20th July 2015 ELEMENTS OF CONNECTED SPEECH & MUSIC AND SONGS

20^th July 2015     

 Teachers: Johanna Stirling and Malgosia Tetiurka

REFLEXIONS ON OUR WORK

ELEMENTS OF CONNCTED SPEECH

First of all, in pairs we tried to recall the “Elements of Connected Speech”, worked with Johanna on Friday.

All along, we find out that the most important difficulties we cope with when listening to a conversation are fast talking and non-clear spoken words.

From my point of view,  whenever we speak very quickly,  non-clear words arise, so they seem to me like one single statement rather than two.

However this leads us to think about why we or our students get wrong understanding, for what we will move forward towards micro-listening.
Through this technique we help our students to understand elements important to consider what words are stressed on a conversation, these been usually the important ones or the new ones; or that in the same context, positive and negative messages only differ on which word is stressed as in the example:                                      
                                                      You can take the exam again!

                                                      You can’t take the exam again!

Micro-listening also helps us to understand that speech problems also come from factors such us ellipsis (when we miss up a word), elision (when we miss up a sound) or linking (where we omit sounds or add intrusive ones).

My reflexion on this issue is that although we, as teachers, should be aware of these problems, the plain truth is that, when I talk my first aim is to make myself understood for what I find quite difficult to think of what sound or phoneme I am missing out. Probably, as Johanna said, because this part of speech has been ignored, perhaps because there are so many different accents in English that it would became a very troublesome issue to teach. Another reason could be that we need or completely bilingual teacher or native ones to teach us this elements of speech connection.

Johanna recommendation, BOOK: Face2Face (pre-intermediate level, 2^nd edition, Oxford)

LINK MAZE

Next activity consisted on finding out what the intrusive link was. The task was to solve the maze and find the correct letter after following the instructions.

I found it a little bit difficult to play this game, not because of the content (linking words) but because of the rules of the game, quiet complex to follow directions turning the page, what make me think that we should be very careful with the activities we provide our students with. They must be easy to undertake so as they can concentrate on the target, whether it is grammar, pronunciation or spelling. We do not want our students to miss the real aim by getting  stressed on how to do it.

VIDEO

Next activity consisted on watching a video about two people having a conversation in an ironmonger’s, one as the client, the other one as the shop-assistant, where in a funny way, these elements of assimilation, linking, ellipsis, elision etc make the whole scene a complete misunderstanding, in spite of the fact that both were native speakers.

My reflexion on this activity is that although I found it a bit difficult to understand for my level of English, I also think it is important to teach our students that these elements of connection speech are so important that some times they can produce a complete lack of communication.

SONGS: HEAD, SHOULDER, KNEES AND TOES

We worked on different versions of the son Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes by singing and acting out as if we were cats, monkeys, giraffes, etc This gives the song an adding amusement for the children to enjoy it, which adds an extra value.
Some teacher mates suggested another ways of working it such as, adding odd sounds when a part of the body had to be said, or stop the music and children have to say what are they touching.


My reflection on this is that songs can be worked on a huge amount of varied ways. All depends on what you need to work on and on your imagination.






PARTS OF THE BODY VOCABULARY LABELLING

This activity consisted on dividing the class in three groups and drawing someone's body on a long piece of paper.



 Each groups had to label as many parts of the body as they could remember in two minutes.





Afterwards they had time for spelling revision .

Then they had to move to other groups' work so as to   check if they knew all the words and if they could find any they hadn't come across.

Then, each group had to count the number of correct words they have to check which group was the winner.

Finally, the most pedagogically important aspect of the game started when each group had to organise the vocabulary they wrote down in a great variety of ways:

                   According to the number of syllables.

                   According to the  stress pattern.

                  According to the silent letters they contain.

                  According to which part of the body they are situated.

                  According to their position: internal, external organs.

Again teachers imagination never stop and they came out with many different ideas.

My reflection  about this activity is that I find all these activities very useful in order to extent the vocabulary, as they are dynamic, amusing, and what is more important, let students be part of the learning process, as we can ask them how they would like to organise their own vocabulary. As a result, they will always surprise us.

TEACHING WITH SONGS AND MUSIC (MALGOSIA TETIURKA)

After lunch we worked with Malgosia on how to teach songs and music.

For all the activities we did we learnt that not only we can work on a song based on its lyrics but that on the contrary, we can also work on words to make up our own songs and stories.

Thus, in groups we were given some words, each person chose one and drew the word provided.

Afterwards with our drawing we had to invent  a story and act it out.

How can we help our students with such type of activities? By given then with a specific structure we may find necessary for them to use. Furthermore, as they are using their own drawings, the learning becomes far more meaningful.

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The same happened with the following activity: "The Twelve Days of Christmas".

After singing the song with the original lyrics, students are given the opportunity to come with new presents for each day of Christmas

In addition, in pairs they have to draw what they are going to be given at Christmas. Each pair in in charge of one different day. The result comes up as the following

As a way of conclusion I would like to mention that considering the level of our students , our aim should be not only accuracy but to motivate our students so that they want to keep on learning.

Songs and  stories are funny and  amusing. On my opinion we should take into account that they can become the secrets paths that will lead our students towards motivation. Without forgetting that the more meaningful, the better.

Music is happiness, and happy students are successful pupils. Laugh while you learn should become our motto.