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This has been my favourite unit so far. I like pronunciation - does that make me weird?
I really enjoyed watching the Phonology Class Demonstration. The teacher was brilliant and the students really responded to his style of teaching. The Tongue Twisters in the Engage stage were fun and in the Study phase when the students were learning that the sounds don't always match up with the number of letters I really had to think hard about it because as a native English speaker I just utter words without really thinking about it. I did laugh when the teacher mentioned that he hears Thai people say "s port" instead of "sport" and "s leep" instead of "sleep". The students thought it very amusing as well.
The way the teacher introduced the notion that spelling is not a very good way to learn how to say a sound was very good. "What is a bear - is it a tree?" "It's an animal." "Has anybody seen this bare?" "What does this bare mean?"
Then the students are introduced to the Phonemic Alphabet where each symbol represents only one sound.
The part of the lesson where the students were taught about the consonants and introduced to the 8 new symbols was very interesting. Lots of drilling and quite exaggerated mouth positions. Good use of gestures to indicate listening (hand to ear), speaking (hand to mouth) etc. Lots of positive feedback. Each activity was well demonstrated and the students had no difficulties in understanding what they needed to do.
With the Phonemic Chart we learned that the left side the chart represents the front of the mouth and the right side represents the back. We learn about how sounds are made using lips, teeth, tongue, vocal cords etc. How to tell if a sound is voiced or unvoiced by putting your hand gently on your throat and seeing if you can feel a vibration. The chart indicating the Manner and place of articulation is very handy. There is a wealth of information in this unit.
The information about Intonation and Stress is something I need to spend time learning - again it isn't really something a native English speaker thinks about.
