An ipod of my Paper on How to Teach Phonetics to Rioplatense Students

 Academia.edu has published an ipod on my paper on How to Teach Phonetics to Rioplatense Students I had published some years ago.

Here I add the link for you to listen to it.  https://www.academia.edu/ai_podcast/47039385 

PRONUNCIATION MATTERS_CONSONANTS_SONORANTS

In this video we are going to discuss SONORANTS.

There is specially interesting information about /h/. I share some explanations sent to me by Professor John Wells.

Enjoy!

PRONUNCIATION MATTERS_CONSONANTS_OBSTRUENTS

Hello again. 

Here I share a new PRONUNCIATION MATTERS video. This time I introduce Obstruents.

Hope you find it useful. 

Pronunciation matters_consonantal allophones

English Consonants_An Overview

 Hello again.

Today I'm sharing a new video on PRONUNCIATION MATTERS. This time, I'm presenting an overview of BBC English consonants.

Hope you find the video useful.

PRONUNCIATION MATTERS_SANTAFESINIAN PRONUNCIATION OF "S"

PRONUNCIATION MATTERS - BBC ENGLISH AND RIOPLATENSE SPANISH VOWELS COMPARED

 Here I add a new video to the series PRONUNCIATION MATTERS.

Hope you find it useful.

PRONUNCIATION MATTERS_GENERALITIES OF RIOPLATENSE SPANISH AND BBC ENGLIS...

I include a new video on PRONUNCIATION MATTERS.

Hope you find it useful.

PRONUNCIATION MATTERS_ESTABLISHING TEACHING PRIORITIES

 Following with the series of videos on PRONUNCIATION MATTERS, I discuss the features of pronunciation we should address according to the learning aim of our students and their proficiency level.

Hope it helps!

PRONUNCIATION MATTERS_VIDEO 2

In this second video I'll speak about the reasons why we teach pronunciation.

PRONUNCIATION MATTERS_VIDEO 1

 I'm starting a new series of videos where I'm planning to share some teaching pronunciation tips that might help in-service teachers and students as well.

Hope it helps!

Information Especially Dedicated to Phonetics and Phonology Freaks

I learned about this article through Jane Setter's FB page.

It might really give room for studying voices more. We can discover the value of accoustic phonology.

Hope you enjoy reading it.

Signs of Covid-19 may be hidden in speech signals: Processing vocal recordings of infected but asymptomatic people reveals potential indicators of Covid-19.

[IATEFL PronSIG webinar] Intelligi…. Sorry, what did you say? - Robin W...

Enjoy this interesting talk about intelligibility. It gives lots of food for thought.

PRONUNCIATION TIP

If you want to help adolescent students to achieve accurate pronunciation, you could resort to challenging them to pronounce “as a British person would do it”.  You’ll have incredibly accurate productions from many of the students. They have the encyclopedic concept of how an English person behaves and, among many other details, pronunciation is a great issue.

Philologia publication

http://www.philologia.org.rs/Files/broj_16.pdf
Happy to share this publication on Phonetics and Phonology.
I'm proud of being one of the authors published in it.

A great sharing opportunity

Can you guess?

How can you associate this video with the content of our next workshop: "Teaching Pronunciation in the 21st Century Classroom"?

See you on August 4th.

Analizing a Native Spanish Speaker's English Pronunciation

Watch this video. We all know that Penélope Cruz’s mother tongue is Spanish and it is evident in the way she pronounces English. 

We can perceive how she produces accurate aspiration of the /t/, even though it is not a feature used by Spanish speakers. On the other hand, she uses /s/ instead of /z/ in was, castings and jobs. This is a mistake that might be produced due to the entrenchment of the plural “S” in Spanish, which is always produced as /s/ in final position. Another error she produces due to her mother tongue influence is the use of /d/ instead of /ð/ in the sequence in the. This can be caused by the influence of the voiced alveolar nasal before the voiced dental fricative. In this case, there is an instance of progressive assimilation of the /d/ under the influence of the /n/ instead of the expected regressive assimilation of the [n̪ ] under the influence of the  /ð/. When she pronounces also doing and modeling, she uses /ð/ because it is the preferred sound in intervocalic position in Spanish.

None of the errors interferes with intelligibility in this context. They could be considered “optional attention” errors according to Kenworthy (1987); Category 3 according to Collins & Mees (2001), since they would not even cause amusement or irritation; and acceptable for general intelligibility according to Cruttenden (2001) because the instances of use do not bring about misunderstandings since function words do not affect meaning importantly (in the case of in the) and the plural is perceived no matter the voicing of the alveolar fricative.

Hope you enjoy this entry!

“Things always come in threes”. 3rd and last part of "El Inglés de los güesos"

As stated in the title, this is the third post on “El ingles de los güesos”  [el iŋˈɡleh ðe lox ɣwesoh]. The focus, this time, is on two allophones of Rioplatense Spanish sounds: [ð], the allophonic variant of /d/, and [ŋ], the allophonic variant of /n/.  These sounds are phonemes in BBC English, which are very frequently used. The acquisition of these sounds in Spanish should not pose much difficulty for Rioplatense Spanish speakers since they are used to producing them in everyday speech. Nevertheless, Rioplatense Spanish speakers do not find the use of these sounds so easy. Why is this the case? I will try to explain possible causes.

Let’s start analyzing the /ð/ voiced dental fricative, which is a phoneme in English and the allophonic variant of /d̪/ in Spanish, mainly used in intervocalic position. At the same time, we notice the difference between the English /d/, which is an alveolar plosive and the /d̪/, which is a dental plosive. Proximity of these three sounds influences Spanish speakers to use the Spanish phoneme /d̪/ in initial position instead of the English /ð/, e.g.: [d̪æt] instead of [ðæt]; and the Spanish allophone (and English phoneme) [ð] instead of /d/ in intervocalic position, e.g.:  [wɪnðəʊ] instead of [wɪndəʊ].  Students tend to use the nearest rendering of their mother tongue sounds instead of the corresponding English ones. In order to put this right, we need to prepare phrases in which both sounds alternate so that students get used to producinɡ the already conceptualised sounds in the new corresponding contexts. E.g.: [duː ðɪs ʌndə ðæt wʊdn əʊld ruːf]

When we analyse the voiced velar nasal /ŋ/, we perceive that it is a phoneme in English and the allophonic variant of the voiced alveolar nasal /n/ in Spanish. The allophone is used as an instance of regressive assimilation of the /n/ when it occurs before the voiced and voiceless velar plosives /g/ and /k/, e.g.: [taŋke], [koŋɡo]. In order to help students to become aware of how they pronounce this sound in context, we can ask them to syllabify words such as tan-go [taŋ . ɡo], yun-que [ʃuŋ . ke] and stop when they finish producing the first syllable to get the feeling of the back of the tongue touching the velum. Once they realize what they produce, it will be easier for students to use this /ŋ/ in final position and before consonants. It will take longer and more focal practice to help them to produce this sound before a vowel.

We could go on discussing some more sounds, but this is the last of three posts on “El ingles de los “güesos”.

Hope you enjoy it!