Pronunciation with Wlodek Barbosa

[Włodzimierz Sobkowiak]

Tonight we did exactly what we planned to do in our pronunciation session:

- we review the homework notecard on homophones
- Samila jumped around the revised version of the phonetic walk-through grid with 16 stones (see snapshot below)
- we took about 20 minutes with the PAV (Phonetically Augmented Virtuality) activity

Some remarks on the last activity: (a) hard to find some objects (but then it is a hunt, no?), (b) hard to get used to the phonetic transcription symbols (any better ideas?), (c) hard to and copy the phonetic info from the objects to a notecard (it just needs more practice). Hopefully, the PAV will get better gradually, with audio and quizzes built in.

[Włodzimierz Sobkowiak]

TY, Abraxas, for your kind words. Patience-learning is indeed a very humbling experience for teachers. And one never quite finished :-).

As for phonetic transcription - I believe it's not as terrible as it's believed to be. I'll shortly send you a short look-up table in a notecard to prove it, and make things (even) easier :-). YOU to be interpreted as plural, of course: the Wednesday pronunciation community...

[Abraxas]

Hi Wlodek,
First I would like to thank you for your teaching and your great patience. :)

My comment for point b).... It is very hard to learn the phonetic transcription symbols, an additional "language" even when you are just learning a foreign language. Your patience with us, I assume, has to be very big.
I can't suggest a better method than yours. Writing the symbols and reading them aloud again and again with examples would be the best to do...

Keep on doing, I appreciate it.

Warm regards,
Abraxas
PS: And it influences my English referring to how I conceive the language and the different speakers.