Howbestcanpronunciationbestbeintegratedinto existingcurricula?

KerenStead CentreforEnglishTeaching,SydneyUniversity
Abstract Having good pronunciation skills is an important part of every ESL students ability to communicate in English. However, there is currently no systematic approach towards the teaching of pronunciation at CET. This paper explores ways in which pronunciation could be integrated better into current CET curricula, with a particular focus on Academic English/IELTS preparation courses. It also describes a short study in which naturalistic IELTS Speaking part 2 recordings and podcast material were used to introduce and practise the key features of pronunciation and encourage selfstudy outside the classroom. The results of this study show that the majority of participating students responded positively to the project material and felt their knowledge of pronunciation features and their confidence in speaking English had improvedtosomeextentduringtheresearchperiod.

Introduction Good pronunciation skills are a key element to every ESL students ability to communicate in English. However, being able to produce intelligible language is a complicated matter involving the accurate production of phonemes, word stress, connected speech,rhythm, intonation and chunking amongst other factors. Despite 1

this complexity, there is currently no systematic approach towards the teaching of pronunciationatCET.Pronunciationactivitiesareincludedinmostcurriculainanad hocandinfrequentwayandteachersaregiventheflexibilitytoincludeaslittleoras much of these or their own pronunciation materials into their lessons, resulting in inconsistencyacrossthecurricula. It is clear that a much more consistent strategy is needed with regards the teaching of pronunciation at CET. This project explores different methods and materials that CETcouldusetodothisandimplementsastudytotestoutoneofthesemethods. LiteratureReview In her review of developments in teaching pronunciation & intonation, Jennifer Jenkins (2004) describes the two key trends in current pronunciation research. The first of these is concerned with issues of discourse and sociolinguistic context. The second explores how technology could be used to test earlier research findings and develop new teaching pedagogies. Given the possibilities that the latter opens up for practical application, the following literature review will describe different ways inwhichthisisbeingcarriedout. Over the last decade, there have been a number of research projects using aspects oftechnologytotrytoimprovepronunciation.Severalstudies(Walker2005&Chen 2

2005) have used student recordings to try to do this. Such recordings may have a number of benefits. Firstly, they can improve student motivation, particularly in the monolingual environment. Secondly, they can increase learner autonomy and allow for selfassessment. Using speech analysis software to analyse student recordings can furtheraid the improvement of pronunciation. For example, in Dolores Ramirez Verdugosstudy(2006),thissoftwarewasusedtoprovidecomparativeauditoryand visualdisplaysofpitchcontoursofbothnativespeakersandindividualESLstudents. With this, participating students were able to understand and better address their ownintonationproblems. Technology has also provided better resources for students to practise and improve their pronunciation outside of the classroom. For example, a number of CDroms that teach different features of connected speech are on the market (Cauldwell 2002, Protea Textware 2009). Pronunciation dictionaries have also been developed (e.g.Jones2003).Mostrecently,podcastshavebeenthefocusofseveralESLjournal articles.Intopofthepods(2007),FernandoRosellAguilarreviewsarangepodcast resources available and calls for further academic research into how podcasts can best be used to teach languages. He argues that their are many benefits to using podcastsandquotesGardnerCampbellassaying, Those of us in higher education owe it to our students to bring podcasting and other rich media into our courses so that they can lift their learning to a whole new level (Campbell, cited in RosellAguilar 2007) 3

 Two recent studies that focus on using podcasts to improve pronunciation are podcasting: an effective tool for honing language students pronunciation? by Lara Ducate and Lara Lomicka at the university of South Carolina and Podcasting Communities and Second Language Pronunciation by Gillian Lord from the UniversityofFlorida.Intheformer,the22participantsused5scriptedrecordingsof a nativespeaker to practice pronunciation and they produced 3 extemporaneous podcasts themselves over the period of a semester. Although the results of this study found no significant improvements in pronunciation the project itself was viewed positively by the participating students. In the latter study, individual participating students were required to produce six podcasts on the free podcasting service Odeo focusing on the different aspects of pronunciation that were being covered in class over the period of a semester. The participants were also required to listen to and provide online feedback to their peers recordings. The study found that both the students attitudes and pronunciation abilities improved during the course of the study. However, the participants commented that they would have liked to have had the opportunity to listen to recordings of native speakers completingthesametaskssothattheycouldhavecomparedthemtotheirown. Takingintoaccountthecurrentliterature,itisveryclearthattheuseofpodcastsfor pronunciationtrainingandlanguagelearninghasanumberofadvantages.Byfarthe mostimportantoftheseisthattheyprovideaccesstoahugenumberandvarietyof authentic and ESLspecific materials. Secondly, the features of podcasts make them 4

perfect for selfstudy and selfassessment. They can be listened to wherever and wheneverthestudentwishes,therecordingscanbestartedandstoppedtoallowfor listening and repeating, and sometimes transcripts are made available with the recordings. Finally, not only are podcasts a great resource for practising pronunciation, but they can also improve listening skills, vocabulary and cultural awareness. ResearchDesign This piece of research was designed with a number of factors in mind. These were the benefits of podcasts and other authentic audio recordings, the types of classes currentlybeingtaughtatCETand,finally,thelimitationssetbythetimeframeofthis project. Four Academic English classes and two teachers were chosen to participate in the project.ClassesAE5A1andAE6Areceivedsomepronunciationinstructionaspartof their normal classes on two consecutive MondayWednesday periods, whilst classes AE4A1 and AE5A2 received pronunciation instruction under the same circumstances on three consecutive WednesdayFriday periods. A survey of 50 participating studentsconductedtowardsthebeginningofthestudyperiodrevealedthatthefirst languages of these students were as follows: 44% Chinese, 18% Arabic, 16% Korean, 5

6% Japanese, 10% European Languages and 6% Other Asian Languages. Their most recentIELTSspeakingscoresareshowninthechartbelow.
What was your IELTS speaking score at your last test?

IELTS 6.5 IELTS 6 IELTS 5.5 IELTS 5 IELTS 4.5 IELTS 4 Not Done 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

Number of students

As material for this project, audio recordings, which can be used in a similar way to podcasts, were made. More precisely, two nativespeaker IELTS speaking part II recordings with transcripts (see appendix 1) were made using an audio recording and editing software program called audacity. Unlike most textbook recordings, these were done under naturalistic conditions without scripts and with only one minute preparation time. For both samples, the recording was also edited to add pausesthatwouldallowforeasylistenandrepeatpractice.Inthecaseofthesecond sample, further editing was done to create three more recordings to accompany studentexercises.Thistypeofaudiorecordingwaschosenforanumberofreasons. ThecontentofIELTSspeakingpartIIlendsitselftopronunciationanalysis,becauseit consistsofatwominuteunscriptedmonologue.Moreover,atCETIELTSpreparation is a relatively new addition to Academic English curricula and, as yet, few materials

have been developed for it. Such recordings could also be used to teach the other IELTSSpeakingskills:coherency,vocabularyandgrammaticalrange. Some materials to practise different features of pronunciation were also developed to go with the IELTS sample recordings (see appendix 2). These included information and exercises on the International Phonemic Chart, weak & strong sounds, sentence stress, pauses, pitch, rhythm and sound changes and omission. Even though these materials were provided, the two participating teachers were given the flexibility to teach pronunciation using the audio material as they wished. They were also able to choose how much time they spent teaching pronunciation, but around 30 minutes a day was recommended. To make these recordings accessible to the students outside the classroom, they were placed on the CET website and selfstudy was encouraged. With the recordings, students were able to listen and repeat, shadow and listen for different features of pronunciation. Towards the end of the project, students were given a list of useful podcasts (see appendix 3) they could use in the future for selfstudy and it was hoped that they would have gained enough knowledge of the different features of pronunciation during the course of the project to be able to study on their own after it had finished. Some pronunciation work was also done on a few of these podcasts in classtime. To collect data from students, two surveys were conducted during the period of the research project; the first at the beginning of the project and the second at the end. 7

A student focus group, attended by 8 students, was held at the end of the project. Studentswerealsoencouragedtocompletestudentlogsinwhichtheywouldrecord the selfstudy they had completed each day. Data was also collected from the two participating teachers in the form of a teachers log and an end of project interview. Furthermore,twoclassobservationswereheld. StudentSurveyFindings As part of the first student survey, completed by 50 students, students were asked how important it was for them that pronunciation be included in their English classes.Theresultsshowthateverystudentbelievesitisatleastquiteimportant.

How important is it for you that your English classes include work on pronunciation?

Very important 26% 0% 36% Important Quite Important Not very important Not important

38%

In the same survey, students were asked how confident they felt about their English pronunciation. The results show that 48% of the students feel either not very confidentornotconfidentatallabouttheirpronunciationinEnglish.
How Confident do you Feel about your English Pronunciation?

18 16 14 12 Number 10 of Students 8 6 4 2 0 very confident confident quite confident not very confident not confident at all

By way of comparison, the results of the endofproject survey, completed by 46 students, show that 85% of participants felt their confidence levels had improved andalmost96%ofstudentsfeltthattheiractualpronunciationhadimproved.
Improvements in Spoken Pronunciation and Confidence Levels Since the Project Began

25

20

15 10 5 0 a lot improved improved a little

Confidence level Speaking level

not improved

One of the key goals of the project was to give students the tools to be able to practisedifferentfeaturesofpronunciationontheirownoutsidetheclassroom.The results of the endofproject survey show that despite the fact that over 91% of students felt that they were ready to study alone, 61% of them also wanted more practiceintheclassroom.

10

Do you now feel able to complete selfstudy to improve your pronunciation in your own time?
Definitely not. I need more class practice. Not quite. I need more practice. Yes, but I would like more class practice. Yes, I know enough to study alone. Yes, definitely. I am completely ready. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Number of students

In terms of what features of pronunciation the students found most useful, no clear differencesemerged.However,lookingatthedataindetail,theresultsshowsome variation across different classes. This suggests that both the quantity and content of work done and individual/L1 language variations in each class may have affected theseresults.

11

What do you think have been the most useful aspects of pronunciation?
25 20 15 10 5 0
ch Pa us in em g ic Ch ar t Se Sc St nt hw ro en ng a ce & St w re ea ss k so un ds Pi tc h Ch R an hy gi th ng m So un ds Sp ee

very useful useful quite useful not very useful not useful at all Not done

nn ec t

ed Co

Ph on

Finally,thestudentswereaskedhowmuchpronunciationworktheywouldliketodo in their classes. The chart below shows that 20 minutes everyday or 20 minutes everyotherdayispreferredby75%ofstudents.

12

In your normal lessons, how much time would you like to spend on pronunciation?

7% 11%

7%

20 mins every class 37% 20 mins every other class 30 mins twice a week 1 hr twice a week Other

38%

Discussion The first thing to note is that both students and teachers recognise the importance of having regular pronunciation activities in the classroom. This is highlighted by the fact that at the start of the project almost half of the participants didnt feel confidentabouttheirpronunciation.Furtherevidenceforthisisthat, onthewhole, both teachers and students reacted very positively to this project. 96% of the studentsinvolvedsaidthattheexperiencehadbeeneitherquiteuseful(48%),useful (37%) or very useful (11%) and the majority of students said that they would like to spend 20 minutes a day or every other day doing pronunciation work in class. It would seem that this little and often approach has the support of both students and teachers involved in this project. Furthermore, the students recognised that problems with pronunciation are different depending on the individual, so during

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the focus group they asked that pronunciation workshops be held outside class hourstohelpstudentswhohaveproblemsinparticularareas. Another key conclusion that can be made is that students would like the teaching of a variety of features of pronunciation to be included into CET curricula. Anecdotal evidence provided by the student focus group suggested the majority of current classroom instruction on pronunciation is on individual phonemes, word stress and sometimes sentence level features. In other words, a variety of suprasegmental features that occur over longer stretches of speech, such as rhythm, intonation pitch, pausing and chunking, take a back seat. In this study, the use of authentic recordings to teach pronunciation enabled a variety of both these micro and suprasegmental features to be taught. This was another aspect of this study that waswelcomedbytheparticipatingstudents. The results of the study also confirmed that the use of authentic materials to teach pronunciation has positive outcomes both in terms of students confidence levels and the students perception of their own pronunciation skills. Although in the majority of cases, these were seen to only improve a little, this is still noteworthy given that the research period was so short. Postproject interviews with the teachers confirmed this change, with one teacher saying that the improvements in the confidence levels and speaking abilities of their students by the end of the project were significant. It is important to note that these positive results were

14

partly achieved because these students other teacher also did regular work on pronunciationwiththem.Thisaddssupporttothelittleandoftenapproach. In terms of the materials used during the project, the use of IELTS Speaking part III samples was welcomed by the students. During the focus group, they asked that more recordings be made, including IELTS Speaking part II and part III recordings. Otherrequestsincludedtheaddingofphonetictranscriptionstothetapescripts,the audio recording of newspaper articles to be used for selfstudy purposes, and informationabouthowsoundsmostcommonlychangeinconnectedspeech. It seems that there are a number of advantages to using selfmade recordings over podcasts in Academic English classes. First, besides being useful to teach pronunciation, they can also improve the students IELTS skills by providing comparisons with their own responses and being available for grammatical and lexical analysis. In addition, unlike many podcasts and other such recordings, they can be edited by the teacher. In fact, the making of these recordings demonstrates just how easy it is for an individual teacher to produce their own recordings using modern computer technology and software, such as GarageBand (Apple Macintosh) & Audacity. These software packages are free and very userfriendly. Finally, recordings made by a teacher can be used as good models for student recordings, and these in themselves are good for identifying and addressing pronunciation problems. 15

Although using naturalistic teachermade IELTS recordings has its advantages, this study found that recordings of this type do not necessarily need to be added to the CET curricula. In fact, the most important finding is that a variety of relevant materials should be used and that these must be both authentic and easily accessibletostudents outsideoftheclassroom. Theproductionofsuchmaterialsis made easier by the fact that on some websites, such TED & ABC Radio National, transcriptsareprovided.Furthermore,inordertoteachpronunciation,themajority ofthetimeonlyverysmallpiecesoftextarerequired.Onesentencemaybeenough to fill a 20minutes class or longer. The students participating in the focus group stated that they enjoyed using podcasts, radio and video recordings in class. From the list of podcasts provided at the end of this project to provide material for self study, they said they had particularly found the following useful: ABC, Q&A, English Bites&PassporttoEnglish. Recommendations Takingintoconsiderationthediscussionabove,thefollowingrecommendationsare tobemade: 1. The inclusion of around 20 minutes of pronunciation work everyday or every otherdayintoCETcurricula.

16

2. A variety of authentic and accessible materials, such as podcasts, radio & TV broadcasts and TED lectures found on the Internet should be used to teach pronunciation. 3. Teaching materials should be used to teach a variety of features of pronunciation, including suprasegmental features. Building the students knowledge of these features should provide the students with the tools for self study. 4.MoreIELTSspeaking&listeningsamplesshouldberecordedtoenrichCETsbank ofIELTSresources.TheseshouldbemadeaccessibletostudentsviatheCETwebsite so that they can be used for selfstudy. Audiorecordings of newspaper articles couldalsoberecordedandplacedonthesamesite. 5. Students should be encouraged to use multimedia outside the classroom to practisetheirpronunciation. 6. It would be beneficial to introduce pronunciation workshops to support learners whohaveproblemsinparticularareasofpronunciation. 7. Providing the opportunity for students to make recordings of themselves would be very useful. This could involve students practising mimicking authentic listening materialsandthenproducingtheirownrecordings/podcastsofthesamematerialor their own material on a similar theme. Feedback could be provided by the teacher orbypeersviatheBlackboardsystemorothermeans. 8. The introduction of a CET podcast would be a great resource for students to practise their listening and speaking skills. Furthermore, it has enormous potential asamarketingtool. 17

References Cauldwell,R.2002,StreamingSpeech:Listening&Pronunciationforadvanced learnersofEnglish,speechinaction,Birmingham. Chen,Y.M.2008,LearningtoselfassessoralperformanceinEnglish:A longitudinalcasestudy,LanguageTeachingResearch,vol.12,no.2,pp.235 262 Ducate,L.&Lomicka,L.2009,Podcasting:aneffectivetoolforhoninglanguage studentspronunciation?,LanguageLearning&Technology,vol.13,no.3, pp.6686. Jenkins,J.2004,Researchinteachingpronunciationandintonation,AnnualReview ofAppliedLinguistics,vol.24,pp.109125. Jones,D.2003,EnglishPronouncingDictionary,CambridgeUniversityPress, Cambridge. Levis,J.2007,Computertechnologyinteachingandresearchingpronunciation, AnnualReviewofAppliedLinguistics,vol.27,pp.184202. Lord,G.2008,Podcastingcommunitiesandsecondlanguagepronunciation, ForeignLanguageAnnals,vol.41,no.2,pp.364379. ProteaTextware,2009,ConnectedSpeechAustralianEnglish,ProteaTextware, HurstbridgeVic. RamirezVerdugo,D.2006,Astudyofintonationawarenessandlearninginnon nativespeakersofEnglish,LanguageAwareness,vol.15,no.3,pp.141159. RosellAguilar,F.2007,Topofthepodsinsearchofapodcastingpodagogyfor LanguageLearning,ComputerAssistedLanguageLearning,vol.20,no.5, pp.471492. Walker,R.2005,Usingstudentproducedrecordingswithmonolingualgroupsto provideeffectiveindividualisedpronunciationpractice,TESOLQuarterly, vol.39,no.3,pp.550558. 18

Appendix1

FullTranscriptofSample1 Describe a tourist trip that you have been on which you particularly enjoyed.
Well, Ive been on lots of trips, but the one Im gonna describe took place about four years ago I thinkandI was living in Japan at the time, in Tokyo, and my parents came out to visit me. So, we went on a tripermm.for about10days.Andwe..errrtookashinkansentrain,whichisthethebullet train in Japan, which is really really exciting to travel on.and the first place we went to was Hiroshima, where we visited the museum dedicated to nuclear bombs. That was really emotional, coz theres a lot of heavy content in the museum and obviously theres a lot of history surrounding that. The second place we went was Miyajima, which is a beautiful island just off the coast of Honshuandermwe visited a couple of really nice shrines there and we also took a cable car up to the top of the island, which was also really interestingermThefinalplacewewenttowasKyoto,whichisatraditional
19

cityinJapan.anditsfulloflotsoftemplesandshrinesandyoucaneatreally nice traditional Japanese food. Erm..I think the thing I remember most about the trip wasermor the most interesting thing was staying in a Ryokan, which is a traditional erm Japanese hotel ander..yeh, that was a really great experience.

FullTranscriptofSample2
Describeajobthatyouwouldliketodointhefuture. A job I would like to do in the future would be to work as a foreign correspondent journalist. Im somebody who loves to travel and loves to learn about other cultures and the way they work, and also the history of other countries and places around the world. So this is a job that..err... really is attractive to me. I also really enjoy writing. Its something I get a lot of pleasure from, so that job would allow me to combine my interests in travel, learning about the world and also writing. Now to become a journalist, you need to study a communications degree and thats something which takes three to four years and can be done at a variety of universities both around Australia and around the world. Ermmm....now there are some particular qualitiesIthinksomeonewouldneedtodothisjob.Ithinkbeinginquisitiveis probably the most important. You need to be curious about the way things
20

work andwhy theywork in a particular way. So curiositys probably themost important factor. I also think confidence is important. You need to be confident, talking to people and asking sometimes quite difficult challenging questionsofpeople.SoIthinkhavingtheconfidencetodothat,tobeableto approach people, and ask them things that they may or may not be comfortable answering, is an important factor. I also think you need some level of intelligence. You need to be able to understand the real reason why thingshappenandtobeabletoanalysethingsinsomedetail. Andareanyofyourfriendsforeigncorrespondents? A friend of mines brother actually is a foreign correspondent working for the ABCinChina. OK,anddoyouthinkyouwillbecomeaforeigncorrespondentinthefuture? Itsaverycompetitivefieldandthereareveryfewopportunities,soIhopeso, butIcantguaranteeit.
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Appendix2 Pronunciation
SoundchangesinEnglish Spoken English is not simply a series of single sounds broken into words. In fact, we do not speak in single sounds or single words, but in groups of words. These groups are continuous and are sometimes broken up by pauses. As a result of this flow of sounds and words, changes can often occur. Some sounds become softer or may evendisappearentirely.Othersoundsmayblendtogetherornewsoundsmayeven beadded. TheInternationalPhoneticAlphabet InordertounderstandaboutthesoundsmadeintheEnglishlanguage,itisusefulto be familiar with the phonetic alphabet. Some of you may be familiar with this already. Youcanfindinteractivechartsandrelatedactivitiesonthefollowingwebsites: http://www.englishonline.org.cn/en/listenwatch/soundsinteresting/phonemic chart http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/ WordStress:Weak&Strongsounds Within words, stressed syllables are long and have full vowel sounds, whilst unstressed syllables are short and often have a reduced vowel sound. Often this resultsintheschwa//,whichisthemostcommonsoundintheEnglishlanguage. 22

 Exercise1 Point out the stress and write the phonetic transcriptions for the following words taken from sample 1. Use this example to help you or follow your teachers instructions. e.g. nuclear /nuklir/ 1.beautiful 2.traditional 3.experience 4.history

ConnectedSpeech
SentenceStress Beyond words, sentences also contain stress, which involves a change in pitch with increased vowel duration and increased intensity. In English, the most important words for communication are called content words. These are nouns, verbs, adjectives & adverbs and they are normally stressed in connected speech. On the other hand, function words, such as pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, conjunctions and determiners, are unstressed. Furthermore, new information is oftenstressed,butoldinformationisunstressed. The following words are typically weak, unless they are being said in isolation or beingemphasised. Strongform Weakform them /m/ /m,m/ was /wz/ /wz/ to /tu/ /t/ and /nd/ /n,n/ the /i/ // must /mst/ /ms,ms/
taken from Burridge, K. & Mulder, J. 2005, English in Australia & New Zealand: an introduction to its history,structureanduse,OxfordUniversityPress,Melbourne.

23

Exercise1 Add the sentence stress and pick out the connected speech. Follow your teachers instructions.

1. andI was living in Japan at the time, in Tokyo, and my parents came out

tovisitme.

2. So, we went on a tripermm.for about10 days. And we ..errrtook a

shinkansen train, which is the the bullet train in Japan, which is really really

excitingtotravelon.

3. andermwe visited a couple of really nice shrines there and we also

tookacablecaruptothetopoftheisland,whichwasalsoreallyinteresting

Homework

24

Listentosample1andpractiseaddingsentencestressandidentifyingtheconnected speech.

Pauses&Pitch
In spoken English groups of information or ideas are marked with pauses and pitch change, which is the way the voice moves up and down. In other words, these help the listener identify where one piece of information or idea ends and the next one begins. As a result, if these arent used correctly, your speech may be difficult to understand. A pitch change up usually means that the information is unfinished and the speaker wants to give more information. Higher pitch is also often used for the key information. A pitchchange down usually means the opposite; that theinformation isfinishedoradditionalinnature.

Exercise1: Listen to the following section of sample 1 and mark short pauses with / and long pauses with //. Also mark the pitch using going up or down where appropriate.

25

The second place we went was Miyajima, which is a beautiful island just

off the coast of Honshuandermwe visited a couple of really nice

shrines there and we also took a cable car up to the top of the island,

which was also really interestingerm The final place we went to was

Kyoto, which is a traditional city in Japan.and its full of lots of temples

andshrinesandyoucaneatreallynicetraditionalJapanesefood.

Rhythm
Just like music has rhythm, which is produced by the pattern of strong and weak beats,sodoeslanguage.Alllanguageshaverhythm,buttheyvaryfromlanguageto language. If you speak English with the rhythm of your first language, you are likely tobemisunderstood.Inlanguage,rhythmisthewayweusestrongbeatsorstress. Insomelanguage,ALLwordsandsyllablesaregivenanequalstress,sotheirrhythm lookssomethinglikethis: 1 26 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2

 Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Spanish are often described as syllabletimed languageslikethis. English, on the other hand, has been traditionally described as a stresstimed language. This means that their rhythm is made up of strong and weak stresses. Stressedsyllables are at approximately equal intervals and unstressed syllables shortentofitthisrhythm.Sotherhythmmaylooksomethinglikethis: Firstofall Content or information words are stressed and therefore longer sounding, whilst function or grammar words are unstressed or weak and have to be squeezed togethertofitbetweenthestressedwords.Inordertodothiswe: Exercise1 Listen to the following extracts from the audio and try marking the stressed syllables in the following sentences and pick out some weakened sounds and linking. 27 linkwordstogether usetheweakvowelorschwa 1 andthen 2 andthen 3

 1. I think being inquisitive is probably the most important. You need to be curious about the way things work and why they work in a particular way.Socuriositysprobablythemostimportantfactor. 2. erm I also think confidence is important. You need to be confident talking to people erm and asking sometimes quite difficult and challengingquestionsofpeople....... 3. So I think having the confidence to be able to do that, to be able to approach people, and ask them things that they may or may not be comfortableanswering,iserrisanimportantfactor. SoundChangesandOmissions
Soundchangeswithinwords In Australian and American English, when a /t/ comes between two vowel sounds, the pronunciation of it changes to a sound similar to /d/. The reason for this is because we are lazy speakers! Vowel sounds and /d/ are both voiced sounds. On the other hand, /t/ is not. Therefore, it is easier for us to say water as /wd/ than as /wt/, becauseit requires lessmovement in the mouth between the vowels and theconsonant. 28

 Speakers of British English sometimes omit the /t/ sound altogether and replace it with a glottal stop. This is a complete closing of the glottis at the back of the throat andbasicallysoundslikeanextremelyshortpause. It is also common to omit syllables in some longer words. For example, easily may become/izly/insteadof/izly/. Exercise1 ListentohowBrad,anAustralian,saysthefollowingwords: 1.variety 2.universities 3.qualities 4.important 5.competitive

6.interests 7.comfortable
SoundChangesAcrossWordBoundaries Changestosoundsalsooccuracrosswordboundariestomakethingseasierforusto say.Soundsmayalsobeomitted.Forexample,rightawaymaybepronouncedas /ra(d)we/ with the /t/ either omitted or pronounced as /d/. Another example is thatsingingintherainmaybecome/snnren/withthe/g/omitted. Exercise2 29

Try to pick out where sound changes or omissions occur across word boundaries in thefollowingextracts:

1. I also really enjoy writing...erm...Its something I get a lot of pleasure from, so that job would allow me to combine my interests in in travel, learningabouttheworldandalsowriting. 2. erm I also think confidence is important. You need to be confident talking to people erm and asking sometimes quite difficult and challengingquestionsofpeople.......

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Appendix3(editedversion)

UsingPodcastsforSelfStudy
Hopefully, your participation in the pronunciation project over the last few weeks has given you a better understanding of the different features of English pronunciation. You can make good use of this knowledge by continuing to practice yourpronunciationoutsidetheclassroom.Todothisyouwillneedtohaveaccessto reallifeEnglishrecordings,suchasthosefoundonPodcasts.Thesecanalsobeused toimproveyourlisteningskills,vocabularyandculturalawareness.Thefollowingis a list of useful podcasts you may want to download either via itunes or the webpagesbelow.

ESLPodcasts: Name
TheEnglishPodcast (WorldLanguages Podcasting) EnglishBites AustraliaNetwork PassporttoEnglish IELTSS AcademicEnglish(Martin McMorrow) SplendidSpeaking LearnEnglish ProfessionalsPodcast

Homepage
http://www.worldlanguagespodcasting.com http://australianetwork.com/learningenglish/vodcast.ht m http://australianetwork.com/passport/ http://martinmcmorrow.podomatic.com/ http://www.splendidspeaking.com/ http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/businessand work

PodcastsfromTV&RadioNetworks:

Name
AustralianBroadcasting Network(ABC) PoliticsABCradio national

Homepage
http://www.abc.net.au/services/podcasting/

HighlightsoftheABCspodcasts:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/podcasts/ 31

QandA AustraliaTalks BritishBroadcasting Corporation(BBC) BBCRadio4 BBCWorldService DocumentaryArchive

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/vodcast.htm http://www.abc.net.au/rn/australiatalks/subscribe/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/podcasts/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/inde x.shtml

HighlightsoftheBBCspodcasts:

USANetworks:
PublicBroadcasting Service(PBS),USA CableNewsNetwork http://www.pbs.org/podcasts/ http://edition.cnn.com/services/podcasting/

OtherPodcasts: Name
NationalMuseumof AustraliaAudioon demandprogram PulsebyCNETAustralia TheNakedScientists Podcast,Cambridge University,UK HarvardBusiness IdeaCast,Harvard BusinessPublishing,USA

Homepage
http://www.nma.gov.au/audio/ http://www.cnet.com.au/podcasts/pulse/ http://www.thenakedscientists.com/

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/

Addyourown:

Whydontyoucheckotherpopularpodcastsinthewhatshotsectionontheitunes homepage? For example, ABCs triple J radio has some good youthbased music,

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science and discussion programmes. If youre interested in comedy, then you might liketocheckoutFlightoftheConchordsorHamish&Andy.Happypodcasting!

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