Teaching phonetics

Teaching Phonetics:
Discover the "Majesty and Grandeur"
of the English Speech
In the brilliant Broadway Show My Fair Lady, Professor Higgins addresses Eliza with an inspirational speech after hearing her vain attempts to say where exactly the rains fall. One can almost hear Bernard Shaw speaking here, “Just think what you’re dealing with. The majesty and grandeur of the English language is the greatest possession we have. The noblest thoughts that ever flowed through the hearts of men are contained in its extraordinary, imaginative and musical mixture of sounds. And that’s what you’ve set yourself out to conquer, Eliza. And conquer it you will!” [italics added]
What exactly is the “grandeur and majesty” of the English language? So often have we attempted to “split” the studies of the language into some artificial fields that have undoubtedly helped us learn more about the language but are apparently making it more difficult to learn the language as it is. Thus, the students come to the point where they have successfully managed holding the boxes labeled as “Grammar” or “Writing” or “Listening,” but are reluctant to put together the content of each box for fear of “forgetting the language.” Where does this rigidity come from and how can we learn to overcome it in our minds, and more so in the minds of our students?

Let us unwrap the boxes for awhile, or maybe ignore the labels and let us manage to conduct each part to blossom into a beautiful music of something complete, whole and harmonious. Let us hear the polyphony of this orchestra and teach the language “out of the box” so our students may truly enjoy it.

Olena Osypchuk,
EFL Instructor

Useful links for planning lessons
Reading
news
Phonetics
common mistakes
Grammar
Rules & more
Testing
NonStop

Teaching Phonetics
Structure of the course
Use of Media
Use of songs
Use of movies
Using Media in Teaching Pronunciation
A workshop presented at 42nd Annual TESOL (2008) convention in New York
The Outline
What is TESOL?
Contact me
Olena Osypchuk has been teaching English Phonetics at Commonwealth International University in Simferopol, Ukraine since 2003
Click here to see my resume



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