PhoTransEdit

I have just added a tool which might help Phonetics students to transcribe their tasks.
It won't solve all your tasks because the transcriptions don't necessarily coincide with the pronunciations recorded in the LPD, but you will be able to use it and check.
Once you've transcribed, you start your narrow transcription, including allophonic variants and instances of contextual elision and assimilation.

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.photransedit.com%2FOnline%2FText2Phonetics.aspx&h=NAQHdrhjBAQFOR8tGEPiAFIKUxqSc_N1QrPGzS0Jg5sGnfw

Hope it helps!

Tips for using stories

Tips for using stories
This is a useful article on teaching kids. It gives tips for using stories in ELT.
Hope it helps!

When Grice's maxims are flouted...

...our discourse is not what we can call "crystal clear"
Sometimes, trying to avoid being impolite, we end up being quite ambiguous and difficult to understand.
Which maxims are being flouted here?
How could you change this interaction into a clearer exchange of ideas?

A quick guide to London English (by an American)

Here the UK The Guardian goes on giving us opportunities to learn more each day.
In this article, British and American expressions are compared.

http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/sport/2012/jul/16/london-2012-breaking-language-barrier?post_gdp=true

Hope you enjoy reading it!

Friendship IXX by Khalil Gibran

And a youth said, "Speak to us of Friendship." 

Your friend is your needs answered. 

He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. 

And he is your board and your fireside. 

For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace. 

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay." 

And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart; 

For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed. 

When you part from your friend, you grieve not; 

For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain. 

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. 

For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught. 

And let your best be for your friend. 

If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also. 

For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? 

Seek him always with hours to live. 

For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness. 

And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. 

For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

HAPPY DAY, MY FRIENDS!!!

Some warning about stereotyping Brits

This article welcomes people arriving in London for the Olympic Games.
With a bit of fun and a lot of sarcasm, a British citizen depicts the London atmosphere in front of the big challenge of hosting the Olympic Games.
Hope you enjoy it!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/gregs11/olympics-2012-etiquette-guide-4x67

London 2012: Unfamiliar Olympic sports explained

Hi everybody!
Let's profit from reading UK newspapers to learn a bit more about some sports we might not be well informed about.
This article from the UK Guardiand might help.
Enjoy it!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/21/london-2012-unfamiliar-olympic-sports

How to draw animals

How to draw animals
Some very useful tips on drawing.
It's true! Everybody can draw animals, or anything else!

When chunking makes a difference.

Not just a question of sounds.! It's food for thought

One more example of homophones

The Speed of Language

This article shows that not all that glitters is gold!

http://www.wiredacademic.com/2012/02/infographic-the-speed-of-language-what-languages-are-spoken-most-rapidly/

Hope you enjoy it!

Teaching Workshop II people at work

Students attending Teaching Workshop II made their end of term presentations on EFL Teachers Profile.
After discussing the different characteristics and skills teachers should have and develop in order to be successful at teaching, students prepared poster presentations to state their points.
There was a deployment of creative presentations and, what is more important, students were able to reflect upon their own possibilities of improvement as teachers-to-be.
Here I share some pictures showing their posters. I have to congratulate all the students on their commitment to prepare their speeches. They showed that, with effort, they can put forward their ideas clearly and concisely.



                                                                                 
                                                                                  Lucila, Ayelén, Nicolás, Georgina and Solange

Marilina, Jesica, Victoria and Guadalupe

Anika, Estefania, Ramiro, Hernán, Paola and Sol 

Agustina, Candela, Georgina and Marcela

Yohana, Macarena, Paola, Giuliana and Gisela also made a great presentation, but we didn't have the camera when they did so.
A big round of applause for all of them!

Swing dance

For my students in the first year.
Last meeting we discussed different kinds of music. We were not well aware of what Swing dance was like.
Here I add a link to a video where you can see what it is like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHANNkKBSNU&feature=related

Hope you enjoy it!

Teaching High Priority

When the error interferes with intelligibility.

An instance of Narrow Focus

When we change nuclear placement from the last content word for the sake of emphasizing meaning or due to shared meaning which we don't need to highlight.

More homophones

Borrowed from Cultural Inglesa Facebook entry.

When homophones make us laugh...

Can you identify them?

From Peru TESOL newsletter

I've found it interesting. Especially, the link to web tutorials included at the bottom.

DECALOGUE OF A MODERN LANGUAGE TEACHER BY LUCZAK

1.      Don't be afraid of new technologies; in practice they turn out be easy and intuitive and usually they work rather than don't;

2.      Don't be afraid to ask more experienced teachers, IT consultants, bloggers or technology enthusiasts for help; they are usually happy to share their experience;

3.      Enroll for a course on Computer Assisted Language Learning (like we did) or suggest organising such a course at you school or university;

4.      If your colleague uses computers in his/her work with students suggest that they run a training for other teachers; the cost of such training will most probably be lower than the cost of an outsourced training;

5.      You can always as your students for help; most probably they know how to solve your technical problems;

6.      Using new technologies your students do not know you can impress them;

7.      With new technologies you will make your life easier by creating a base of teaching materials to use in the future, you will limit the number of paper homeworks written in hard to decipher handwriting, you will engage your students in course creation, you will produce a final product of your work that can be proudly presented to your superiors, colleagues, students' parents;

8.      You will enrich your CV; e-learning courses are now an integral component of many traditional language courses. Information about your advanced computer literacy can raise your chances on the job market;

9.      Try hard; you learn most by doing things;

10.  Check Russell Stannard website on www.teachertrainingvideos.com where in short videos he shows how to use various applications in the language classroom.

Hope you enjoy it!

When stress makes a difference.

When elision of /ə/ leads to syllabic value of consonants

Even though we have asserted that the typical function of vowels is to be the nucleus of the syllable, sometimes consonants can also have that function.
When the weak vowel /ə/ is between a FRICATIVE or PLOSIVE and a NASAL, the LATERAL or the POST ALVEOLAR APPROXIMANT, it is usually elided in rapid connected speech. This process leads to syllabic value of the second consonants, which become the nucleus of the syllable since they are the only element in it.

Stereotypes of British politeness

This is to exemplify what we commented upon in class. The longer the request, the more polite it is!

Some vocabulary for my students in the first year

Parts of the body
Here I add some images to help you remember the items better.
Hope it helps!

The Speech Accents Archive

Another site to listen to different accents. You can also read the scripts and the transcriptions.

http://accent.gmu.edu/browse_atlas.php

English accents around the world

In this site you can listen to different English accents.
You will be able to compare and contrast the characteristics of the different accents.
http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/research/gsound/Eng/Database/Phonetics/Englishes/Home/HomeMainFrameHolder.htm
Hope it helps!