Welcome to week 2!
Review of week 1
What an excellent start we have had to our course! It would not have been possible without you. Thank you for all your comments and messages. It has been delightful and encouraging to receive and read notes pouring in from all over the world.
We can sense the enthusiasm and zest for learning, especially in the first two steps: 1.2 Brainstorming about English pronunciation in a global world and 1.3. the Introduction video on the factors of intelligibility, credibility and identity in English pronunciation. The generous outpouring of comments shows great cognizance and mindfulness. We would like to thank you so much for sharing your English pronunciations and experiences speaking English in step 1.5 Sharing our English pronunciations and step 1.6 Sharing our experiences speaking English. We would encourage everyone to go back to these steps to watch the myriad of English pronunciations and experiences speaking English and to get acquainted. Furthermore, step 1.10 Setting personal goals regarding English pronunciation received insightful responses, with many of you concretizing your specific wishes regarding pronunciation and learning goals. It is fascinating to see all the diverse backgrounds we come from, as also evident in step 1.11 Making a recording of your English pronunciation. Finally, it was heartening to see learners interact and help each other, listening to and learning from each other’s English pronunciation, in for example step 1.12 Peer Assignment Review.
It feels like we have become in a short period of time – a community; growing together.
Please do remember that you can always reach out to us and ask us questions through step 1.19 Asking your educator questions online.
What’s happening this week?
As we proceed further, in the coming week we will start working towards your learning goals for English pronunciation. Week 2 addresses vowel sounds in English. You will learn about the way in which vowel sounds are pronounced, using the International Phonetic Alphabet. We will discuss research findings on the intelligibility and credibility of different pronunciations of English vowels. You will analyze and practice the pronunciation of English vowels sounds in a number of exercises. We’ll see if vowels generate as much discussion as the feature of rhoticity in step 1.14 on Rhoticity!
From this week, we will get down to the nitty-gritty of English pronunciation, which is complicated! We’ll guide you and your fellow learners through the course together so that you can support each other. We will be initiating discussions with you and your fellow learners and we hope that they will be productive. We won’t be able to answer every comment, but we’ll attempt to respond to common questions and thoughts. If you think you can help other learners by reading and responding to their questions or sharing your knowledge, we encourage you to reply in the comments area.
We hope you will enjoy the course and look forward to reading your comments!
We welcome you to join our online community of English learners at our Instagram account and Facebook page. Here we share extra information and links along with friendly banter. We would also like to refer you to our YouTube channel.
We acknowledge VUvereninging for their support.
Good luck and best wishes,
Laura Rupp
Amanda Whyte-Elsherif
Cecilia Montenegro-Pérez
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Please follow us on FutureLearn! #FLengpron
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