation in class) will also be employed to provide attendants with different backgrounds with multiple opportunities to demonstrate their learning and improvement. The final grades are based on all the scores cumulated from the evaluations mentioned above.

Percentage of Grading:
1. Participation, homework, & quizzes = 50%
2. Review tests = 25%
3. Final exam = 25% (Total = 100%)


A Tentative Weekly Calendar (Subject to change for instruction reasons)

Schedule for Section 1 [Top]
Date
Time
Instruction & Drill
Homework
7/1
9:00-12:00 Doing a pre-test: reading a passage and some sentences. Getting ready for this course (including identifying each attendants by taking a picture for the namelist and put them into groups) and introducing the articulation positions related to English pronunciation.
Transcribe the following oral passage into a narrow transcription:
"When a student from another country comes to study in the United States, he has to find out for himself the answers to many questions."
(practice in class)
Practice all the vowels in Three Little Mice and group them.
Using the phonetic symbols to transcribe all the vowels grouped as the above
One page assignment due on 7/8
13:00-16:00

Introducing articulatory positions for English pronunciation;
Introducing IPA phonetic symbols and how a narrow transcription can be applied to instruction of English pronunciation. Providing some examples and compare how IPA differs from KK (which is well-known to most English teachers).

Start introducing the tools PRAAT to be used in this class.


Schedule for Section 2 [Top]
Date
Time
Instruction & Drill
Homework
7/3
9:00-12:00
Acoustic phonetics; recognizing the qualities of sounds through speech analyzer and learning how to analyze our sounds by using the electronic tools
Explore more features in PRAAT
13:00-16:00 Exploring the qualities of sounds (in groups) and practicing how to interpret the charts produced by PRAAT


Schedule for Section 3 [Top]
Date
Time
Instruction & Drill
Homework
7/8
9:00-12:00
Introducing English vowels; observing physical features of English vowels and how they should be grouped and how each sound is composed with its own unique features; trying to find a reasonable mechanism that helps both instruction and self-improvement of the pronunciation of English vowels

 

13:00-16:00 Trying to identify the vowels of the passage Three Little Mice; Practicing each vowel and trying to find remedies to common ˇ§deviationsˇ¨ by applying a unique mechanism that governs the ˇ§movesˇ¨ that are unique to English pronunciation

Schedule for Section 4 [Top]
Date
Time
Instruction & Drill
Homework
7/10
9:00-12:00
Working on the features of the vowel through PRAAT in groups. More detailed information about the English vowels, including the stressed, unstressed vowels, schwa, etc.
The allophones of the English vowels (e.g., nasalizing vowels)

Practice the vowels in class

Using PRAAT and make a vowel chart based on the vowels produced by yourself and on the model sounds
One page assignment due on 7/15

13:00-16:00 Practice the vowel list in groups, building up the relation between the perception and production of the vowel; Learning how to evaluate pronunciation; distinguishing diviated vowels from the vowels with different accents.

Schedule for Section 5 [Top]
Date
Time
Instruction & Drill
Homework
7/15
9:00-12:00
Introducing basic features of English consonants and how they should be grouped adn how each consonant is related to or affected by adjacent vowels; observing the contrasts of how English consonants and Mandarin consonants behave in different phonological environments

Practice the vowels and how they are interacting with the consonants

13:00-16:00 Introducing the allophones of the English consonants; practicing each consonant and trying to understand how each consonant should be pronounced properly in the context; tryring to distinguish different ways of performance of English consonants in real speech

Schedule for Section 6 [Top]
Date
Time
Instruction & Drill
Homework
7/17
9:00-12:00
More features of English consonants and how they are interacted with vowels.
Midterm exam (One hour)
Starting working on stress, rhythm, and tone.
1. Find some similar examples related to to assimilation and dissimilation in any language other than English;
(Practice in class)
Try to find a topic for the final paper due on 7/29. (Find the topic that is related to any materials we have covered in class) The oral report will be due on 7/22.
13:00-16:00 Reciting stories, focussing on English clustering effects and "Stress and rhythm" in English; starting from stress of single words to the stress (pitch accent) of the whole intonation unit, including the rhythm of any expressions made up of by one or more than one word

Schedule for Section 7 [Top]
Date
Time
Instruction & Drill
Homework
7/22
9:00-12:00
Introducing English intonation contou, pitch range, and how different contours representing different meanings
Sart working on the final paper with real sound data
13:00-16:00 Oral report of the proposals; practice the consonants in class
Possible commens and revisions for the final papers;
Overall practice in groups; reenforce the connection between perception and production in both vowels and consonants

Schedule for Section 8 [Top]
Date
Time
Instruction & Drill
Homework
7/24
9:00-12:00
Intonation; contrasting intonation languages and tone languages and how the differences might interfere with language learner's intonation? What the real data tells us about intonation and what can we be inspired? How theories of intonation can be applied to instruction of English pronunciation
Open time for questions related to this course.
13:00-16:00 Oral report for the final paper (with data)


Schedule for Section 9 [Top]
Date
Time
Instruction & Drill
Homework
7/29
9:00-12:00
Post test on both fragmental and prosodic features;
Evaluating and discussing the attendants' performance of the posttest:
Find solutions to the issues related to the posttest
Hand in the final report (in no more than 3 pages, typed)
13:00-16:00 Wrapping up the covered materiasl and getting the attentants ready for the final examination