 I want to talk to you about getting excited about using the phonemic chart and the phonemic script to teach pronunciation in your classes. And I can see some faces already are like oh no, really. But trust me. Trust me ok it can be fun. First I'm just going to talk to you through a couple of advantages of using the charts and script in your classes. I'm going to describe a couple of different activities that I've used that I find really effective and engaging. And now I know not everybody really likes the chart and I know there's loads of debate about accents and all of this kind of thing. And I know then there's other people who are absolutely terrified of us. I was one of those people two years ago, but I'm all right now. I've been through versus. And ever since I just started using the chart in my classes, my classes, they're so much richer, they're so much fuller. I have so much more fun. The students have so much more fun. They are begging for more. And most importantly, their confidence has gone through the roof in terms of pronunciation. And that's my first advantage is that it empowers our learners because we're giving them a tool that will help them to understand pronunciation, to help them understand what's happening in their own minds, and then as a result it's going to build their confidence. It provides or promotes autonomy because we're giving them a system that they understand and that they can use in class with their fellow students or with their teacher, but also at home when they're studying. So for example, if they want to record new vocabulary, it's more memorable for them if they're not just writing out, oh, this is the meaning of it or this is it in an example sentence. This is how I pronounce it. So now I can actually speak it. I can use this in conversation. It's also fantastic for them for grammar. So when they're learning their grammar, they can also mark out the pronunciation of it as well. And it's more memorable because they're discovering. They're not just listening to somebody say, okay, the word is vegetable, not vegetable. Vegetable, say it. And that doesn't help them. It doesn't really help them because they need to figure out what's happening in their minds. They need to discover that. And when they discover, they're going to learn. And when they're learning, it's more memorable. Next spelling, which is kind of...some people kind of disagree. I feel that there's two advantages in terms of spelling. One, it shows them how phonetical that English isn't and that they need to be able to... that using the chart and phonemic script will help them. And the second is that it does actually help discover patterns in spelling. So for example, if you look at the sound of, you might see that the majority of words that have the sound of are spelled with o. Some have an a like want or wash or watch. And then some are spelled with a u like Australia and Austria and things like that. So it's good for them that they can discover these different patterns. It provides a visual stimulus. So it's making that, yes, it's physical, but that they can kind of put something visual on what their mouth is doing. So if their mouth makes a sound, they can say, oh, that sound is represented by this little picture. And you don't have to necessarily use symbols. You can use...there are different methods. Some people use pictures, Pierce Messon, for example, has a kind of a method that's based on the science way. It's called pronunciation science. And it's based on the science way to teach pronunciation. And their chart is a series of different colour patterns. So it's completely different. So what we're doing is we're just making a connection between what we're doing in our mouths and being able to put it down. And finally, it's not only a great tool for the students. It's fantastic for us as teachers. So when we are introducing a new vocabulary, a new grammar, it's wonderful. In terms of error correction, it makes our error correction so much more effective, so much quicker, and so much more memorable as well for the students. OK. So before you start, I find it's also important to decide what are your goals in terms of pronunciation. We have to remember that it can be divided into two. We're not just teaching them the chart. We're not just teaching them pronunciation to produce. We're teaching them to be able to listen, to receive information, to understand information. And in terms of productive, it's very important we want to aim not for perfection, because what is perfection? We've all got so many different accents and ways of speaking. So what we want to do is make our learners intelligible, make them be understood by other people. And that's the biggest thing. So intelligibility is the name of the game. OK. Yes. Before you begin, if there's anybody who's not familiar with the chart or with teaching pronunciation, it is fun. Believe me, it is fun. And I guarantee you, if you just take the time to inform yourselves about it, you will be able to use it. I remember I watched the video, this video here, Adrian Underhill. He has an hour-long video on YouTube about introducing the chart. This chart changed my life, literally, because my career took a completely different direction from when I learned this. But if you watch Adrian Underhill, he has a video on YouTube, and after that it will all be clear, the chart, the pattern of it, why it's that way and how it works, and you'll actually discover a lot about yourself and how you speak. If an hour is too long for you to sit down, Macmillan and Adrian Underhill have created a series of 35 videos. Each video is approximately 30 minutes each, and it breaks the chart down into sections, so it's made more manageable chokes. There's an app by Macmillan again, and it's called Science, the pronunciation app. It's amazing, and it's literally, if you get the one, there's one that's only like four or five euro, if you buy that one, it's brilliant. A vision when you're waiting for the bus, you're on the bathroom, you're in the bathroom, or whatever. Literally, it really helps you yourself to become more proficient. When you are bringing the chart into the class, don't throw it at your students, because remember we want to build their confidence. We don't want to terrify them. Start building it slowly, introducing it slowly. The first game that I absolutely love is Phanemic Hangman, and it's based on the regular Hangman, except with bonus, okay? So it's great. Now, again, this one is great when you're first starting. It's really good if you want to, if you're using, if you want to recycle vocabulary. I like to use it after like a listening, and when we've extracted vocabulary or chunks of language from listening, from reading, even if you want to recycle the vocabulary, or just a vocabulary lesson. Basically, the best thing to do is you put your students in pairs. You can give them, depending on what level of agency, you can give them, or you can, the words, or you can get them to pick out which words they want to remember the most from the lesson. So then they have to take the words, and either decide for them, put them into Phanemic Scripts, okay? And very simply, then you'll match them with another pair, and then the other two teams will play Hangman. But instead of using the regular letters, they're using the signings. So they're saying, okay, is there a, in there? Is there a, in there? Is there an off in there? And it's great because it's really connecting the symbols with the physicality. If you want to make it more difficult, you are more easy even, you could give them the words already in script. And I suggest maybe at the beginning, maybe just give them two or three words, okay? If they're more proficient, you can give them more words. But what was the other thing I was going to say? Ah, yeah, don't leave it to the last 10 minutes of class because it takes a lot longer than 10 minutes, okay? And they really love it as well, so they will take their time with it. So do give it a proper 20 plus minutes in your lesson, okay? It's not just an add-on, you know? There you go, that's fine. The next one then is phonemic back to the board, which again is adapted from the regular back to the board game, yes? You know when you have two teams, and one person sits with their back to the board and you write up a word. Except when you write up a word, you're going to write it up in phonemic script. And then the two teams have to, they have to, first of all, they have to figure out what is the word. And then they have to go about explaining what the word is or the expression. But the two tips is, number one, it is quite challenging. So make sure you kind of, you need to make sure that you've used the script and the chart a lot in your class and your students are quite familiar with it. And the other thing is, maybe get the students to put their hand in front of their mouth, because if they're like... You know, and the other students can then kind of see what they're doing with their mouth. So get them maybe to cover their mouths, just from experience, yes, it's a good idea. And the final one is songs. And it's kind of... I was kind of trying to think of a different way of using songs to help with pronunciation with the script. And basically, it's kind of two, again two levels, kind of an easier version and a more difficult version. And the first one is you'll take out a certain target language from the song and in brackets beside the space you'll put down a phonemic script. And then the students have to decide for what the word is. And they have to check to see if they got it correct. The slightly more difficult version of it then is if you take out your target language you put it into script and you put it at the box at the top of the song and you just leave the spaces. And then they have to decipher the different words and then they'll have to read through and figure out where they think those words go. It's a really good idea if you use this with words that have a lot of rhyming so that it'll help them look at different sounds and spelling patterns. And then again you can if you want it afterwards you can take out the words and have a look at... If you pick, for example, if you pick a song that has words that all have similar sounds you'll be able to pick them out and have a look at the different spelling patterns that are there. And... Yes. So remember it's about building our students confidence. We want them to... We want them to be confident about it we want them to enjoy it and we want them to be intelligible. That's what we're aiming for. Not a perfect model or whatever. We also... Build it up slowly. Don't throw it at them. They do build it up slowly because you want them to believe you that it's fun and that it makes life easier for them. And it does. I had a student last year I took over an advanced class and I started using the chart the same way as I always would and he was like, wait a second. Nobody told me this when I was in beginners it would have made everything so much easier and he went crazy and he absolutely loved it. Take the time to inform yourself to learn a little bit about it I know people either don't like it or find it really scary and it really isn't that scary but anybody can do it. So just do take the time to figure it out and enjoy it, yes, have fun. Once you do start messing with it and playing with it in class you will see that your students love it and that you love it and you won't want to teach anything else because that's how I feel sometimes. And finally I just have two references there from Robin Walker and from Eda Ward from earlier on if you want to get a touch this is my email address, this is my blog and my Twitter I'll put the presentation up on my blog and maybe on the ELTR and Facebook page if you do want to take notes because I know it went really quickly when you have 12 minutes and thank you.