Grant, Linda (1993). Well Said: Advanced English
Pronunciation.Heinle and Heinle Publishers, Boston,
Massachusetts
Materials
ºThree ring
binder/notebook, 200 sheets loose leaf college ruled notebook paper, and five
reinforced index dividers
ºHardback American
Heritage or Webster’s Collegiate dictionary
öOne 90 minute
tape for voiced recordings
Goals
This is an intensive class designed to help you with speaking,
pronunciation and listening skills in English. During this quarter, we will
discuss strategies for giving effective oral presentations and second, we will
have pronunciation drills focusing on the vowel and consonant sounds in English.
During this class, you will work individually, in pairs, in
small groups, and as a class. You will have many chances to engage in the roles
of both speaker and monitor (listener). As a monitor, you will develop the
ability to hear the differences between clear and unclear pronunciation forms in
the speech of your classmates. You will also strengthen the important skill of
monitoring and correcting your own pronunciation.
At the completion of this course, you will be able to do the
following:
1. Know how to diagnose and solve advanced pronunciation
problems.
2. Organize and effectively present formal abstract oral
presentations.
3. Monitor self as an effective communicator.
4. Effectively communicate in academic and professional
settings.
As you begin Oral Language , keep in mind the following points
about pronunciation:
C Mistakes are a natural,
necessary part of the process of improving pronunciation skills, so don’t
be afraid of them.
C You probably won’t
eliminate your accent or speak with 100% accuracy. Your goal is to change
those aspects of your pronunciation that interfere with your ability to be
understood clearly. You do not need to sound like a native speaker of
American English to be fully and easily understood.
C Your attitude is an
important element in pronunciation improvement. You will make more progress
if you are strongly motivated to improve.
C You will make more progress
in pronunciation improvement if you practice your English outside the
classroom in real speaking situations.
Pronunciation and Speaking Proficiency Continuum
After you turn in the voiced recordings, I will score
you according to a pronunciation and speaking proficiency continuum. This
scale indicates your intelligibility or proficiency as a non native speaker of
English. The closer your score is to six, the closer you are to sounding like
a native speaker. At the beginning of the quarter, I want you to set a
realistic goal of where you are on the scale and where you want to be at the
end of the quarter. You may not be able to achieve near native pronunciation
(position 6+ on the continuum) for the following reasons:
UIt may not be
desirable. Your accent is important because it identifies you with your
native language and culture.
UIt may not be
necessary. You can speak American English and be fully understood, yet still
retain aspects of your accent.
UIt may not be
possible. Most adult learners have great difficulty eliminating all traces
of accent.
A good goal is to at least score 4 (41-50 points) on the
scale. A great goal is to score 5 (51-60 points) on the scale. Included below is
an explanation of the pronunciation and speaking proficiency continuum
Grad = 61-70 Minus=
61-63 Midrange=64-67
Plus=68-70
Speaking Proficiency Continuum
0 The student has minimal pronunciation proficiency.
The student shows a lack of understanding the interviewer’s
questions.
Often times, the student cannot meaningfully respond to the
interviewer.
The student repeats words or phrases.
1 The student is very difficult to understand.
Constant repetition is needed.
The student can meaningfully respond to the interviewer at
least in the form of one or two word responses.
The student can communicate personal and survival needs.
2 The student is somewhat intelligible to the interviewer.
Frequent pronunciation variations distract the interviewer
and also prevent understanding.
The student requires less reliance on repetition and slowed
native speaker speech during the interview.
3 The student begins to initiate conversation; retells a story
or experience; asks and responds to simple questions.
The student uses predominantly present tense verbs.
The student demonstrates errors of omission (leaves words
out, word endings off)
The student uses limited vocabulary.
4 The student is mostly intelligible to the interviewers.
Accent and pronunciation variations are somewhat distracting
during the interview but usually do not prevent understanding.
The student can meaningfully respond to the questions at
least in the form of short sentences and or connected ideas.
The student initiates and sustains conversation with
descriptors and details; exhibits self-confidence in social situations.
The student uses complex sentences; applies rules of grammar
but lacks control of irregular forms (i.e. runned, mans, not never, more
higher).
The student uses adequate vocabulary with some word usage
irregularities.
5 The student has obvious accent and pronunciation variations,
but these do not interfere with understanding and are rarely distracting during
the interview.
The student uses a variety of grammatical structures with
occasional grammatical errors.
The student can respond to the interviewers’ questions
with sustained and connected discourse.
The student uses varied vocabulary.
6 The student has a barely detectable accent.
Pronunciation is almost like that of a native speaker.
Rare isolated mispronunciations, but no evident patterns of
error.
The student exhibits a mastery of grammatical structures.
The student uses extensive vocabulary but he/she is not at
the level of native speaker college students.
The student speaks fluently and understands the interviewers’
questions without difficulty.
In addition to the Pronunciation and Speaking Proficiency
Continuum score, I will write down the vowel and consonant sounds with which you
are having trouble . Here is a list of abbreviations that I will use to describe
your consonant and vowel pronunciations of English.
Pronunciation Checklist
If you have trouble in certain areas, use the Computer English
Pronunciation Guide to help you improve.
Phonetic consonant symbols used to describe your
pronunciation.
Phonetic Symbols for consonant and vowels sounds in
English
Sample Words
Incorrect pronunciation-What you said
Correct usage- How you should say it
[p]
pit, tip, spit,
hiccough, appear
[b]
ball, globe, amble,
brick, bubble
[t]
tag, pat, stick,
pterodactyl, stuffed
[d]
dip, card, drop,
loved batted
[k]
kit, scoot, character,
critique, exceed
[g]
guard, bag, longer,
designate, Pittsburgh
[§]
uh-oh, hatrack, Batman
[f]
foot, laugh, philosophy,
coffee,
[v]
vest, dove, gravel,
anvil, average
[›]
through, wrath, thistle,
ether, teeth
[ð ]
the, their, mother,
either, teethe
[s]
soap, psychology, packs,
descent, peace
[z]
zip, roads, kisses,
Xerox, design
[ s^ ]
shy, mission, nation,
glacial, sure
[ z^ ]
measure, vision, azure, causality,
decision
[ h ]
who, hat, rehash,
hole, whole
[ c^ ]
choke, match, feature,
righteous, constituent
[ j^ ]
judge, George,
Jell-O, region, residual
[m]
moose, lamb, smack,
amnesty, ample
[n]
nap, design, snow,
know, mnemonic
[ n^ ] (engma)
sing, think, finger, singer,
ankle
[l]
leaf, feel, Lloyd
[r]
reef, fear, Harris,
prune, carp
[w]
with, swim, mowing,
queen, twilight
[y]
you, beautiful, feud,
use, yell
[ m^ ] (syllabic m)
possum, chasm, Adam, bottomless
[ n^ ] (syllabic n)
button, chicken, lesson, kittenish
[ l^ ] (syllabic l)
little, single, simple, stabilize
[ r^ ] (syllabic r)
ladder, singer, burp, percent
[i]
beat, we, believe, people,
money
[I]
bit, consist, injury, malignant,
business
[e]
bait, reign, great, they, gauge
[e]
bet, reception, says, guest,
bury
[ˆ]
bat, laugh, anger, comrade,
rally
[u]
boot, who, sewer, duty, through
[c] [ž]
but, tough, among, oven
[o]
boat, beau, grow, over
[]]
sore, bore
[a]
pot, father, sergeant, honor,
hospital
[ay]
bite, Stein, aisle, choir, island
[aw]
bout, brown, doubt, flower,
loud
[]j]
boy, doily
Requirements
Come to class and be ready to talk! Always review the handouts
before class and be prepared to discuss the topic on the day that it has been
assigned. It is important that you come to class since we will be working on
pronunciation drills on a week to week basis. For homework, you will need to
read out loud certain passages while recording your voice on a tape so that I
can monitor your pronunciation progress during the quarter (you may use the
language lab). You can opt to do this assignment by personal interview with the
instructor. In addition to this, you are expected to prepare and give three oral
presentations. Your grade will be based on attendance, participation, three oral
presentations, and three voiced recordings/interviews.
Grading
The number letter grading scale is set as follows:
A 95-100
A- 90-94
B+ 87-89
B 84-86
B- 80-83
C+ 76-79
C 70-75
NC 69& below
Scoring Grade
Your final grade will be calculated as follows:
Attendance and Participation 25%
Oral Presentation # 1 5%
Oral Presentation # 2 10%
Oral Presentation # 3 30%
Voiced Recording # 1 10%
Voiced Recording # 2 10%
Voiced Recording # 3 10 %
Total 100%
Late Work
Assignments submitted after the due date will not be
accepted. In other words, you will receive no points. I will only allow you to
make up missed work if you have a written documented excuse from someone stating
the urgency of the situation (e.g. Doctor’s note, CHP accident report, etc.).
Attendance
Your attendance is required at all class meetings. Only
written documented excuses for an absence may result in your making up an
assignment or graded daily work. Absences endanger your grade simply because you
are missing out in the learning process. Three absences will result in an
overall reduction of one full letter grade and five absences will result in a
failing grade for this class.
Guide to Oral Presentations
Please note that all three oral presentations are required
Oral Presentation #1-Introduce Yourself
Prepare a 3 minute presentation introducing yourself to your
classmates. Bring or wear a "prop" that characterizes or caricatures
you. For example, if you like to ski, wear your goggles; if you flip burgers on
the weekends, wear your apron and carry a spatula. You can talk about your
country, your high school and college days, your family, your reasons for
studying in the US, or something else that is interesting about yourself.
Oral Presentation #2- Remembering an event
Give a 4-6 minute oral presentation about a significant event
in your life. Choose an event that will be engaging to your audience and that
will, at the same time, tell them something about you. Tell your story
dramatically and vividly, giving a clear indication of its autobiographical
significance.
Oral Presentation #3-Talking about a significant person
Give a 4-6 minute oral presentation about a person who has
been important in your life. Strive to present a vivid portrait of this person,
one that will let your audience see his/her character and the significance to
you of the relationship.
The goals that you should set when doing this assignment are
as follows: keep the listeners’ interest; satisfy any curiosity about the
person’s significance, create a vivid portrait of this person; select rich
visual details; create realistic dialogue, find fresh images; and connect parts
of the story to other parts-in effect, make the story coherent and cohesive.
This is the criteria that we will use to evaluate your oral presentations for
this class.
Oral Skills Evaluation Form
Student____________
Date_____________Points earned out of 44___________________
Name of Oral Presentation____________________
Each listener should analyze and evaluate the following aspects of the
presentation. The scoring scale is as follows: 4=Excellent, 3=Good, 2=Fair,
1=Poor, 0=Very poor
Gestures-Did the student use his/her hands? 0 1 2 3 4
Eye Contact-Did student often make eye contact with audience?
0 1 2 3 4
Pronunciation-Could you understand what the student was saying? Did
the student’s pronunciation interfere with you understanding his/her oral
presentation?
0 1 2 3 4
Intonation-Did the student use higher pitches as well as stress on
the words that carry information in the presentation? In other words, did the
student vary or change his/her intonation? 0 1 2 3 4
Fluency-Was the student fairly fluent with the presentation? In other
words, did the student stumble and stutter as if to be trying to find the
right word to say or did it seem that the student had practiced the
presentation several times before? Was the student comfortable giving the
presentation? 0 1 2 3 4
Organization
Introduction-Did it have a lively introduction? Was there a thesis
statement of some kind that let you know what the presentation was going to be
about?
0 1 2 3 4
Body-Did the body develop the thesis statement in the introduction?
Was the presentation thorough and clear? Did it develop the thesis statement
enough so that the presentation had full development and detail? In other words,
were there supporting details and background information in the body? Were there
smooth transitions between each supporting detail or was the body choppy and
awkward?
0 1 2 3 4
Conclusion-Did the conclusion relate to the introduction and the body?
Did it
end abruptly, or was it a well thought out and
planned conclusion. Did the student tell you in short was
he/she just said? 0 1 2 3 4
Language
Vocabulary-Did the student have a good command of the English language?
0 1 2 3 4
Grammar-Did the student show competent use of grammar, sentence
structure, transitions, verb-subject agreement, etc. 0 1 2 3 4
What aspect of this presentation was least effective?
What was the greatest strength of this presentation?
Oral Language
Winter Quarter
Course Outline
Week 1: Your Pronunciation Profile
Jan 13 Introduction to Oral Language;
Explanation of
course objectives; Pronunciation/Discussion Activities
Week 2: Your Pronunciation Profile cont.
18 Pronunciation/Discussion
Activities
20 Effective Oral Presentations; work on oral presentation #1;
Pronunciation/Discussion
Activities
Week 3: Using a Dictionary for
Pronunciation
25 Pronunciation/Discussion Activities; work on oral presentation #1
27 Pronunciation/Discussion Activities; work on oral presentation #1