Search results for 'tag:Universities tag:Phonetics' matching tags 'Universities' and 'Phonetics'

Re: sweet water.

Yoong Liat — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:54:27 GMT

Hi New2grammar and Khoff

When Singaporeans ask for water in a restaurant, they use the term pain water. Plain water may, nevertheless, have ice in it.

Standard English speakers would simply ask for water.

(Singapore English in a Nutshell by Adam Brown)

The author is an Associate Professor in the School of Arts of the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. He has taught at universities in Britain,Thailand and Malaysia. He holds a doctorate in phonetics frrom the University of Edinburgh, and has written widely on lingustics and English language teaching.

Re: "an year" VS "a year"

Anonymous — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 03:25:40 GMT

Its ' a year '. Articles ''a'' and ''an'' depend on the phonetics rather than the spelling.

We say: An umbrella but a university.

hi.please help me can any one check statement of purpose and can guide me f

Ahnajfi — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 16:26:53 GMT

My interest in Science and English dates back to my school days. Being an inquisitive boy, I always have been eager to learn more and more around me. My interest in wide range of subjects and my inner aspiration helped me a lot to acquire a significant knowledge of the Science, history and culture of the world. With the passage of time my eagerness for knowledge got specified and my desire to go deeper into my subjects intensified.

After completing my graduation with chemistry Biology and English I started teaching in Sir Syed Secondary School âa reputable institute of District Sahiwal (Pakistan). Here I had a chance to instill my curiosity and my knowledge into my students. I gave them the basic concepts of Science and taught them how to use correct English. I also learned from their questions as my teachers had from mine. Along with teaching I also worked as an educational counselor by keeping close relation with students and their parents.

To familiarize my self with latest teaching and management techniques I got admission in bachelor of Education (B.Ed) program of Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad. In this course I learned to teach English and science at elementary level.

Major subjects during this course were school administration and management education psychology, theories of education and Evaluation. At the end of the course I completed ten days workshop in which I was selected the representative of the class. I also helped the other trainee teacher.

The most important decision in my life was when I took admission in master in English language and literature. I have got a chance to get a wide range of knowledge in the realm of English the core courses during my master in English which have a great effect on my personality were English drama, Novel, poetry, linguistics and phonetics, English grammar and teaching of English as a foreign language (TEFL).During this study work I explored the world of English literature. I at once fell in love with a work of CHAUCER, SHAKESPEARE and BERTRAND RUSSEL which are the most humanistic writers of the world. This course has greatly improved my language skills. Now a days, I am teaching English and science in Govt middle school.

My hobbies are reading literature, watching English movies and listening English programmes of radio(like BBC,VOA ).i am also a good player of basket ball .i love to read about the history and culture of different nations and like to discuss and solve educational problems of teachers and students. But my ultimate aim is to improve and develop myself first then works for human beings at higher level in the field of education. My independence and full responsibility for myself have driven me to a higher level of maturity than many of my peers, a quality that differentiates me form many other applicants.

I have studied all about your program of studies, course content really attract me to join this master level program. This will develop in me different skills and broaden my perspective of life in the light of alternative points of views. Also on the completion of this master level program I will be able to analyze and assess the change process in education and may examine all these from a number of perspective

I am highly aware of the superb reputation of your current program. Course contents have served to deepen my interest in attending; I know that, in addition to your excellent faculty, your facilities like libraries are among the best. I hope u will give me the privilege of continuing my studies at the fine institutions of Europe

Re: Teaching pronunciation of regular verbs in past simple

Titithi — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 17:46:58 GMT

I don't think it's necessary to explain what is a voiceless and voiced sound in past simple ( pronunciation of regular verbs). Imitating is the best way to use for teaching Elementary students. Imagine that a ten-year child should memorize a lot of vocabulary,irregular verbs for distinguishing regular verbs (at least 120 verbs) voiceless sounds and voiced sounds at the same time. It's not wise to stuff a lot into children's brain.If you use flashcards to teach children, they will learn by heart how to pronounce these regular verbs when using them to speak instead of wondering voiced or voiceless sound. After teaching about 20 verbs,you could tell them 3 cases of ending /ed/: 1) verbs finishing with the letters /t/ and /d/pronounce "ed" as /id/.

2)verbs finishing with the letters :k,x,p,s,c,ch,sh,f.pronounce "ed' as /t/.

3) the othersronounce "ed" as /d/

Children are required to memorize only two simple cases of pronunciation instead of three.They can guess the third case: If it is not in the first case and in the second case, it is in the third case. It's not easy to remember the letters that make the verbs finishing on a voiceless sound. You should give them a sentence or a phrase to have words beginning with these letters in order your students could learn by heart.For example: khi xuong phia song coi chung she falls are pronounced /t/; baked, fixed stopped,missed,forced,watched, washed,staffed. Pay attention to" raised "is pronounced /reizd/ and laughed /la:ft/.( tell them a little about sound and letter or teach them The apple song: A for apple /a/ /a/ /a/. /a/ is the sound of A.).Some verbs are not used in Elementary level.(It doesn't need to remember these verbs).In my country, phonetic is taugh only in university.

Self-Evaluation Essay

Super Sonic — Sat, 19 May 2007 22:54:48 GMT

Hi,

I had my final exam from the writing course as a home take-in, but the type of the essay sounded a little bit weird to me. Here is what my lecturer gave as information:

Writing FINAL

Write an evaluation essay on the following topic

The Self-Evaluation essay is a reflective essay assessing and describing your learning experiences. Write a self evaluation essay considering the guidelines below.
The following are guidelines for your Self-Evaluation Essay:

Include each of your learning objectives,
Describe how the learning objectives were accomplished and the steps used to complete objectives,
For objectives you did not meet, state why not. What did you learn from the failure to meet objectives? (Is this even proper English? )
What else did you learn that was not in your initial objective? Specific examples should be cited. The student should review the learning objectives set at the beginning of the term and assess what growth he or she has achieved during the term."

And here is what I have written (Could you please proofread it considering the notes above?):

This Is Only the Beginning

This is my first year in the Linguistics department of Hacettepe University. I can easily say that this university is not quite what I expected it to be. I was hoping to improve myself in many fields, but this did not happen in the first year, since I had to deal with my courses more than anything else. However, my English dramatically improved thanks to the courses. I would like to evaluate this year in terms of how I improved my English skills (speaking, writing, reading and listening), while doing nothing about the other fields I was interested in (arts and sports).

First of all, I have been able to improve my expressive English skills thanks to a native speakerâs being our lecturer, and having courses on how to express ourselves better in English. Margaret was the lecturer of our writing course. I learned many new words, idioms, grammar structures and expressions in her classes, which would have me state my thoughts in a more comprehensible way in written language. Also, both in our writing and reading classes we had discussions about various controversial subjects that helped me improve my speaking skills. We were having phonetics at the same time, and as a student trying to attend all the classes, I improved my pronunciation. So, I can say that I am grateful for my department to help me meet my objectives in expressing myself both in spoken and written language.

Secondly, my receptive skills have also improved with the help of the courses like reading, literature, and listening comprehension. Even though I did not have much difficulty in reading and understanding course books, articles, reading passages and the like, I was rather poor at literal texts, or in other words, the figurative use of English language. By the help of our literature classes, I got over this problem, and now I can mostly understand what Shakespeare or Hemingway says. My listening skills, likewise, improved remarkably after having taken the listening comprehension courses. I was unable to differentiate between the words that resemble each other like âmateâ and âmadeâ before I took those courses. I can say that listening to someone speaking English has become one of the easiest tasks ever with the help of my lecturers.

Thirdly, even though there has been a big improvement in my English skills, I have not been able to deal with arts or sports, both of which are my main interests. I was hoping to have art lessons such as painting and music. However, all the courses are academic ones. Another deficit of my department âor of the university in general- is that there are not many sports activities going on. Because of these reasons, I felt rather âantisocialâ in my first year in the university. As a result, not having done anything in these two areas is the only objective that I missed this year, but I am thinking of taking piano and karate courses next year from another university. If only my university gave more importance to these two areas!

Consequently, although I was not very content with the overall situation of the university this year, I must admit that my English skills have improved drastically within this year. I, however, still feel sad about not being able to take any courses from my areas of interest. Who knows, maybe this was only the beginning. Maybe, I am going to like this university better. Only time will show!

Thanks in advance

linguistic theories and language learning

Anonymous — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 01:25:13 GMT

Do you think linguistic theories help foreign language learning?
I majored in the English language at university.

In my opinion, general linguistic theories, such as phonetics, phonology, syntax and semantics,
partly helped me improve my English skills, but I found it more important to memorize words by exposing myself
to English through listening and writing.

Sociolinguisics, psycholinguistics and historical linguistics were very interesting subjects and helped broaden my perspectives, but they have very little to do with practical language learning.

Applied linguistics are for professionals such as language teachers or speech therapists.
I won't deny the importance of SLA research, but it doesn't help students with no teaching experiences.
Those with teaching experiences find it more helpful.

In conclusion, I think linguistic theories are not necessarily very important for early stage language learning.
As I said, in the second paragraph, language learners, particularly novice and intermediate learners, should
focus more on vocabulary building, listening and reading.
In my opinion, linguistic theories help learners organize their knowledge about the language they learn.
However, this happens when they have reached advanced levels.

Are linguistic theories important for language learning?

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 02:54:38 GMT

Do you think linguistic theories help foreign language learning?
I majored in the English language at university.

In my opinion, general linguistic theories, such as phonetics, phonology, syntax and semantics,
partly helped me improve my English skills, but I found it more important to memorize words by exposing myself
to English through listening and writing.

Sociolinguisics, psycholinguistics and historical linguistics were very interesting subjects and helped broaden my perspectives, but they have very little to do with practical language learning.

Applied linguistics are for professionals such as language teachers or speech therapists.
I won't deny the importance of SLA research, but it doesn't appeal to students with no teaching experiences.
Those with teaching experiences find it more helpful.

In conclusion, I think linguistic theories are not necessarily very important for early stage language learning.
As I said, in the second paragraph, language learners, particularly novice and intermediate learners, should
focus more on vocabulary building, listening and reading.
In my opinion, linguistic theories help learners organize their knowledge about the language they learn.
However, this happens when they have reached advanced levels.

Re: /,ju:ni´v3:.si.ti/

Kooyeen — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 13:43:19 GMT

Hi,
well, phonetic transcriptions are usually not accurate. No dictionary gives you the exact IPA transcriptions, they usually simplify the transcription so that they can use a certain symbol for a certain sound, by convention. So /iu/ and /ju/ could be considered the same, according to a certain convention.
Anyway, I think you are instead asking what's the difference between a /i/ sound (the one in "see") and a /j/ sound (the one in "you"). Well, that's difficult to explain here. I think you can distinguish the sound in "see" (/si/) from the one in "you" (/ju/), can't you? Pay attention to what your tongue does. If you can, than you can also easily see that "university" starts with /j/ and not exactly with /i/.
Hope I helped

Please check my one, too!

Nicky83 — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 12:30:11 GMT

Dear all,

I want to apply for a Master's Programme and therefor wrote my first letter of motivation. If someone could give me any further advice, I'll be very thankful!

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am a highly motivated student who wishes to apply for the Masterâs Programme in Cognitive Neuroscience with specialisation Psycholinguistics.

I wish to join your programme because I think that it is the perfect preparation for a research career in the psycholinguistic field. Especially because of the collaboration with famous research institutes and there working scientiests.

I will finish my B.A. in Cognitive Linguistics at the +++++++, Germany, in summer 2007. Through my curriculum I gained a broad knowledge of todays linguistic theories and their actual developments. Thanks to my compulsory optional subject, âClinical Linguisticsâ, I got in touch with studies and debates in this field. That sparked my interest in studies of unimpaired language production and language processing. In a lecture concerning âLanguage and Brainâ I had a presentation and wrote a term paper concerning the meta-analysis âSpatial and temporal signatures of word production componentsâ of ++++++, which effected my special interest in the study of language production.

To get a deeper insight in the linguistic field, I attended the GLOW & DGfS Summer School 2006 in Stuttgart, where I attended courses of ++++++++++among others. I used the possibility to broaden my knowledge in those fields, which were not special subject in my previous studies.

For the same reasons I attended the EALing Fall School 2006 in Paris, where I had the possibility to follow courses of +++++++++++, among others.

During the two schools, my special interest was in the courses âThe Electrophysiology of Languageâ of +++++++++ and âThe Neurocognition of Languageâ of +++++++, which strengthened my feeling of how fascinating the subject âlanguage and brainâ is and how many things we still donât know.

Additionally to my B.A. curriculum I attended several courses in psychology to get a better insight in the psycholinguistic and neuroscientific field. So I attended courses in Cognitive Psychology, Biospsychology, Methods of the Cognitive Neuroscience, The Binding Problem in Cognitive Neuroscience and a interdisciplinary team-taught lecture series concerning newer developments in Cognitive Neuroscience held by researchers of the Max-Planck-Institute of Brain Science.

In the current semester I attend additional courses of ++++++, âExperimental phonetic testing of phonological hypothesisâ, university of Frankfurt and of +++++++, âLanguage and Cognitionâ and ++++++++, âCognitive models of languageâ, university of Marburg, too. Thanks to these courses I got familiar with different experimental settings and methods. This knowledge will be deepend by my placement in the Max-Planck-Institute of Cognition and Brain Science in February till April 2007.

I think the Masterâs Programm would fit very well for me, because I combine a strong linguistic backround with knowledge from the neighbouring fields. Furthermore I am highly motivated, fast learning, able to cope very well with new scientific fields, what I showed e.g. in my Computer Science course during my B.A.-program.

Thank you very much for your time and considering my request. I am looking forward to your reply.

Yours faithfully,

Sv: Re: Syllable question

KickingCat — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 10:20:27 GMT

Syllables have internal structure: they can be divided into parts. The parts are onset and rhyme; within the rhyme we find the nucleus (=sometimes called peak) and coda. Not all syllables have all parts; the smallest possible syllable contains a nucleus only. A syllable may or may not have an onset and a coda.

Take a look at this word "flap" for example:

fl.ap

s
/ \
O R
/ \ / \
| | N C
| | | |
[ f l a p ]

This is candy for teacher in phonetics at universities to use. Quite boring and totally useless according to me.