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I signed up for this course just expecting to refine what I already possessed but ended up acquiring completely knowledge and skills to work on. It's been a big eye opener because sometimes when students enjoy your lessons you can get complacent and think you're better than you are. This course has been humbling and given me a desire to improve my teaching in other areas too.

The biggest difference in my teaching is that I now focus more on sentence stress, intonation and other aspects of pronunciation much more, having previously spent most of my pron time in class just practicing individual sounds or syllable stress. Learning about the rhythm and linking of English has added a lot to my lessons and judging by the feedback forms from students they've benefited from that. Also useful tips from other teachers and the videos and readings on the course have become part of my lessons and made me better at modelling and providing correction or feedback for students. My lesson planning is still a bit inadequate and I'd like to be able to develop more comprehensive, well staged pronunciation lessons as time goes by.

Like Fran said, I also hope I can keep it up and fall out of the good habits I've built up over the past few months of this course . I think it's important now to keep sharing pron ideas with each other and to have a follow up pron meeting in a few months time or some kind of resource sharing workshop.

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I really didn’t anticipate how much of an impact this course would have on all aspects of my teaching. Sure, I thought it would be interesting and good to know a few aspects of pronunciation in case some rogue student decided to ask me something about stressed syllables or the dreaded schwa. But what I’ve leaned over the past few months through doing this course has been unprecedented.

Before doing this I was a true beginner sitting solidly at foundation level. My knowledge of phonemics was very limited, I was unaware of common problems certain language groups had, I struggled with connected speech and had to really think about stressed syllables in words. Because of this pronunciation practice in my classes was extremely limited. It was really just dealt with if we encountered it in the coursebook.

However, I have since moved up a level and I feel more confident with integrating pronunciation into my classes regularly now. That’s not to say I still don’t have a lot of work to do but compared to when I started I think I’ve gained a great deal of knowledge and that has had a positive impact on my teaching. My boardwork has improved (stress-marking, Phonemes), drilling has become more dynamic and fun for students and I feel my teaching of target language has become more complete. I feel comfortable with doing a 30 minute lesson on a particular feature of pronunciation too.

I will continue to work on all aspects of pronunciation teaching and try out different ideas and resources that have been suggested throughout this course.

Thanks a million for all your patience and support Billy!

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This course has had, without doubt, a big impact on my teaching. I definitely feel a lot more confident teaching pronunciation in my lessons; before this course, pronunciation was something that I only addressed if it came up in the coursebook and sometimes not even then. Even though I still have a lot to learn to consider my level of competence to be ‘Proficient’, I am a lot more comfortable teaching different aspects of pronunciation.

I now dedicate at least 20-30 minutes of my Monday lesson to pronunciation, and 30-40 minutes a week with plus classes; the resources are great and now I feel “brave” enough to use them. But most importantly I can tell that most students really enjoy the activities, and that they understand the importance of recognising and producing sounds, changing their intonation and sentence stress.

I’d like to keep working on intonation in the future, as it’s the area in which I feel less confident, but I think that now I have a much more solid foundation to build on.

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I have learned so much thanks to this course and I would definitely be interested in doing more ‘Professional Development Courses’ like it. I would now consider my level of competence as Proficient so I feel like I have gone up a level which would have been one of my main goals at the start.

Another goal would have been to gain confidence at different areas of teaching pronunciation such as intonation and while I do know more about this and its importance, I still feel I need to do more practice in class and this is something I’ll continue to work on.

In terms of teaching, I’ve really learned that you need to teach small chunks often. Pretty much anything I write on the board these days is drilled, which is something I would have done a bit less with lower levels before. Now I also give my pronunciations lesson more structure as in I have a lead-in, drilling and controlled and freer practice whereas before I might have just done drilling.

I can see that my students have gained a lot also as a result of Oisin and myself doing a course. They are more aware of it and become very interested. One thing I’m particularly happy with in my intermediate class is that they practice outside of class. In the elementary class, they are getting a great start by learning how we speak from the get-go, which I think is so important.

Moving forward, I’m going to continue teaching it as much as possible and work especially hard at intonation as I feel it’s my area of weakness.

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Honestly this course has done wonders for my teaching. I still have a lot to master but I can say that I feel confident teaching pronunciation. Now I can recognise different sounds, phonemes, features of connected speech and the importance of intonation. I can now deliver pronunciation lessons and the course material we’ve been given provides us with many ways of making and keeping this topic interesting and engaging for students.

I try to include a little pronunciation in every lesson since beginning this course. I enjoy teaching it and my students have so far reacted brilliantly to each aspect I’ve taught them. As well as being incredibly useful for students’ speaking and listening skills, pronunciation is actually fun in comparison to things like grammar or lexis. It forces people to participate and once the whole class is on board, the atmosphere is fantastic. Humour in the classroom is important for me. And luckily, modelling different aspects of pronunciation means lots of opportunities for teachers to make idiots out of themselves.

Before this course I was shy about pronunciation because I had such little knowledge about it – phonemes terrified me, but now they’re littered all over my board. I feel like a better teacher having done this course. Thanks for your wisdom and patience Billy!

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This Professional Development Group has had a huge impact on my teaching. I had found pronunciation quite intimidating before the course and probably didn’t fully understand it myself. I would only really deal with pronunciation as I was confronted with it in the course book and it wasn’t something that I was particularly effective at teaching.

Learning the mechanics of how sounds are produced has been invaluable. It has meant that not only do I understand it better, but also that I can effectively explain to students how they can physically reproduce sounds.

Before doing the course, using supplementary pronunciation material is something that I would seldom do and found it all a bit overwhelming. Now I feel totally comfortable and confident in using various materials and in successfully delivering a pronunciation class, which has obviously improved my teaching a lot.

Overall, I feel that the biggest benefit for me has been this growth in my own confidence in teaching pronunciation. It is not something that intimidates me now and has become an integral part of all of my classes. Most importantly, the students are benefitting from it. I have noticed a big improvement in their receptive skills and in their general awareness of pronunciation.

I thoroughly enjoyed the workshops as well. They were so well done and have made a big difference to my teaching. I started out at a foundation level but I feel like I am at a good developing level and I am working towards proficiency. Thank you so much for all of your encouragement and hard work, Billy.

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I can honestly say that since this course began I have given a twenty minute segment in every aspect of the course, with perhaps one or two exceptions around intonation. I also now introduce a pronunciation segment most Monday mornings and Friday afternoons; as this course has also shown me how much fun it can be for students, and it is a nice way to warm-up a class or send them off for the weekend. Not only that, but pronunciation has worked its way much more into every aspect of my teaching, whether it be listening, speaking, reading or grammar. I am much more confident around pronunciation than I was two months ago. While I was aware of assimilation, linking, etc. it was great to get a refresher. If I had to specify the two things that I refer back to most, it is the diagram of the mouth (in conjunction with voiced, unvoiced, nasal, etc). For two years I was only able to drill vowel sounds, with varied success depending on the student, and now I feel like I have a useful resource in that I myself understand where the sound is coming from and how its made. Not saying I unload a diagram on students whenever there's any difficulty, but in small doses it is useful, and I am beginning to notice the difference in my students this term.  The second thing would be how important sentence stress and weak forms are to understanding for a student. Once my students understood and recognised sentence stress and how it weakens the words that don't hold information, it opened a door for them to better understanding native, non-teacher language speakers.

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I can honestly say that since this course began I have given a twenty minute segment in every aspect of the course, with perhaps one or two exceptions around intonation. I also now introduce a pronunciation segment most Monday mornings and Friday afternoons; as this course has also shown me how much fun it can be for students, and it is a nice way to warm-up a class or send them off for the weekend. Not only that, but pronunciation has worked its way much more into every aspect of my teaching, whether it be listening, speaking, reading or grammar. I am much more confident around pronunciation than I was two months ago. While I was aware of assimilation, linking, etc. it was great to get a refresher. If I had to specify the two things that I refer back to most, it is the diagram of the mouth (in conjunction with voiced, unvoiced, nasal, etc). For two years I was only able to drill vowel sounds, with varied success depending on the student, and now I feel like I have a useful resource in that I myself understand where the sound is coming from and how its made. Not saying I unload a diagram on students whenever there's any difficulty, but in small doses it is useful, and I am beginning to notice the difference in my students this term.  The second thing would be how important sentence stress and weak forms are to understanding for a student. Once my students understood and recognised sentence stress and how it weakens the words that don't hold information, it opened a door for them to better understanding native, non-teacher language speakers.

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Thank you very much, Billy. You put together a wonderful course. I have really enjoyed your feedback and your teaching on the day-long course and your constant help in the staff room whenever we have a question, even if you're busy with other work.

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This course has helped a lot in terms of drawing attention to the importance of teaching pronunciation. All the tasks that I did and lessons i tried were well liked by my students. This shows that students like learning pronunciation and find it really useful.

As an impact on my teaching, this course has given me more confidence. I’ve tried a lot of different lessons from connected speech, corrective stress, intonation and sentence rhythm. I have more knowledge on the subject and would incorporate them into my everyday lessons which is great. Things like - ‘Where is the stress in the sentence’ or ‘how would these words and sounds connect in a real sentence’ are things I ask daily to my students - it helps them get a better understanding of native speakers and the flow of English.

To summerise, the resources and articles I read helped me gain knowledge of pronunciation. The information about sound formations, voiced consonants, fricatives, tongue position etc have broadened my understanding of sounds and I can explain this better to different language groups.

Now I have to keep it up and do things like designate a weekly lesson of pronunciation as well as revisit elements in daily class lessons and when words or fixed expressions come up!

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This workshop has made a real difference in my perception of how and how often pronunciation should be taught in class. Before the beginning of this course I would not have done as much drilling of new words or reflection on difficult features for me, such as intonation. It has given me the confidence to model some patterns and to explain the effects of the accent differences.

The resources were varied and some of them had very practical, ready-to-use class techniques (especially the videos). In a way I also became more critical of teaching materials throughout this course. For instance, now I integrate more activities that are not from the course book, and I am trying to use the tips learnt to deliver paperless lessons more often.

The real challenge for me will be keeping up this awareness and not sliding back into old habits.

Fran

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Do you think pronunciation is an important skill when compared to other language skills?

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What activities have you enjoyed doing in previous classes?

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What sound(s) do you find most difficult to produce?

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Do you avoid speaking because you feel self conscious about your pronunciation?

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Do people often ask you to repeat yourself?

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Good afternoon