06 set 2016

by | in Pronunciation, Resources, Speaking and Spoken Language, Teacher Development

For a very long time, I thought my pronunciation was very good. Teachers and colleagues had told me so, and because of that I rarely ever gave it much attention. I was more worried about learning vocabulary or grammar. Naturally, my pronunciation was (and still is) far from perfect, but it took me time to realise that. There is an Aristotle quote that I think rings true for teachers. He said that "the more you know, the more you know you don't know." Little by little I started to...

05 mar 2016

by | in Pronunciation, Teacher Development

A teacher who is worried about his or her language development has many avenues to pursue, pronunciation being only one of them. On that matter, though, here is a tip: don’t snub pronunciation dictionaries! I know what you are thinking, “Why on earth would people need pronunciation dictionaries if regular dictionaries (even those online!) have the audio and/or the phonetic transcription?” First, let me say why the audio is not good enough: our ears deceive us sometimes. I had been studying English for 15 years and teaching it for 8...

03 fev 2016

by | in Pronunciation, Reflections about Education

Recently, I was asked to lead an in-service session on Pronunciation. I was given about an hour and a half to cover sentence stress, intonation, features of connected speech, word stress and phonemes. Not an easy task considering how much is involved in articulating speech. Maybe we under-estimate it? For 'teaching' pronunciation encompasses much more than just modelling and getting the students to repeat. I  started off by telling the participants that I have lost count of the number of times, when observing teachers in action, that I have...

22 out 2015

by | in Classroom Management, Pronunciation, Speaking and Spoken Language, Teacher Development

Esta semana, surfando na internet, me deparei com um meme bastante bem humorado que me chamou a atenção, arrancando aquele sorriso típico de quem admite para si mesmo: ‘genial!’ Eis aqui o dito cujo: Não obstante o riso quase que inevitável, por de trás do bom humor (através de um símile que faz alusão ao estereótipo da fala de um caipira texano para dar a dimensão da dificuldade da vida), o meme também nos coloca diante de alguns questionamentos bem relevantes, especialmente para quem ensina línguas em um contexto de EFL/ELF,...

20 jun 2015

by | in Classroom Experiences, Lesson Ideas, Pronunciation, Teacher Development

Modeling language is, among a number of other teaching techniques, one of the first things the novice teacher needs to put a lot of effort and energy into in order to have a hand on, to say the least. In most pre-service teacher training courses I have taught several times at different institutions along many years, I have often been able to spot some aspects of the teaching of pronunciation that are frequently underplayed by teachers and need to be addressed, even with more experienced teachers and those...

25 maio 2015

by | in Pronunciation

British or American? Learners all over the globe have for long asked their teachers and peers which English they speak. Nevertheless, much more importantly than having a major focus on one of the main dominant varieties of English, it is crucial to raise learners’ awareness to the importance of being more and more used to being exposed to as many varieties of spoken English as possible in today’s world. ELF – English as a Lingua Franca – is a worldwide phenomenon (exactly – not a variety of English) that...

23 maio 2015

by | in Lesson Ideas, Pronunciation, Reflections about Education, Resources, Teacher Development

While technology has become a powerful tool to share information, talking to people face-to-face still remains unrivalled. Enjoying a meal together or connecting with others through a handshake --- or even a few words, creates a synergy that promotes feelings of trust and collaboration;  it helps us build stronger relationships and a feeling of belonging. Conferences are mostly about all this energy flow that creates a unique learning environment by bringing people closer together. Highlight #1: Pronunciation: A cool activity that you can do with your students is ask them...

13 set 2014

by | in Pronunciation, Resources, Speaking and Spoken Language, Technology, Vocabulary

Olá, pessoal! Depois de uma pausa meio que forçada, estamos de volta para mais um post envolvendo, de certa forma, tecnologia. Desta vez, vou falar de podcasts. Sabem o que é um podcast? É uma espécie de programa de rádio, geralmente editado, e disponibilizado em sites, blogs e assemelhados, sobre os mais variados assuntos, que podem ser ouvidos online ou baixados em formatos como .mp3 para smartphones e outros reprodutores de música. Eu, por exemplo, sou um podcaster, participo junto com meus amigos do ArgCast, sobre quadrinhos, games, cinema,...

17 ago 2014

by | in Career, Grammar, Pronunciation, Resources, Teacher Development, Vocabulary

I've recently come across Deena Boraie's  2013 post on the TESOL webpage in which she lists the latest trends in EFL. Two of these trends immediately caught my eye: Change in the Goal of Teaching English: Our goals are no longer to transform our students into imitations of native speakers, but into "competent English-knowing bilinguals," since we assume our students are already proficient in their native languages; Changing view of an English teacher: The quality and effectiveness of English language teachers are no longer determined by their being native speakers,...

15 ago 2014

by | in Pronunciation

The following post was inspired by a session I attended at this years’ BrazTESOL conference in João Pessoa. The session was called “Pronunciation for Teachers” and we discussed about some technical aspects of teaching and learning pronunciation and also what a good course syllabus would be like. This session had a huge impact on me and I'm going to tell you all about it. But first let me tell you my story with pronunciation: at 13 I was diagnosed with a severe case of stuttering. It usually happens when...