Speechant: a vowel notation system to teach English pronunciation

• Autores: Jorge dos Reis, Valerie Hazan
• Localización: ELT journal: An international journal for teachers of English to speakers of other languages, ISSN 0951-0893, Vol. 66, Nº 2, 2012, págs. 156-165
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This paper introduces a new vowel notation system aimed at aiding the teaching of English pronunciation. This notation system, designed as an enhancement to orthographic text, was designed to use concepts borrowed from the representation of musical notes and is also linked to the acoustic characteristics of vowel sounds. Vowel timbre is represented in terms of the height of the symbol and vowel duration in terms of the length of the symbol. The Speechant system was evaluated in EFL adult education classes in Portugal. A formal assessment that measured the impact of a term's tuition by looking at changes in accent ratings of the learners over that period showed that the group taught using the Speechant system showed greater improvements in pronunciation than the control group. Speechant may be an especially useful aid to pronunciation teaching in situations in which foreign languages are taught without the benefit of technological support.