| Dept/Number/Title: | ESL 110 - Pronunciation for Academic Purposes |
| Credit: | 0-3 hours |
| Prerequisite:
|
Placement by Illinois EPT Oral Interview. Students may be proficiencied out of ESL 110 on the basis of superior performance on an oral diagnostic test given during the first week of classes. |
| Relation to other courses: | It is not a prerequisite for any ESL course. May be taken concurrently with other ESL courses. |
| Audience: | Non-native speaker degree-seeking undergraduate and graduate students |
| Textbook:
|
Speechcraft: Discourse Pronunciation for Advanced
Learners, and
Speechcraft: Workbook for Academic Discourse Laura D. Hahn and Wayne B. Dickerson, University of Michigan Press, 1999. |
| Abstract:
|
A systematic coverage of the English sound system focuses on areas of student difficulties in producing, perceiving, and predicting sounds, rhythm, and melody. Emphasis is placed on equipping learners to be self-teachers for on-going improvement of their proficiency. |
| Course contents:
|
A diagnostic test at the start of the semester identifies
a student's major pronunciation problems and marks them as targets for
special work during the semester.
Native-like rhythm is so important to intelligible
speech that the course pays daily attention to the rhythm of spoken English
and to the special contributions to rhythm made by accurate stress, intonation,
vowel quality contrasts, and by the linking, blending, and trimming of
sounds. The point of instruction is to equip students with the tools
they need to learn on their own out of class. They practice using
techniques for self-monitoring and self-correcting. They learn rules
for predicting the vowel and consonant constituents of words, the stress
of words and constructions (like compound nouns, compound verbs), and the
intonation of phrases. Special emphasis is placed on the use of phrase
stress in discourse to convey meaning.
|
| Type of work: | Students do in-class oral work and out-of-class written exercises, make tape recordings, and use the language laboratory. |
| Grading basis:
|
Letter grades are based on written tests and assignments (35%), improvement on oral tests, recordings, and other oral performance (55%), attendance, participation in class and in the language laboratory (10%). A passing grade for this course is a grade of C- or higher. |