for teachers of English to Spanish-speaking learners

By Mark Hancock and Stella Palavecino

Overview and Outcomes

What if you could boost your pronunciation skills and pronunciation teaching in only 6 weeks in a thrilling, hands-on way?

If you feel you need to brush up you sounds and intonation, or you would like to introduce new, inspiring and practical pronunciation activities in your lessons, or get trained to use Praat to boost perception and production of intonation, or Audacity to settle up a language lab and even Phonics, The Pronunciation Booster III Course is just what you need to step up your knowledge.
This course is specially designed for EFL teachers, trainees, advanced learners and professionals and it can be tailor-made to meet their specific needs. You can choose:

-Standard-

The standard course in which you get an upgrade view on segments, vowels consonants and connected speech, the use of Audacity to produce classroom material and self monitoring of sounds, supra-segmental features and coaching on the use of Praat to perceive and produce intonation and tones, Phonics approach to all age groups and the four skills, pronunciation technology tools, the setting up of a language lab, and pedagogical matters, plus weekly assignments or

-Full-

The intensive course includes the standard course contents detailed above plus additional personalized feedback on the areas you wish to boost by the tutors. You can choose either

A. to reflect upon and improve your own pronunciation, and organize the way you teach it to EFL learners,
Or
B. you can go deep into phonetics pedagogy, and pronunciation lesson plan.
Besides the chance to present a final integrative pronunciation plan or annual pronunciation course for a target course you have in mind.

As you wish!

Whatever your choice, The Pronunciation Booster III will focus on:

individual sounds

supra-segmental features

the use of Praat to analyze intonation and tones,

The use of Audacity to work on vowels and diphthongs

Setting up a language lab and pedagogical matters

Phonics for all age groups and integration into the 4 skills

ICT tools to create pronunciation material

ideas for presenting and practising pronunciation in class

strategies to identify pronunciation problems

lesson planning for a wide range of levels and age groups.

Bonus: You will have an opportunity to try out activities for both face to face and online teaching contexts.

What is the course like?

The course consists of 6 live sessions on Zoom once a week delivered by Mark Hancock and Stella Palavecino, and asynchronous weekly feedback by them on the areas you want to boost.

It is participant-centred and collaborative, designed to build your knowledge and confidence.

Tutors upload on the asynchronous platform activities and tasks to help you apply the course content to your own contexts in a relevant and meaningful fashion.

Tasks are interactive, involving live online sessions, forums and community walls, and utilise a range of multimedia including images, audio files and videos.

PLUS: You get and end-of-course certificate signed by the tutors with a detailed list of the content covered.

Former Participants Say

It’s been or it’s being a great experience in many aspects. A great opportunity to be taught by top professionals in the field. Mark’s view on the importance of pronunciation is one of the things which have impacted me most. He’s impartial and ‘humble’ and respectful: ‘always communication comes first’ or ‘pronunciation is key for listening’, among many others, are statements that I won’t forget.

And Stella another top professional. Now I feel that I know what it is and that I can manage a Pronunciation Lab on my own, ICT tools and the use of PRAAT to work with intonation. I’m very happy about having been part of this. Incredible course mates as well. They have great ideas too. Thanks so much for everything!!

I’m so grateful to Stella, Mark and partners, we’ve shared useful activities, strategies and tools to teach phonetics. Stella, you’ve been so patient with me and my problems with technology! You’re the ideal teacher. And Mark has such a valuable knowledge of phonetics and phonology! But most important, although he knows a lot, he’s so humble! I wish some colleagues of mine at work were like him. Thanks a bunch for your kindness!

Thank you, STELLA! Thank you, MARK! Thank you again for everything, for the new insights, for the original ideas, for the technological input… I will be definitely using them in my class. Take care, stay safe and hope to see you again soon. Hugs from far away. Giulia Suciu Rumania

I’m super grateful to Stella, Mark and my colleagues for providing valuable insight into the area of phonetics. I feel I’ve expanded my ELT toolkit. This course struck a happy balance between theory and practice, which allowed me to think of concrete ways of planning activities to deal with challenging pronunciation topics (that, more often than not, are skipped due to their complexity). Praat appears to be the perfect tool to visibilize what students may not be able to perceive when they are starting to learn the language (now, I won’t get cold feet when teaching intonation ha-ha!). Audacity is a great ally when it comes to creating bespoke pronunciation practice material and I believe it can take our classes to the following level. I particularly enjoyed the game-like activities Mark proposed in order to deal with different connected speech processes, stress, intonation and vowel/consonant sounds. I found them highly appealing to both teachers and students. Last but not least, this course pushed me to dust down my university class notes and to refresh valuable theory. I really hope to keep in touch with you all. It’s been a pleasure! Many thanks for your generosity!

Thanks Mark and Stella for a whole lot for an outstanding phonetics course and inspiring us teachers to go beyond our own limits when it comes to teaching methodology and strategies. I really admire both of you as you combine the quest for excellence, a spirit of solidarity and a sense of humility. To my colleagues wish you an academic year full of great opportunities to do what we love: teach from the heart! Kind regards!

Tutors

Mark Hancock and Stella Palavecino are highly experienced trainers and experts, in both pronunciation and also working online with teachers for continuing professional development.

Mark Hancock

Mark Hancock iIs a teacher, trainer and author based in the UK. He holds an MA in Teaching English from Aston University. His books include Pronunciation Games (CUP 1995), English Pronunciation in Use (CUP 2003), Authentic Listening in Practice (DELTA 2014, with Annie McDonald) and PronPack 1-4 (Hancock McDonald ELT 2017).

His latest books are PronPack 5: Pronunciation of English for Spanish Speakers (Hancock McDonald ELT 2020) and Mark Hancock’s 50 Tips for Teaching Pronunciation (CUP 2020). He also runs the teacher resource websites http://pronpack.com/ and http://hancockmcdonald.com/ (with Annie McDonald).

Stella Palavecino

Prof. Stella Palavecino, M.A. in TEFL, is a graduate teacher, a teacher trainer, a material designer and a writer based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A validated specialist in Phonetics and Phonology, she holds postgraduate degrees in Higher Education, ICT and Pedagogy. She has published extensively and has delivered presentations in the fields of phonology and pronunciation, ICT tools applied to pronunciation teaching, language laboratories and phonetics pedagogy at various ESL/EFL symposia. She is also a Pronsig scholarship winner for the IATEFL 2020 annual conference.

She currently lectures in Phonetics and Phonology I and II, and English Diction at Teacher Training Colleges and Translation Programmes. She is a founding member of B.A. English House, where she has designed a special fellowship in EFL Education, offered to college students from U.K. universities. In association with universities and teacher education institutions, she has organized webinars, conferences and study groups that promote continuing professional development. As an interntional consultant, she has widely reviewed published materials produced in her field.

SCHEDULE

This course consists of 6 modules. Each module requires approximately 5 hours work per week, including attending the webinar, revising, answering forum questions and doing weekly tasks.

Live sessions are normally held on a Saturday at 2.30 -4.00PM Argentina time, and recorded for those who are unable to attend. The questions that may come up when teachers do not join the Zoom meeting, weekly assignments or ongoing topics, are discussed in the forum during the week on the course asynchronous platform

Webinar/ Online Session 1 – 7th January 2023

CONTENTS

Exploring English spelling and vowel system and approaches to teaching vowel contrasts and spelling patterns.

Phonics – An approach to literacy-

Introduction to working with ‘Edmodo’ as an asynchronous platform’

Weekly work on the asynchronous platform

All participants optional work in between sessions

Forum discussion on material posted by Mark

Personal presentations to get to familiar with the asynchronous platform.
Forum discussion on English spelling and vowel system based on visual prompts or classroom discussion
Exploring and sharing classroom material

Full Course:

Participants that take this option will have the chance to tailor make Pronunciation Booster III. The tutors will follow and monitor the type of work they choose to practise on a personal Google folder . Participants should be able to choose to work on either :

1.-boosting their own pronunciation, or

2.-pronunciation teaching, ICT tools applied to pronunciation like the use of Praat, Audacity or the setting up of a language lab,

That will allow the tutors to focus on an area of the participant preference. At the end of the course, participants will have to present a final project based on the area they chose. Feedback will be giving on a personal online meeting with the tutors

Optional assignment 1: Participants will upload a personal audio stating the reasons why they are taking the course and the area they would like to work on. They will get personal feedback and a Google Drive folder will be opened suggesting tasks and material on the area of their preference

Webinar/ Online Session 2 – 14th January 2023

CONTENTS

Exploring English consonants and consonant clusters, and comparing them with the learners’ L1.

Introduction to Audacity as a means to monitoring perception and production of sounds

Working with a virtual ‘Language Laboratory’ for
self correction,
working with authentic audios to ‘slow down tempo’,’ amplify the pitch’ and ’ repetition to boost comprehension and create classroom material

Weekly work on the asynchronous platform

All participants optional work in between sessions

Forum discussion on material posted by Mark

Getting familiar with Audacity tools
Setting up a language laboratory
Creating participants’ first podcast in a language lab.
Uploading podcasts
Giving and receiving Feedback from all the participants on Edmodo

Full Course:

Getting feedback from the tutors on assignment 1

Tailor-made texts and material suggested by tutors, focussing on the area of the participant preference as explained above

Webinar/Online Session 3 – 21st January 2023

CONTENTS

Beyond individual sounds: syllables, rhythm and connected speech.

Working with a virtual ‘Language Laboratory’ material: How to create a silence gapped audio version to work on individual pronunciation features

Weekly work on the asynchronous platform

All participants optional work in between sessions

Forum discussion on material posted by Mark

Measuring elision and other connected speech processes on Audacity

Full Course:

Working on how to create a silence gapped audio to boost sounds on a language lab

Creating classroom material : Uploading participants’ first silence gapped audio

Webinar/Online Session 4 – 28th January 2023

CONTENTS

Exploring patterns of stress, intonation and tones; working with authentic spoken English.

Using PRAAT to identify intonation contours

Weekly work on the asynchronous platform

All participants optional work in between sessions

Forum discussion on material posted by Mark

Creating a hybrid audio

Full Course:

Integrating a hybrid audio to the stages of a lesson plan

Webinar/Online Session 5 – 4^th February 2023

CONTENTS

Pronunciation for listening. ‘Top-down’ versus ‘bottom-up’ listening.

Praat and Ampitch work on falling and rising tones The former to boost oral perception, and the latter to boost oral production

Weekly work on the asynchronous platform

All participants optional work in between sessions

The use of Praat on the analysis of tone contour or Ampitch for tone production

Full Course:

Deciding on a final project presentation

Webinar / Online Session 6 – 11^th February 2023

CONTENTS

Planning pronunciation lessons: setting goals and priorities; identifying learners’ needs; anticipating difficulties from the learners’ L1

Giving Feedback using ICT tools and on Language Labs

Weekly work on the asynchronous platform

All participants optional work in between sessions

Using ICT tools to give feedback. Who should give feedback? Encouraging collaborative feedback

Think of ways of giving feedback after language laboratory practice.
Will it be personal on an Assignment?
Will you encourage your classes to socialize their podcasts and get feedback from their classmates too?
Can you think of any other stage in the classroom to provide feedback on oral production?

Full Course:

Final project presentation draft either on Pronunciation or Teaching pronunciation.

Setting up personal meeting with the tutors

Assignment:

FULL Course suggested project ideas

What areas of phonology are problematic in your classes. Choose one feature of phonology to work with and design a lesson plan/ didactic sequence. Remember to consider different possibilities ICT tools, videos, games, etc
Work on sample videos of a person whose speech you admire, and create a transcript to read aloud.

In the final personal meetings with the tutors, participants will have to read aloud the selected passage imitating the original text, and explaining what ICT tools were necessary to achieve the aim

After the completion of the modules participants are given 7 additional days to present their final pronunciation project. They also agree with a date to meet Mark Hancock and Stella Palavecino, who will give them their personal feedback.

Digital Tools needed

Zoom – Praat – Audacity – Google Docs – Google forms – Google Slides – Moodle

Requirements and Resources

Participants need a computer, a headset (with microphone), and internet connection, and a Google Drive account. You can do much of the course with a tablet or a phone but you will need a PC to set up a language laboratory and to cover certain activities

All participants have access to the tutors PDFs, slide presentations, live recordings, articles, free online resources, a glossary, a course mini-book and material on the asynchronous platform library. The material will be uploaded on this platform for a month after the end of the course

Have a Sound Summer!

Master the secrets of English Pronunciation in a laid-back, knowledge-loving learning environment.

Make the most of your summer time and join BA English House community today.

Make your sounds and teaching practice shine forth!

Mark & Stella

PBIII 2023

Pre-registration

Click here please to continue