How many vowel sounds?!

Today in class we were looking at the pronunciation of the words below:
upbringing
obliged
physically
obligated
strict
liberal
"kind of"
vowel
apocalypse


I noticed that a lot of the vowel sounds could use some sharpening.  Here's a link to a site where you can here examples of the vowel sounds linked to a chart like the one we have in class.  http://www.onestopenglish.com/skills/pronunciation/phonemic-chart-and-app/interactive-phonemic-chart/

There's also a free app for your iPhone or iPod here.

Fukushima

From notes, to structure, to research to write -ups, 9 uppers put together pieces on the Fukushima disaster today.  Their written work can be found in the comments below.

Our First WebQuest

Good Morning Upper-Intermediates!

WebQuests are experiences you learn from while being online with others and working with what you find out.  We are going to try one out for the next few lessons.

1. Monday:You will use some websites a couple of teachers and I have selected to answer some specific information questions on a little quiz.  The information is all online so don't worry about not knowing the answers now.
2. (Still) Monday: You will devise (create) a survey to ask the other students.  I will be assessing these, but my criteria (ideas for what is good work and bad work) are at the bottom of the WebQuest so you will know your grades before you hand them to me at the end of the day.  RECORD YOUR DATA.
3. Tuesday: Record your data, and use it to make a short report of your findings.  I will be assessing these on Tuesday night so you can either write them tonight for homework or do them in class tomorrow.  Again see my criteria in the rubric (chart) at the bottom of the WebQuest.
4. Wednesday:  Wednesday will be a presentation day so bring your stuff.  You will show what you learned with your partner and what your ideas are.  At the end we will do a self-evaluation.  Again this will all be assessed according to the rubric.  

It's a big project but it's a very important topic.
Click here to download your first WebQuest.

Good luck.

/I/ and /i:/

These are some links to help you with these two sounds.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/vowel_short_1.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/vowel_long_1.shtml

Wikipedia /wI kI 'pi: di: ja/ is a great place to learn about pronunciation.  Check out this page on /I/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-close_near-front_unrounded_vowel

Look on the left near the bottom and find what a pronunciation teacher from your language has to say about the pink sound.


Good luck.

The Pronunciation Videos

Yesterday I promised to send you a video on /r/, the sound.

Here it is:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/con_other_6.shtml

There are lots of different sounds featured.  Learn about the way she makes them-- the 'how' not the 'what'.

There are lots of pronunciation resources online.  Learn about them slowly.  The best resources are here at http://howjsay.blogspot.com/ .

Go slowly.  Enjoy it.

Giulia says...

http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/futurecontinuous.html

One of our later students recommended this page.  Thanks Giulia.

This is a "white paper"

A "white paper" is a kind of advertisement used by companies to promote a specialty of their core competences.  It looks like an academic paper and has references like an academic paper but it also contains direct references to the company who wrote it.  It informs the reader and associates the company who wrote it to the issues and challenges it poses to the reader.

http://www.ef-ireland.ie/sitecore/__/~/media/efcom/epi/pdf/EF-EPI-2011.pdf

What is it about?

What are the challenges it poses?

How is your country learning English now?

What is something in this white paper you can confirm from your experience?

Does it work like an advertisement and make you somewhat insecure or do you feel encouraged at your own level?

Did you think about your country in relation to the rest of the world's nations in a competitive way or did you think about yourself in relation to an average speaker from your country?

What do you think about what it said about communicating with native speakers?

What do you feel about this subject?