Teach English in Beijie Zhen - Maoming Shi

This unit covered the most important aspects of teaching phonology and pronunciation. In the first half of the lesson, it outlined the meaning of intonation and how it is used and understood within the English language. One thing I found most interesting and helpful, teaching-wise, about this segment of the lesson was the use of sloped arrows to indicate the direction of intonation in a statement or question. This is a good way to visually display the vocal changes throughout what is being said. It covered the three intonation patterns: Rise/Fall, Fall/Rise, and Flat, and it stated how each one is used and why. Next, the unit moved onto stress and used example sentences to differentiate what parts of speech are normally stressed and unstressed, and it conveyed how these stresses and lack of stresses create specific, directed meaning in a statement or question. As with all units, this one also gave helpful teaching techniques. Pronunciation was one of the most challenging parts of any unit yet because even though the subject matter was understood, breaking it down and actually dissecting it in scientific, academic terms was new. The segment that covered how English speakers join sounds and how this makes their use of language sound more comfortable and natural was something that I hi lighted and made special note of because while it is something that comes naturally, these techniques are important to remember in order to teach conversational speaking. The Places and Manners of Articulation made a more clinical study of how we pronounce words, using a diagram of the mouth and stating how each part of the mouth makes specific sounds. This was very interesting and useful because while at first it seems too academic, it actually presents a helpful, easy-to-diagram way of teaching students the specific ways their mouths make different sounds. This can be used to teach them control of sounds and better articulation.