Course

Pronunciation Skills for English Language Learners

Faculty
Language, Literature & Performing Arts
Department
English Language Learning and Acquisition
Course Code
ELLA 0285
Credits
3.00
Semester Length
15 weeks
Max Class Size
20
Method(s) Of Instruction
Seminar
Typically Offered
To be determined

Overview

Course Description
This is a basic pronunciation course for English language learners. Students will be introduced to the sound system of English and to phonetic symbols. Activities will focus on listening for sound distinctions and identifying the major stress and intonation patterns. Students will identify and work on their own pronunciation problems and develop some strategies for monitoring improvement. It is recommended that students take a conversation course at the same time.
Course Content

Pronunciation

  1. Sound System
    • learn and use the International Phonetic Alphabet, and principles of phonology to determine word pronunciation, in particular the ubiquity of the schwa.
    • vowels and consonants, including diphthongs and consonant clusters.
    • regular grammatical endings, such as “ed”, “s”, “able”.
    • consonant-vowel, consonant-consonant and vowel-vowel linking.
  2. Word, phrase, and sentence stress
  3. Pitch and intonation
  4. Rhythm
  5. Independent learning techniques
    • identify individual pronunciation errors.
    • learn techniques for using dictionaries to determine pronunciation.
    • explore techniques for monitoring improvement, including the use of appropriate technology

Classroom Skills

Take responsibility for the following:

  1. attendance and punctuality.
  2. class work and assignments.
  3. participation and group work.
Learning Activities

The instructor will facilitate, observe and evaluate students’ participation in writing activities.  Whole and small group instruction will be combined with individual assistance and student-directed learning.  Students will participate in the setting of goals by identifying their communicative and language development needs, and will participate in the selection of learning activities.

Means of Assessment

A mastery model of on-going evaluation will be used.  A student will reach mastery when s/he has demonstrated through satisfactory completion of exercises, assignments and other assessments that the course objectives have been achieved.

Where formal tests of specific skills are used, mastery will be defined as a score of 70% or more.

Progress will be monitored on a regular basis by the instructor in consultation with each student.

Learning Outcomes

Overall Objective

Extend fluency and confidence in communicating for a range of educational, employment, personal and social contexts.

Specific Objectives

  1. Speak with comprehensible pronunciation and emerging awareness of cultural appropriateness in short conversations or presentations under controlled conditions.
  2. Identify, distinguish between, and reproduce all English sounds singly and in combination.
  3. Identify and reproduce the basic stress, intonation and rhythm patterns of native speakers.
  4. Identify individual pronunciation problems and some techniques for dealing with them.
  5. Assess own progress.
  6. Participate effectively in a classroom.
Textbook Materials

Materials will be supplied.

Students may be required to purchase a text book.

Requisites

Prerequisites

ELLA 0150 and ELLA 0160, EASL 0150 and EASL 0160, ELLA assessment or instructor permission

Corequisites

No corequisite courses.

Equivalencies

No equivalent courses.

Course Guidelines

Course Guidelines for previous years are viewable by selecting the version desired. If you took this course and do not see a listing for the starting semester / year of the course, consider the previous version as the applicable version.

(Current)

Course Transfers

These are for current course guidelines only. For a full list of archived courses please see https://www.bctransferguide.ca

Institution Transfer Details for ELLA 0285
There are no applicable transfer credits for this course.

Course Offerings

Winter 2025