Pronunciation Diary Part 2

With my second pronunciation diary entry I would like to explain what my strategy was for passing the pronunciation Part1 of the PC2.

First of all I made a list of all the words I mispronounced when I got recorded:

the

a

sizes

aluminum

pleasant

this

How to say prices in English?

Next, I opened the “Pronunciation Practice Page” and opened various links which seemed useful for a couple of my mistakes.

1. Working on the two “th” sounds [θ], [ð]

I opened “Rachel’s English Page” and listend very carefully to her explaining these two sounds in one of her videos. It helped me a lot and now I get the difference and hopefully I will never make this mistake again.

So here’s the link: http://www.rachelsenglish.com/videos/two-th-%CE%B8-%C3%B0-consonants

I really like the fact that there is a close-up of her mouth so you can study the movement of her lips, teeth and tongue. To me that was SO useful.

2. Working on the difference between the “s” and “z” sound

That was probably the hardest sound to learn for me. I struggled a lot with the “z”. So I went to a website called “BBC Learning English”. On a subpage I found very short clips explaining the different sounds. 

Link “z”: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/con_voiced_7.shtml

Link “s”: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/con_voiceless_7.shtml

Besides repeating the example words of these videos, I focused on my two problem words “sizes” and “pleasant”.

I repeated them like 60 times in order to pronounce them correctly. Well, that’s what it all is about! Practice till you dream of these words (btw that’s what happened to me).But it was well worth it and know I clearly know the difference and the correct pronunciation!

3. Working on “aluminum”.

I just listened to the pronunciation on “howjsay.com” and once again pronounced this word again and again. 

4. Working on the rest

I listened to the record of the text we had to read for Task 1. I checked the pronunciation of “the”, “a” and the correct way of saying numbers. Immediately got that.

5. TED

Actually, a couple of days ago I discovered a pretty amazing website called TED. You can watch stunning videos of people giving presentations on numerous interesting topics. One presentation lasts between 5 to 20 minutes. 

It’s perfect to work on your listening skills because these people are talking in English but with different accents as they come from the USA, Great Britain, Australia, India, Africa etc. I love it because the subjects they talk about are just brilliant.

So the slogan of TED is “Ideas worth spreading” which is just so accurate for the whole website. I am addicted to these presentations and spend hours watching them at night. I benefit of getting familiar with various topics (business, biology, stress management, thinking positive, diseases like turret syndrome and many many more!!) and of practicing my listening and pronunciation skills. It’s perfect!! 

Besides TED for English speaking countries, I found TED Paris which means I can use the same website for French as well. I’m thrilled!! :)

Here are some of my favorite talks on TED so far:

3 things I learned while my plane crashed: http://www.ted.com/talks/ric_elias.html

My name is John and I tried to end my life: http://www.ted.com/talks/jd_schramm.html

I got 99 problems … palsy is just one: http://www.ted.com/talks/maysoon_zayid_i_got_99_problems_palsy_is_just_one.html

My Vocabulary Notebook

Before I can actually start learning the requested vocabulary, I make lists of the different units using the google.doc and its spreadsheets. Therefore, Maria and I worked together and split up the units to share the amount of work.
One spreadsheet consist of five columns: English word, explanation, German translation, example sentence, further information.

After working out all the words, I print the spreadsheets and start learning them one by one. I decided to take one day for one unit. But before starting with a new one, I repeat the old one so that I can make sure I did not forget any meanings. If I cannot remember one word I mark it in green. The important collocations are marked in pink. 

I like this system as I force myself to repeat the words a lot which is really helpful.

My biggest problem, though, is learning the vocabulary at vocabulary.com. For me it just does not work out. I cannot learn sitting in front of a computer. I need the words printed so that I can mark with a pencil important details and other stuff. If there is enough time, I plan to go through all the words on vocabulary.com one day before the actual exam because I think this website is quite useful for me if I have already learned all words. 

Additionally, I started a real notebook where I write down all the difficult words I would like to remember and go through more often.

 

The "Pecha Kucha" Experience

When Mr. Newman first gave us the task to give a “Pecha Kucha” presentation, I was confused. I had never heard of such a thing before and I felt like this is going to be a really tough task.
Looking back now, I know I was right from the beginning, but still it was a great experience.

Preparation 

The first step, “finding a partner” was not difficult at all. I was sitting next to Maria and we did not even ask the other one to work together, we immediately started looking for a topic on the list. We are what others might call “a perfect match” when it comes to group work. We just get along so well and I love working with her.

Actually, “choosing the topic” was also fairly easy as I saw “Flemish in Brussels” on the list and wanted to talk about it right away. I fell in love with this city this summer. Maria was up for it too, so we had decided on it after two minutes.

I did a pretty good start as I started looking for some information the very day. I found some interesting facts on the internet and together with Maria, we opened a google.doc (I love google.docs by the way – so thank you so much for showing us this life-saving invention!) and paste in all the stuff we found.

Admittedly, for the next couple of weeks I had not had enough time to do some research. So I started to get nervous. The “Pecha Kucha” presentation really stuck in my gizzard. I started wondering why? It turned out that the time pressure is the hardest part to deal with. Normally, I do not have any problems with preparing a presentation. I even stopped being really nervous before I give one. But with “Pecha Kucha” anything was different.

Mr. Newman recommended finding a student on the ITAT coming from Brussels and ask them to give us some first-hand information. This was a great idea but the realization turned out to be difficult. After sending several emails, posting in Facebook and hoping for answers, we finally found Pauline with the help of three people. This girl was amazing! She comes from Brussels and one of the most charming people I know. She was up for helping us and was a real support for this presentation.

As the deadline for the presentation came closer, Maria and I finally managed to give our presentation a structure. I started to totally get into this topic and had a lot of fun browsing the Internet to find out more about this beautiful city and its relation to languages. It is SO interesting!

After we had enough information we decided to write the tape script and the interview on one day. We spend I think nearly ten hours continuously on this task. We wanted the timing to be absolutely perfect, so we took the time after every sentence and slide. Tell you what! That was a lot of work! By the end of the day, I knew my whole part just by repeating it so many times. 

For the slides of the presentation, we also spend one day. We really got creative and gave some of the slides a personal touch. We even created our one images. That was really fun and we had a good laugh while preparing them. 

Presenting

As I already mentioned above, I was so nervous before this presentation because of the time pressure. I am a perfectionist, so I wanted it to be absolutely perfect.

When I finally started speaking the nervousness seemed all gone. I enjoyed talking about this interesting topic and thought we put a really informative presentation together – at least I hope so.

Feedback of other students

A vast majority of students mentioned our timing was perfect and that they found our presentation informative and liked our slides and the interview a lot. I am more than happy about that!

Concerning my performance, they wrote that I spoke freely which they liked and that my pronunciation was really good. 

The criticism they voiced was the fact that I spoke so quickly. I have to admit, I know I do that but not because I am so nervous but simply because I always speak very fast. I have to work on that. But for this particular presentation I would like to defend myself a little bit. If I had spoken more slowly, the timing would have been a mess. We really tried to shorten down my part but it was not possible, we did our best. But if I would have left out some parts nobody would have been able to follow. And people mentioned that it was clearly explained and easy to follow.

Nevertheless, I promise to work on this point as I want to be able to give great presentations. :)

Personal Feedback on “Pecha Kucha”

I think this an experience everyone should have once in their life. You learn a lot about time management and how to sort out unnecessary information.

Although it put me under a lot of pressure, I would probably do it again because if you put a lot effort in it, it works out and you can be proud of yourself. I like that! :)

Pronunciation Diary Part 1

How to start a pronunciation diary?

pronunciation (noun): the way in which a word or language is pronounced (a. the way in which someone speaks a foreign language)

pronounce (verb): 1. to say the sounds of letters or words   2. (formal) to formally state an official opinion or decision 

I decided to read through all the recommended pages giving advice on why pronunciation is so important if you learn a foreign language. I want this first paragraph to be a reminder for myself why I have to focus on pronunciation. Therefore I tried to pick out several points which seemed useful to me and which I want to keep in mind forever. 

1. Pronunciation is the biggest thing that people notice when you are speaking English!

Actually, if you talk to a native speaker in real life, they will immediately notice if your pronunciation is good or bad but they will not be right away aware of your limited vocabulary or grammar mistakes. 

“If your pronunciation is poor, they will think about you as the guy/girl who speaks bad English, and good grammar and vocabulary won’t help you.”

“If you don’t have good pronunciation, you have bad pronunciation. And the consequences of bad pronunciation are tragic. Even if you use correct grammar, people may simply not understand what you want to say.”

2. It is not enough to be able to communicate with your teachers; you have to be able to communicate with foreigners in everyday situations! And they have to be able to understand you easily.

Teachers are used to bad English so they can understand more or less anything their students say. The only true way of finding out if you are capable of communicating in a foreign language is going to a foreign country and speaking with normal people. 

Attention! Furthermore, you have to ask yourself the following two questions:

    Is my English easy to understand?

    Is my English pleasant to listen to?

Pay attention to your accent. If you have a strong foreign accent, people will have difficulties in understanding you. Consequently, they will avoid talking to you.

ð       3. Focus on your foreign accent!

One more thing I would like to add to my list is a point of the general advice for improving pronunciation list which I found quite helpful: 

Have a very specific ‘target’ for improvement for the week.

I want to work on specific aspects of my pronunciation so that I can improve them in a way that leads to my goals. It is clearly easier if I focus only on one aspect each week. It is not possible to change everything at the same time. Step by step! (But still fast ;) )

Big decision: American or British English?

Frankly, I am struggling a lot with this decision but I think I am going to go with American English. Actually, I only have one reason to explain it. I think I am more used to the American accent than to the British one. My favorite TV series are all American ones, most of the bands I listen to are American and in general, I believe that the influence of American English on my life is bigger. Even though I love the British accent, I think it would be very hard to perfect it so that it sounds real and not strange and unnatural. 

Getting familiar with the Pronunciation Practice Pages

I started looking at the pronunciation website called Rachel’s English and I got stuck there. Rachel seems really likeable and I enjoy the way she pronounces words. And I think that is one of the most important aspects when you want to work with a pronunciation page. It is all about the voice so I think I will carry on working on pronunciation with her page.

I got lost in her numerous videos called “Real life”. I watched a couple of them and I really like the idea behind these videos. She shows some everyday conversation situations and explains the pronunciation of different words along with these situations. It is also a great way to get an impression of the American culture which is always a welcoming feature. 

There was one video called “Halloween” which I liked a lot because Rachel had a Halloween party and interviewed all of her friends about their costumes. So the learning effect was incredible because there was music and loud voices in the background and you have to train yourself very hard to understand what the people are saying. It is actually a really great way to work on your listening skills.

Another thing I appreciated on her website were the Ben Franklin exercises. For me they are perfect to work on my pronunciation especially on the stressing of words. I am really bad in finding out the stressed parts of speech so these exercises help a lot. I even had some senses of achievement after watching a couple of the videos where I was able to detect the stressed syllable. 

Future plans

I truly hope that I will have enough time to work my way through a lot of these exercises of course also on the other parts. I want to focus more on my pronunciation because it is really important for being understood and I want to be understood!