Touch base with pron: find the muscles that make the difference –. Adrian
Underhill ... Macmillan books for teachers and a past president of IATEFL. Bring
back ...
Ways of Pronunciation Teaching 28 September 2013, 10.00 – 16.30
Bath, UK
A one-day event organised by PronSIG and Teachitworld offering multiple perspectives on the role of pronunciation in the classroom. Led by experts Mark Hancock, Ed Hughes, Ray Parker and Adrian Underhill, with the beautiful and historic town of Bath as the background, theory and practice combine to make a memorable learning experience for everyone interested in developing their professional competence.
The venue Duncan Room Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution 16-18 Queen Square Bath BA1 2HN Telephone: 01225 312084 Email:
[email protected] http://www.brlsi.org/ Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution is an elegant Georgian townhouse in leafy Queen Square, not far from the famous Royal Crescent. It is also just round the corner from the Jane Austen museum, the Roman baths, the present-day spa, and town centre shops and restaurants.
Timetable 10.00 – 10.20
Opening
10.20 – 11.20
Touch base with pron: find the muscles that make the difference – Adrian Underhill
11.20 – 11.40
Break
11.40 – 12.40
‘Bring back stress-timing!’ – Linking insights into pronunciation to the development of listening skills – Ray Parker
12.40 – 13.40
Lunch
13.40 – 14.40
Pronunciation play – Mark Hancock
14.40 – 15.00
Break
15.00 – 16.00
Music and speech – Edward Hughes
16.00 – 16.30
Round-up
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Sessions Touch base with pron: find the muscles that make the difference We talk about integrating pronunciation into language learning and teaching, but the fact remains that in teacher training and in materials development pronunciation is the outsider of the language systems, and has been so for perhaps 50 years. First I will explore two underlying reasons for this outsider status, and then I will propose and demonstrate a practical solution for each in an interactive workshop aimed at helping both teachers and students to ‘touch base’ with pronunciation. By this I mean to reconnect with the muscles that make the pronunciation difference and thereby be able to help learners get liberation from the ‘grip’ of the mother tongue phonetic set. Adrian Underhill is a trainer and consultant working in a number of countries, with a particular interest in pronunciation, improvisation in teaching, leadership development, reflective practice and learning for experience. Currrently he is developing the Demand High meme with Jim Scrivener. He is author of Sound Foundations: Learning and Teaching Pronunciation and of the Pronunciation App (British Council ELTONS award for digital innovation 2012). He was Director of the International Teacher Training Institute at IH Hastings until 1999. He is series editor of Macmillan books for teachers and a past president of IATEFL.
Bring back stress-timing! - Linking insights into pronunciation to the development of listening skills I’ll be suggesting that the bad press that stress-timing as a concept has frequently suffered from is largely a result of confusion with the related concept of isochrony. Once the two concepts are separated, stress-timing can be properly re-considered and recognised as a key feature of the delivery of spoken English. It can also be recognised as a major challenge for learners not only when producing the language but even more so when trying to decode speech. I will call upon widely experienced responses to Portuguese by people who handle Spanish quite well to illustrate such decoding issues. I will try to justify a top-down priority for pronunciation teaching and to present classroom practices which encourage sensitivity and awareness of stress-timed delivery in the belief that listening skills can be significantly improved as an important by-product of focussed pronunciation work. Ray Parker has been involved in English Language Teaching since graduating in Hispanic Studies in the late 60s. The bulk of his time is now devoted to teacher education. He has taught, trained and examined teachers in more than 30 countries and co-authored a wellknown teachers’ textbook on the phonology and pronunciation of English (sadly, published in the same year as Sound Foundations!) and a course book published in Italy. In his career he has been Director of Studies, College Principal, Senior Lecturer, Director of Language Examinations and Inspector of English Language Schools. His focus now lies with teacher training and ELT project management
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with a particular interest in in-service professional development for non-native English speaking teachers and in the development of confidence about English Language systems in native speaker teachers. Recent years have seen him helping to manage and deliver major teacher training initiatives in Africa.
Music and speech As a composer you engage with words most often in the form of sung texts (for example songs, operas). However, there is also a fascinating cross-over point between musical ideas and spoken texts, which can be traced back to Janacek and forward to the work of the American minimalist Steve Reich. In this talk, Ed Hughes (British composer) will reference his work with text in his operas (The Birds, When the Flame Dies), and will also consider a more recent piece to engage with an archival recording of an interview with Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Harris (1892-1984), in combination with visuals and original music. Ed Hughes is a British composer whose commissions and performances include City of London Festival, Brighton Festival, I Fagiolini, Glyndebourne, Tacet Ensemble, London Sinfonietta, Salamanca Festival and a number of BBC Radio 3 broadcasts. He has written several ensemble scores for iconic silent films of the early twentieth century including Ivens’s Regen, Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin and Strike (Tartan Video 2007) and a series of scores for the BFI’s Ozu Collection. Ed’s music is published by University of York Music Press and he is a Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Sussex.
Pronunciation Play In this talk, we will take a playful approach to the teaching of pronunciation. We will see how the playfulness may lie one the one hand in the materials we use, as in the case of word-play, rhymes, chants and so on, and on the other hand, in the tasks we set up, as in the case of games and puzzles. We will try out a variety of activities which take a playful approach across all areas of pronunciation, from individual sounds to various aspects of supra-segmental phonology, for both productive and receptive purposes. Where possible, we will look at how teachers may take these ideas and adapt them for different teaching points and different groups of learners. Mark Hancock started teaching English in 1984. He's worked in Sudan, Turkey, Britain, Brazil and Spain. In 1996 he completed his Master’s in Teaching English with Aston University. He's written books including Pronunciation Games (CUP 1995) and English Pronunciation in Use (2nd ed. CUP 2012). He is cofounder, with Annie McDonald, of the ELT resources site hancockmcdonald.com, where many pronunciation activities are freely available.
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Booking and contact information Book online at http://secure.iatefl.org/events/ to guarantee a place, or just come along on the day. Cost IATEFL members early bird (book before
£40.00
IATEFL members
£50.00
Non-IATEFL early bird (book before
£45.00
Non-IATEFL
£55.00 Wayne Rimmer PronSIG
Lucy Palmer
Coordinator & event organiser
ELT Editor & event organizer
[email protected]
[email protected]
www.teachitworld.com
Getting there
Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution 16-18 Queen Square Bath BA1 2HN
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By rail The venue is 10-15 minutes walk from the train station, through the historic town centre. Direct trains go between Bath Spa station and London Paddington (an hour and 45 minutes) and Bristol (10-15 minutes) throughout the day and evening. For more information, please visit: http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/
By road From the south east: Take the M4 towards Airport/The West; Heathrow/Staines; Hounslow At junction 18, take the A46 exit to Bath/Stroud. At the roundabout, take the first exit onto the A46. Go through one roundabout then take the A4 ramp to Bath/Warminster/A36. At the roundabout, take the third exit onto London Rd W/A4 Go through one roundabout then turn left onto Lansdown Rd/A4. Turn left onto Gay St/A4. Turn right onto Queen Square/A4. From the north: Take the M5 southbound. At junction 15, exit onto M4 towards London/M32/Bristol. At junction 18, take the A46 exit to Bath/Stroud. At the roundabout, take the first exit onto the A46. Go through one roundabout then take the A4 ramp to Bath/Warminster/A36. At the roundabout, take the third exit onto London Rd W/A4 Go through one roundabout then turn left onto Lansdown Rd/A4. Turn left onto Gay St/A4. Turn right onto Queen Square/A4. From the south west: Take the M5 northbound. At junction 15, exit onto the M4 towards London. At junction 18, take the A46 exit to Bath/Stroud. At the roundabout, take the first exit onto the A46. Go through one roundabout then take the A4 ramp to Bath/Warminster/A36. At the roundabout, take the third exit onto London Rd W/A4 Go through one roundabout then turn left onto Lansdown Rd/A4. Turn left onto Gay St/A4. Turn right onto Queen Square/A4. Parking is available in Charlotte Street pay and display car park: Go all the way round the square then take the first left. The entrance to the car park is the first right. Parking costs £8.50 for the day. For more information, please visit: http://en.parkopedia.co.uk/parking/carpark/charlotte_street/ba1/bath/
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By air The closest airport is Bristol International Airport. There is a bus service directly from the airport to Bath bus station at half past every hour (single: £11.00; return £17.00). For more information, please visit: http://www.bathbuscompany.com/airportservice/service-information Shuttle buses also go to Bristol Temple Meads train station approximately every 10 minutes (single: £7.00; return £11.00). For more information, please visit: http://flyer.bristolairport.co.uk/ It is also very easy to get to Bath from London’s airports (Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton). National Express coaches go from all the London airports or there are high-speed train connections (Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect) to London Paddington station. For more information, please visit: http://www.nationalexpress.com/home.aspx https://www.heathrowexpress.com/ https://www.heathrowconnect.com/index.asp
Accommodation Good value accommodation less than one mile from the venue includes: Romany Guest House, 9 Charlotte Street, BA1 2NE, Tel. 00 44 (1)225 424193 (£60 per night with parking; £55 per night without) Travelodge Bath Central, 1 York Buildings, George Street, BA1 2EB http://www.travelodge.co.uk/hotels/75/Bath-Central-hotel: (from £56 per night) Pulteney House, 14 Pulteney Road, BA2 4HA: (around £58 per night) Parade Park, 8-10 North Parade, BA2 4AL: (around £59 per night) The Kennard, 11 Henrietta Street, BA2 6LL: (around £65 per night) Crescent Guesthouse, 21 Crescent Gardens, BA1 2NA: (around £70 per night) Astor House, 14 Oldfield Road, BA2 3ND: (around £74 per night). Please book early, as accommodation in central Bath gets booked up very quickly. For more information, please visit: www.tripadvisor.co.uk, www.laterooms.com or www.booking.com
Future events IATEFL PronSIG’s next event, Integrating Pronunciation into your Teaching, is on 1 April 2014 at the IATEFL Harrogate Conference. Book your place today at www.iatefl.org
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