Describing Spoken English provides a practical and descriptive introduction to the pronunciation of contemporary English. It presumes no prior knowledge of phonetics and phonology. Charles Kreidler describes the principal varieties of English in the world today. Whilst concentrating on the phonological elements they share, the author sets out specific differences as minor variations on a theme. Although theoretically orientated towards generative phonology, theory is minimal and the book is clear, comprehensive and accessible to undergraduate and postgraduate students of linguistics and English Language. Numerous exercises are included to encourage further study.
Is American English in decline? Are regional dialects dying out? Is there a difference between men and women in how they adapt to linguistic variations? These questions, and more, about our language catapulted Robert MacNeil and William Cran—the authors (with Robert McCrum) of the language classic The Story of English—across the country in search of the answers. Do You Speak American? is the tale of their discoveries, which provocatively show how the standard for American English—if a standard exists—is changing quickly and dramatically. On a journey that takes them from the Northeast, through Appalachia and the Deep South, and west to California, the authors observe everyday verbal interactions and in a host of interviews with native speakers glean the linguistic quirks and traditions characteristic of each area. While examining the histories and controversies surrounding both written and spoken American English, they address anxieties and assumptions that, when explored, are highly emotional, such as the growing influence of Spanish as a threat to American English and the special treatment of African-American vernacular English. And, challenging the purists who think grammatical standards are in serious deterioration and that media saturation of our culture is homogenizing our speech, they surprise us with unpredictable responses. With insight and wit, MacNeil and Cran bring us a compelling book that is at once a celebration and a potent study of our singular language. Each wave of immigration has brought new words to enrich the American language. Do you recognize the origin of 1. blunderbuss, sleigh, stoop, coleslaw, boss, waffle? Or 2. dumb, ouch, shyster, check, kaput, scram, bummer? Or 3. phooey, pastrami, glitch, kibbitz, schnozzle? Or 4. broccoli, espresso, pizza, pasta, macaroni, radio? Or 5. smithereens, lollapalooza, speakeasy, hooligan? Or 6. vamoose, chaps, stampede, mustang, ranch, corral? 1. Dutch 2. German 3. Yiddish 4. Italian 5. Irish 6. Spanish
"Drawing on wide-ranging literature from a variety of relevant disciplines, as well as their own extensive experience in teaching spoken English, the authors give a fascinating, comprehensive, and insightful account of the nature of second language speaking skills. The research and theory they survey then serves as the basis for the principles, strategies, and procedures they propose for the teaching of spoken English. This book will, therefore, provide an invaluable resource for teachers, teachers in training, and researchers, providing both a state-of-the-art survey of the field as well as a source of practical ideas for those involved in planning, teaching, and evaluating courses and materials for the teaching of spoken English"--
This book is designed to help students of English understand spoken language as it is encountered in everyday business and social situations in English speaking environments around the world. It provides information about the social and business conventions of spoken English such as, changing the topic of conversation, agreeing and disagreeing politely, checking meaning, giving feedback and making 'small talk'.
Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English - Pedagogy, Didactics, Literature Studies, grade: 2,3, University of Kassel, course: Introduction to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Teaching Methodology, language: English, abstract: Since we are studying to become future teachers of English, it is really important to teach the "so-called ́four skills`- listening, speaking, reading and writing" (Brumfit, 1984, p.103). This term paper will only deal with two of the four skills, which are listening and speaking. Both of these skills need to be learned and require active behaviour. This term paper starts off by introducing the reader to the topic of teaching listening, continues by explaining the characteristics of listening situations, learner problems with listening and different listening activities which can be used at school. Furthermore, it gives a definition of speaking, how to teach speaking at school, some important speaking methods and learner problems. The next topic is the oral presentation itself and what we did in class, which tasks we gave to the other students, which aims we wanted to achieve and how everything worked out. In the final conclusion we want to show what we learned while we prepared our presentation and actually presented it in class. Some problems that occurred in class and how we could have improved the organisation of the presentation and the get involved part will be mentioned as well. We finish our paper with the attachment and the bibliography.
The present book viz., A Handbook to Teaching Communicative English (For Research students) is a successful attempt to teach English to ESL students through communicative approach. Several practical tasks are suggested to practice speaking English in a normal class room by an English making learning live and interesting. The communicative approach to teaching of English is organized on the basis of certain communicative functions, such as apologizing, describing, inviting, promising etc. that the ESL learners need to know. It explains the language in terms of the functions it performs. This approach does not ignore the role of grammar in the process of language learning, but it insists that the grammatical rules are useless unless they are applied to real-life situations Communicative approach focuses on the signi cance of language functions because the learner needs knowledge of both meaning and functions. It lays emphasis on functional, communicative and social interactive activities. The basis of each lesson is a problem or a task and the conduct of the lessons consists of setting the task, demonstrating ways of tackling it and, in the process, giving some pupils a chance to attempt it, then getting all the pupils to attempt and, nally giving each pupil a rough indication of the measure of his success. The function of the task is to bring about a self-reliant effort by the learners. Tasks consist of : interpreting a schedule, giving a set of directions, de
"This series has been designed to help students of English understand spoken language as it is encountered in everyday business and social situations in English speaking environments aroudn the world."--Back cover.
