In 2001, the speaker discussed English pronunciation at the TESOL-SPAIN Annual Convention. This addressed the conflicting goals of native-speaker accent and international intelligibility. The recent talk in Cáceres concluded this 20-year journey, emphasizing that these goals are not mutually exclusive. The speaker, now semi-retired, also marked the end of their ELT career in Spain.
LIVESTREAM + SAMPLE CHAPTER People have been showing a lot of interest in Teaching English Pronunciation for a Global World since its official launch on February 15th. This has been so exciting for Gemma and I as authors – pronunciation is all too often marginalised in ELT, or simply not done at all on the […]
When I posted at the beginning of January about the book that Gemma Archer and I have written on pronunciation, quite a lot of people asked when it was due out. Gemma and I had our advance copies but the book wasn’t yet on sale so I promised I’d let people know when they were […]
What an exciting way to start 2024. Hot off the presses, Gemma Archer and I have just received our author’s copies of our new book, Teaching English Pronunciation for a Global World. The book is part of the Oxford University Press series ‘Into the Classroom’, and is the teacher-oriented follow up to the OUP Position […]
The last day of September saw me and a great many other teachers doing just what the event title says, and bridging the TESOL-SPAIN regions that come together in the north of Spain. Truth to tell, the bridges the one-day conference built were much bigger than I’d expected, with delegates arriving in Bilbao from places […]
It’s so long since I last published anything on this blog (since the end of my A–Z of pronunciation, in fact), that I’ve more or less forgotten how to do it. But things have happened since I retired at the end of 2021 that seem to warrant one more sally into the world of blogging. […]
Z. The end of the alphabet and the end of this ‘A–Z of pronunciation‘ blog. There’s a lot more to say, of course, and a lot that could be dealt with in greater depth, but the blog has handsomely fulfilled it’s initial purpose, which was to give my life some sort of structure and direction […]
Oh the power of this question in the mouths of young children as they flex their early language and logic muscles! ‘Why?’, they ask with apparent innocence, driving their exhausted parents deeper and deeper into their dwindling reserves of patience and logic. ‘Why?’, the child asks. Later we become adults and stop asking. Or ask […]
Back in July 2020, in the introduction to the post ‘M is halfway‘, I invited you to suggest possible topics for posts N–Z. Colleague Daniel Barber took me at my word and suggested that for ‘X’ I should write about xenophobia. Happy just to be getting feedback, I said that I would. In hindsight, that […]
W I made it! Finally got to ‘W’ and so can talk about something really important. Weak forms. A central feature of spoken English. Crucial to getting the rhythm right. Something we can all wax lyrical about! (If you’re sitting there panicking because you can’t quite remember what weak forms are, don’t worry. Memory is […]
Variation, the way that speakers of the same language use it in often quite different ways, is a wholly natural, entirely unavoidable phenomenon. In fact, without variation languages wouldn’t actually serve their speakers’ needs. Living here in Northern Spain, what I need from Spanish is not the same as the needs of speakers in the […]
No, sorry, not as in U2 and good music, but the second part to my blog on sounds and spelling as requested by the majority of you (= four, possibly five). And to get the ball rolling, a recommendation from colleague and pronunciation expert Donna Brinton, who kindly reminded me of Adam Brown’s Understanding and […]
When I got back from the UK at the end of 2020, I decided that the time had come to put some sort of order into my books, papers and paperwork, and to begin to throw out what I was never going to need again. In doing so I came across a stray copy of […]
I’ve just noted that my last A–Z of pronunciation post was back at the beginning of December 2020. Goodness, how time flies when you’re enjoying yourself. Sadly, I wasn’t rushing off to England in December to enjoy myself, but to say goodbye to someone very dear to everyone in my family. Not surprisingly, it’s taken […]
‘It’s not what you say. It’s the way that you say it’. How many times have you been chided or have you chided someone for using the wrong tone when speaking. And it’s so important to get the tone right. Or is it?
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