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Tech Talk Applications for practicing and measuring pronunciation
Lucius Von Joo Kanda University of International Studies, Japan Lucius Von Joo currently teaches at Kanda University of International Studies, Japan. He holds an EdM in Comparative and International Education and has teaching experience in deaf education, elementary education and EFL/ESL in California, Japan and New York. His research interests include computer assisted learning, film and documentary content based learning, student educational backgrounds and learning approaches, video-cued multivocal ethnography, and family and communities as educators. E-mail: lucius-v@kanda.kuis.ac.jp
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ost students can practice reading, writing and listening on their own outside class. Speaking and specifically pronunciation for many of us can be a completely different story. It is hard to find motivation and routine for practicing a skill that is most often used with other people. Ideally we would all have friends and acquaintances that speak the L2 we are trying to learn, but often this is not the case. Even in an ideal situation, our fluent speaking friends are not always the best source for error correction. What kind of plan can teachers set in motion to help students with pronunciation? For this column, I explain ways of providing opportunities for habit-forming pronunciation practice activities. I have found with my students that smartphone applications make a good fit for routine building. They are always with the learner and can even give daily reminders. In addition, for speaking activities, a microphone is often needed and this does not always come standard on traditional computers. Lastly, smartphone applications often follow a game routine, which by its nature gives instant feedback. I reviewed and tested dozens of applications geared towards pronunciation and focus on five in this column. In choosing these five, I was guided by the following criteria • good exercise routine • fits into a daily schedule • easily accessible • gives measurable feedback
Three of the applications are ideal for daily warm ups and the other two are useful for solo activities that provide feedback.
Warm ups Mouth stretches are one simple warm up that language learners can do on their own; stretches that are much like what you would do for your legs before running. I often use the running and walking analogy with students, explaining that their L1 is like walking; something they always do, whereas studying an L2 is like running; since you do it less often you need to stretch for the new movements. When I was looking for applications with daily stretches I found that apps such as these are often produced for three groups: language learners, vocalists, and speech pathologists. The language learning and vocalists’ applications tend to cost money and unless I am sure my students will use the application continuously, Idon’t want them to pay for an application. This leaves the speech pathologist applications; though these apps can be very expensive I was able to find a few great apps designed to help stroke patients to regain oral ability. Mouth movement for language has much to do with muscle memory and this is a common thread for the two fields.
Independence 62 IATEFL Learner Autonomy Special Interest Group Newsletter 1