Pronunciation and Communication: Oral Skills for Speakers of English as a Second Language Book

This book combines learning how to actually pronounce words in communication messages, with functional communication interactions. Target sounds featuring diverse spelling patterns are analyzed and practiced aloud. Two sentences stressing the target sound as used in open questions, closed questions, listing, asserting, and emphasizing are drilled. Feedback is given and appropriate oral communication strategies are discovered by referring to the context of the message. The third sentence relates to a visual cue of people interacting. Students give each other feedback about any mispronunciations and refer to pronunciation charts to find alternate verbal and nonverbal strategies suitable to the speaker's intention, listener's needs and purpose of the message. After learning sounds, students demonstrate their skills in oral presentations featuring observable behaviors as criteria to assess the degree of communication proficiency they have achieved. The text also includes unbiased performance-based Listening Lab and Speech Center Lab Interaction forms used to facilitate speaker centered oral communication and assessment. The instructor's manual includes a course syllabus, developmental teaching strategies, exams, assessment forms and the final form, "Assessment of Oral Communication and Pronunciation Competency". This last form facilitates mainstream speech course placement. Recommendations are then based on the level of proficiency students exhibit using spoken English as a Second language.Read More