Week 1
Lesson
Aim
Small
Talk:
Question
& Focus
Activity 1
Monday
Students will get to know each
other and the course.
How are you? / How are you
doing? (+answers)
No small talk practice today. Just
introduce the question and focus
on pronunciation.
Name game
- Teacher models “I’m Alex and I
like ________” for the students
including pronunciation.
- Students choose their own noun
to complete their sentence.
- Students go around the class,
and have to say the sentence,
along with a noun and an action.
- After a few people, the base
sentence can be changed to
“smell like”, “look like”, “have a
______ for a head”. Students must
act an appropriate response.
Activity 2
Outline course goals
- A basic guide to pronunciation –
students will become more aware
or pronunciation, and be able to
apply it in studies going forward.
- Fluency theory and language
learning metaphors (sport, music,
art)
- Course structure.
Activity 3
Technology check:
- Laptop?
- Smartphone?
Tuesday
Students will better understand
the nature and importance of
pronunciation, and their own
goals within it.
Where do you live?
Nice to meet you.
Practice focused on fluency, ask as
many people as you can.
Decreasing time.
Looking at pronunciation models.
Look at examples of English
pronunciation from around the
world.
Ask the following questions:
- What is the best pronunciation?
Why?
- What makes these people
different?
- What do we need to know to
pronounce things well?
- How important is pronunciation?
- Which sounds more like you?
- Who do you want to sound like?
Wednesday
Students will become fully aware
of the vowel sounds of English,
how they compare to Korean and
their IPA symbols.
Your ________ looks good.
That’s a nice ___________.
(+responses)
Again, focus on fluency across all
of the questions.
Vowels
- Watch the vowels video at
http://vimeo.com/32830670
- Students write down the words
they hear in the video.
- Students group words by vowels.
- Students try to match sounds to
IPA symbols.
- Students try to match Korean
sounds (This is more aimed at
raising awareness that the
systems are not the same.)
- Students try pronouncing the
sounds themselves.
Thursday
Students will learn to distinguish
long and short vowels with
similar qualities.
Friday
Students will use the long and
short vowels to create short skits.
What did you do last night?
Focus on fluency, intonation and
vowel sounds.
What are you doing this weekend?
Focus on intonation, same as
yesterday’s question.
Long and short vowels
- Students listen to the vowel pairs
/I/ and /i:/, /u/ and /u:/, and /c/
and /c:/. How are they different
(length, slight quality).
- Listen & Identify (How many?)
- Minimal pairs practice
(PAE85/86, 149, 165)
Role plays
- Students create role plays based
on misunderstandings caused by
long & short vowels. Examples
from PAE 85/86).
- They will be given a list of
minimal pairs.
- Perform and critique role plays,
especially pronunciation aspects.
Introducing video blogging
- Signup to video site. Record
passwords! Start a community.
- Alex demo blog, also to serve as
a model for their own video
diaries.
Introducing the 1,000 most
common words in English.
- These are words that you know,
and they cover about 70% of all
English. If you know these,
pronunciation-wise, then you can
take some big steps.
- Students look through word list,
and try to match some sounds to
the ones they have just learnt, and
write in the IPA symbols, and try
pronouncing them in pairs.
Flashcard & dictionary work
- Flashcards are important for
pronunciation work, as well as
memory. (Anki)
- Decide what’s important for you.
- You can look up pronunciation in
a dictionary, and save it with your
flashcards.
-Guess the examples from
dictionary IPA.
Space
Left blank for overrunning
activities. If necessary, further
fluency work with questions, or a
creative fluency activity can be
done here.
Video
diary
None
What/who is my pronunciation
model? What are my problems?
What do I want to achieve in this
course.
Record yourself speaking one word
from the 1,000 for each sound that
you learnt.
Which sounds, and words, do you
find most difficult to pronounce,
and why? What do you need to
work on.
Weekend, no recordings, but
watch and comment on someone
else’s videos.
Week 2
Monday
Students will learn the production
of three other short vowels.
Tuesday
Students will learn production of
two remaining long vowels, plus
schwa.
Wednesday
Students will learn about
dipthongs and practice all of the
vowel sounds learnt so far.
Small
Talk:
Question
& Focus
Activity 1
Did you have a good weekend?
Focus on correct intonation
pattern, and long and short
vowels.
Short vowels
- Sound models.
- Identify where these sounds may
occur in the 1,000 word list.
- Minimal pairs practice for /ae/
and /e/ (PAE 100)
- Speaking and identifying games
(how many, odd one out).
Excuse me, do you have a ___?
Compare to yesterday’s intonation
pattern. Check vowel sounds as
per last night’s diary.
Long vowels
- Listen – qualities of the vowels?
- Try distinguishing – how many?
Then play the game yourself using
words from the 1,000.
Nice weather we’re having.
Look at straight and sarcastic
intonations (depending on
weather).
Dipthongs
- Write the dipthongs on the
board in IPA, get students to
predict and match words to them.
- Help to refine pronunciation.
Activity 2
Technology review
- Look at some computer
modelling. University of Iowa,
forvo.com, maybe some
comparison software if time.
Schwa
- Practise production.
- How do you spell schwa? Most
common vowel in English.
- Schwa wars: Dictate some text
(Questions?). Where does schwa
appear.
- Continue the game, but with
students predicting and reading.
Vowel bingo
Students pick a 9x9 grid of vowel
sounds to play bingo. Students can
be the callers.
Identify the short vowels in
questions so far, and practice
pronunciation.
Find a short text, and see if you
can predict the schwas and read it
for us.
Homework: find a picture that
represents a word for each of the
vowel sounds that we have learnt.
Lesson
Aim
Activity 3
Video
diary
Thursday
Students will use what we’ve
learnt to improve speeches for
Chris’s class, and also begin their
video projects.
Long review and practice.
Friday
Students will watch the videos.
Speech Clinic
- In pairs, students will give and
analyze each other’s speeches for
Chris’s class. Analysis will focus on
getting vowel sounds right, with
lots of practice.
- If time, we will also look at
where fluency breaks down and
why.
- Any other intonation matters.
Video project
- Students will be introduced to a
video project. Using the pictures
they found the previous night they
will make their own equivalent to
the vowels video.
Video watching
- Students will watch and analyze
videos.
Homework: make your vowels
video.
Watch and comment on some
people’s videos.
Has it been a long week?
Focus on rising intonation.
Space
- Overrun
- Reflection: How was your
speech? How are feeling about the
course so far?
- Student questions.
Week 3
Lesson
Aim
Small
Talk:
Question
& Focus
Activity
1
Monday
Students will distinguish the
consonant sounds of English,
and compare them to IPA and
Korean.
What do you think of ______?
Focus on fluency
Tuesday
Students will work on the
basic pronunciation of some
troublesome consonants.
Story
- I read a very short story
containing all of the
consonants in English.
- Students dictate, try to
identify how many different
sounds.
- Students try to match IPA
symbols and similarities to
Korean.
- Teacher models again, then
students try to reproduce.
Consonants Reflection&
Practice
- Watch other people’s videos
and see where they struggled.
Identify the most difficult
sounds.
- Practice making those
sounds. I expect to be working
with f/v, r/l, th.
- Use the computer modelling,
diagrams (Orion Unit 2), Forvo
for some info (& me).
- Give some minimal pairs lists
for problem consonants.
How long have you been ___?
Intonation especially with
variations.
Activity
2
Activity
3
Video
diary
Wednesday
Students will become aware
and be more able to express
issues with terminal
devoicing.
V short practice & review small
talk today due to lack of time.
Thursday
Students will further practice
difficult consonants, and apply
them in the speech clinic.
Friday
Students will increase their
knowledge of IPA through
doing a treasure hunt.
This ___ is a bit _____, isn’t it?
Intonation of tag questions.
V short practice & review.
Terminal devoicing.
- Listen to some minimal pairs
with voiced/unvoiced terminal
consonants. How do they
differ? (Computer analysis?)
- Minimal pairs practice. (From
PAE as necessary, or from list)
- Practice with 1,000 words.
Speech clinic
- Go through speeches – are
there any difficult consonants
in there? Particularly terminal
devoicing or vowel-added
endings?
- Practice words, then
speeches in pairs. Analyze,
redo etc.
- Give speeches to the class.
Maybe try to look at some
rephrasing.
IPA Treasure Hunt
- Students will be given a sheet
of clues written in IPA, leading
them to numbers hidden
around the university.
- Students have to find, and
add together the numbers. The
closest team to the total at the
end wins the prize.
What are the biggest problems
in my speech?
Watch and comment on
videos.
Difficult consonant endings
- Look at endings that often
have a vowel sound added in
Korean: ch, sh, dj.
- Right or wrong. I put a word
on the board – Ss produce it,
partner says right or wrong.
Record yourself reading the
story.
Use today’s improvements to
record the story again.
Where has your pronunciation
improved most? What can you
do now? What interesting
things have you learnt?
Week 4
Lesson
Aim
Small
Talk:
Question
& Focus
Activity 1
Monday
Students will be aware of the
concept of word stress and some
of the vowels which occur in
unstressed syllables.
Today feels like a _______. (+
responses / intonations)
Focus on intonation.
Tuesday
Students will move towards the
concept of sentence stress and
thought groups.
Wednesday
Students will revise concepts of
word stress, sentence stress and
thought groups.
Thursday
Students will apply topics studied
so far to their speeches.
Friday
Students will analyse their own
videos.
Short review & practice.
Make your own question (Perhaps
from Korean).
Long review and practice.
Long review and practice.
Figuring out stress
- Look at 1,000 words. Where does
schwa appear? Try pronouncing
these words.
- Listen to some models, how do
the vowels differ (length, force)?
- What vowels typically occur in
unstressed syllables?
- Practice time in pairs.
- How to look up stress in
dictionaries.
Weak forms + content words
- Is every word in a sentence
equally important?
- Expanding telegrams to full
sentences.
- Reducing full sentences to
telegrams.
- Dictate, and look at phonetically
– introduce the concept of weak
forms.
News Reports
- Watch a couple of news reports
from the homework. Comment on
effectiveness of stress placement
etc.
- Students write their own news
reports, using as much simple
language as possible, and
concentrating on concepts learnt
this week, as well as segmental
concepts from previous weeks.
- Practice and critique in class if
time.
Speech Clinic
-Try to break down speeches in
terms of thought groups and
sentence stress.
- Deal with any other issues.
Watching News Reports
- Watch and comment on each
other’s news videos and aspects
to be improved.
News Report
- Address any issues recording the
news reports.
Reflection
- How can we apply what we’ve
learnt?
- How much should we worry
about pronunciation?
- Is it really important to know this
stuff?
How well do you feel that you use
sentence stress? Is it something
that you think is important? How
can you apply it to your English?
Watch and comment on someone
else’s video.
Activity 2
Activity 3
Video
diary
News report
- Listen to a news report, and try
to mark the pauses.
- Talk about where they occur, and
how they relate to stress.
Pick 10 words from the frequent
1,000 and read them with the
correct stress.
Try to read the news report
yourself, with pauses and stress.
Record your own news report.
Week 5
Lesson
Aim
Small
Talk:
Question
& Focus
Activity
1
Activity
2
Activity
3
Video
diary
Monday
Students will better
understand how intonation
can be used to convey speaker
attitude and to contrast
information.
How are you finding the
course?
Tuesday
Students will better
understand how to use
intonation to point out new
information.
Wednesday
Students will practice
intonation through
performing role plays.
Thursday
Students will apply everything
that they have learnt so far to
their final speeches.
Friday
Students will reflect on the
course and say goodbye.
Long practice & review
session.
Long practice and review
session.
Long practice and review
session.
Speaker attitude
- Exercise in PAE (68 B).
Students pronounce the same
word in English in different
ways according to attitude
(certain, uncertain, angry,
surprised etc.)
- Perform for the group and try
to diagram intonations.
- Look at NS model (Alex)
- Try again.
Intonation for contrast
- Look at PAE 66 & 67 and do
the activities.
- Try to write your own
sentence and see if your
partner can guess what you
mean.
New information
- Do the witty waiter exercise
sheet.
- Find some other dialogs to
study and perform.
Did you hear about _____?
Did you see ________?
Focus on fluency & vowel
sounds.
Role-play
- Finish writing and practising
role plays.
- Perform for the class and
analyze.
Speech clinic
- Individual speeches, with
comments from students and
teacher.
Reflection
- How should we use what we
learnt?
- Are rules important?
- How can we continue to
practice?
- What has been the most
important thing?
- How do you feel about your
pronunciation now?
Make a video that tries to
show your attitude using one
word only, for other people to
guess.
How good is your intonation?
Do you feel you can use what
you have learnt? Where? How?
Role-play
- Look at the dialogs we just
studied.
- Use them as inspiration to
write a role-play
demonstrating some of these
features.
Goodbye messages
- Students write a goodbye
message, practise, and deliver.
Record some example lines
from your role-play.
Goodbye message practice.
Comments if you want.