Pronunciation booster course 4 – Buenos Aires English House

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 IV 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:

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

Individual sounds, supra-segmental features, connected speech and intonation.

Artificial Intelligence applied to pronunciation.

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. The sessions are recorded and available to all participants on the virtual campus, even after the course finishes.

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. You will get personalized feedback for your weekly assignment, and if you have any doubts you can contact the tutors and/ or your partners at any time on the virtual campus.

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

Click here to see the time and dates of the live meetings / sessions , course outline and the syllabus

DOWNLOAD PDF

Course Fees

Find out about INSTALLMENT PAYMENTS and EARLY BIRD discounts. Please complete the registration form or email us at baenglishhouse@gmail.com

Registration

Click here to complete the registration form

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