Practical ideas for teaching pronunciation and listening in an English as a lingua franca (ELF) context

About the seminar

This seminar explores practical ideas for teaching pronunciation and listening based on Katy and Laura’s classroom experiences in Dubai and London, respectively. With almost 200 nationalities, Dubai is a true melting pot, and London is "widely recognised as the most multilingual city in the world" (Graddol, 2006:28). One of the main implications for the classroom is with regards to pronunciation (the priority is not to assimilate, but to be intelligible), and listening (the challenge of dealing with a myriad of unfamiliar accents).

In this seminar the presenters make practical suggestions for: 

• prioritising areas for pronunciation work in a multilingual class - watch on YouTube
• adapting pronunciation activities from standard coursebooks for ELF purposes - watch on YouTube
• exploiting authentic materials - watch on YouTube
• raising students’ awareness of the responsibilities of the listener - watch on YouTube
• dealing with students’ misconceptions/negative perceptions of ELF - watch on YouTube

About the speakers

Katy Davies teaches full-time at the British Council in Dubai and recently completed her MA in English Language. She is particularly interested in the use of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in the UAE, and designing materials to support teachers whose students need to communicate in an ELF context.

Laura Patsko works at St. George International in London as a senior teacher and teacher trainer on the Trinity CertTESOL and DipTESOL courses. She completed her MA in ELT & Applied Linguistics in September 2013. She is particularly interested in teaching pronunciation and investigating the practical applications of linguistic research.

Watch the introduction below. 

Click or tap to watch all six parts of the seminar on YouTube