by Ana Paula Biazon Rocha

Pronunciation ‘unplugged’: teachers as resources for low-tech classrooms will be our Pre-Conference Event (PCE), preceding IATEFL 2024 in Brighton, on 15 April 2024 (Mon). This event will be online and in person and will focus on teaching contexts where the availability of technological tools, such as computers, smart boards, digital content,and  mobile phones, to name just a few, is restricted or non-existent. Although the most recent tech advancements, mainly Generative AI (Artificial Intelligence) have been shaking the ELT (English Language Teaching) world to its core, we should not overlook the fact that most English classrooms worldwide do not have the same access to new technology. For this reason, the four sessions in our PCE will take us through a journey back to the basics: we, teachers, are our very own invaluable teaching resource.

2. PCE 2024 speakers

Image 1: PCE 2024 speakers

Session 1: ‘Let’s talk about it! Pronunciation teaching unplugged’, Michael Burri

Following up from last year’s PCE (check this blog post), Burri will get the ball rolling by reminding us of practical techniques and ideas to teach pronunciation which require little technology, and can be easily implemented and/or adapted to fit our lesson outcomes. Along with Amanda Baker and William Acton, Burri is an expert in Haptic Pronunciation Teaching (HPT), which means involving the whole body in the teaching and learning of pronunciation. For example, when teaching intonation patterns such as rise ↗ and fall ↘, we can have learners use gestures with their arms and hands to practise these patterns. You can watch a video demonstration here (Basic Intonation Demo). For more information, you can check Burri, Acton & Baker (2019). 

Burri has also shared a few words with us: ‘This PCE will be very interactive for us to share our successes, struggles, and pronunciation teaching strategies/techniques, and, of course, to ask questions, too. I look forward to learning with and from everyone attending on April 15’. Unmissable, right?!

Session 2: ‘Visualising pronunciation: Creative graphic strategies that stick’, Gemma Archer and Emily Bryson

Two powerhouses, Archer, who’s also one of PronSIG’s coordinators, and Bryson, THE expert on Graphic Facilitation, join forces to teach us how it can be used to teach pronunciation. Graphic facilitation means using drawings and visual representations to facilitate teaching and learning, and the best thing is we only need a pen/pencil and a piece of paper (or a board) to get started. In advance of the session, the two speakers have said that they are looking forward to sharing fun and interactive techniques with PCE attendees which can help make pronunciation engaging, visible, and above all memorable for learners. They plan to do some drawing in this session, so if you’re joining us online or in person, bring your pens and pencils and prepare to get creative!  

Image 2: Benefits of Graphic Facilitation in ELT. Copyrights Emily Bryson ELT.

You can check Bryson’s work here, and you can watch a video about Archer’s latest publication along with Robin Walker, Teaching English Pronunciation for a Global World (2024, Oxford University Press), here. Walker and Archer will be talking about their new book in PronSIG’s Showcase Day on Wed, 17 April. If you are going to Brighton, make sure you catch them!

Session 3: ‘The hidden population: Teaching pronunciation to literacy level adult language learners’, Andrea Echelberger

Echelberger is an expert in adult education and will help us reflect on how to teach pronunciation to adults with low literacy skills. As teachers, we know that L2 learning is a complex and challenging task, let alone when adult learners are developing their literacy skills for the first time in the English class. This is such a crucial topic in ELT, and a reality for many English teachers around the world, so we will have the chance to share and learn from Echelberger. Along with John Levis, she participated in PronSIG’s second book club last year. They discussed their chapter, ‘Integrating Pronunciation into Language Instruction’ (Levis & Echelberger, 2022, p. 19-41), in Second Language Pronunciation: Bridging the gap between research and teaching (2022, Wiley Blackwell), one of the latest and most important publications in our field.

Echelberger is also excited to be joining us in our PCE: ‘I’m delighted to have the chance to share activity ideas for teaching pronunciation to learners who are just starting off on their language learning journey. It’s my favorite population to teach, and I’m looking forward to learning from everyone who is there!‘ And so are we, Andrea!

Session 4: ‘Pronunciation takes centre stage’, Marisol Hernández

Hernández specialises in teaching pronunciation through drama, which is a fruitful area within research in pronunciation instruction (see Galante & Thomson, 2017 and Levis & Echelberger, 2022). In our Showcase Day in Harrogate last year, Hernández’s practical workshop energised participants with reader’s theatre and breathing exercises, to name just a few, that demonstrated how drama and pronunciation are interconnected and can fully benefit learners. We do not need to be actors, we just need to be ourselves, practise, and enjoy. In her PCE session this year, Hernández promises to share with us more innovative ways to teach pronunciation inspired by drama and acting exercises, all of which require little to no resources or technology.

Along with the other speakers, Hernández is looking forward to joining us: ‘I’m really eager to share (and try!) with colleagues from all over the world specific acting exercises and techniques that can help promote expressiveness and intelligibility in the EFL classroom. Thank you PronSIG for this wonderful opportunity!’ Thank you, Marisol!

Thus, as you can see, our PCE will be jam-packed with loads of useful information, sharing, and learning from experts and from each other. Whether online, or in person, it will be a great opportunity to get involved with our pronunciation teaching community. So, no time like the present, register for our PCE now!

Image 3: PCE 2024 poster


Don’t forget to leave your comments below and follow PronSIG on social media. For more content on pronunciation instruction, check our previous blog posts.

References

Burri, M., Baker, A., & Acton, W. (2019). Proposing a haptic approach to facilitating L2 learners’ pragmatic competence. Humanising Language Teaching 3. Available at http://hltmag.ng3.devwebsite.co.uk/june19/proposing-a-haptic-approach .

Galante, A. & Thomson, R. I. (2017). The effectiveness of drama as an instructional approach for the development of L2 fluency, comprehensibility, and accentedness. TESOL Quarterly, 51(1), 115–142.

Levis, J. & Echelberger, A. (2022). Integrating Pronunciation into Language Instruction. In J. Levis, T. Derwing, & S. Sonsaat-Hegelheimer. (Eds.). Second Language Pronunciation. Bridging the Gap Between Research and Teaching (19–41).Wiley Blackwell.