Qin Wang & Qian Xu 410 Pronunciation Revised Lesson Plan

Pronunciation Class for Business English of Arabic English Speakers General information:

Title of lesson Easily mispronounced or omitted vowels for Arabic English speakers

Name/type of class Let English Become Your Wings in Business

Number of students/age range 15-20 adult learners

Proficiency level of students Students with Intermediate level learning English for at least two years

Length of time of lesson an hour

Overall instructional goal(s) of lesson To minimize the influence of L1 Arabic vowels To reinforce the correct pronunciation of some specific vowels

Learning objectives
Learn how to pronounce // & //

Justification/why important to your students There are fewer vowels in Arabic than in English. It is not easy for adult learners and speakers of English to correct their accent. To minimize the unnecessary misunderstanding during the business exchange

I. II.

Materials needed
BEC vantage sample test Dictionary.com

III. IV. V.

VI.

http://www.arabamericangiving.org/arab-business-etiquette-vs-american-businessetiquette.php http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/ Munro, M. J. (1993). Productions of English vowels by native speakers of Arabic: Acoustic measurements and accentedness ratings. Language and Speech, 36(1), 39-66. Ryan, A., & Meara, P. (1992). The case of the invisible vowels: Arabic speakers reading English words. Reading in a foreign language, 7, 531-531.

Orientation (4 min) Learning objectives: Learn how to pronounce // & // instructional activities: Chinese whisper In this section, we will first provide the examples about Arabic English speakers common pronunciation problems that they omit some vowels when pronouncing some words with many syllables. For example, automobile-autmobile experiment-expriment sufficient-sufficint department-dpartment separate-sparate credit-crdit In this part, the slides will show the correct words but we will pronounce the wrong pronunciation to let students see the problem. Then we will show students the wrong ones we actually produced. Now we ask students to read these words with us, and give them 30 seconds to 1 minute to feel the differences and these easily omitted vowels in those words. In this warm-up activity, we can show students the importance of vowels in pronunciation. Because of the features of English, all the phonemes in English words are quite essential including all the consonants and vowels. In this section, we have already learnt about the features of English pronunciation, and students should already get an idea that each of the phonemes in their words is important, especially those vowels. Next, we will play a Chinese whisper activity. In this activity, we will assign students in to two big groups. The first student of each group will receive the same sentence, and they cannot share with other members in the group. The sentence will be: The CEO believed that going green is the next big thing. Then the first student will whisper this sentence to the next student on her right. Then, the next student whispers to the next one until to the last student in each group. In the end, the last students should speak aloud of the sentence she listened. After that, the first students should say the original sentence, so the whole class can compare the original sentence with the one they heard. In the end of this activity, we will conclude the importance of valuing each single sound including vowel in English language.

Presentation (4-5 min) In this presentation part, we will first give students the vowels we are going to learn. // and // are vowels, easily being ignored or omitted by Arabic English speakers. Before giving instructions about pronouncing these words, we will play Iowa university pronunciation flash to show students the basic mouth and tongue position of pronouncing. We will give students some time to feel the tongue positions in their mouths. Then, we will teach students how to pronounce these two vowels right by offering some gestures help them understand and remember, and teachers lead the students to practice together in class. The gesture for / / is because of the transient feature of this vowel. The gesture for // is due to the mouth openness is neither too wide nor too narrow, but very neutral just like 45 degrees angle. By offering gestures, students can easily distinguish the articulation of these three vowels. Next, teachers will give students these words, and stress the parts of the words are easily ignored by our students. Then, we will give students instructions about how to pronounce those vowels by separating those words one syllable by one syllable. Words:

// Business /bzns/ Marketing /mrkt/ Invoice /nvs/ Repeat /rpit/ // Enterprise /ntrpraz/ Definition /dfnn/ Delegate /dlget/ Congress / kngrs/
In this part, we will help students build up their sense of pronunciation by involving their bodies. By doing gestures while pronouncing these vowels, students can know the exaggerated ways of productions. We chose to present vowels in this way because we believe that using gestures helps memorizing, even for adult learners. In the following activities, we will still ask students pronounce the words by gesturing at the same time. By presenting these instructions and activities, we can let students build up their pronunciation

knowledge step by step from basic vowels into words. Engagement (8 min) 1. Warm-up activity

In this activity, we will ask students to use the following words to construct sentences
themselves within 2-person group, also asking them to pay attention to the pronunciation of these words. We will give voluntary groups some treats if they perform this task well. At the end of this activity, we will ask students to do the group work together to think about sentences their own. Relationship /rlenp/ Direction /drkn/ Industry /ndstri/ Average /vrd/ Presentation /prznten/ Colleague /k lig/

2. Role Play activity in Business. In this part, we will ask students to for 2-3 persons groups to make a mini business conversation, pretending they are all colleagues in a company based on the scenario as following.

Imagine your company is attending a trade fair in the United States for the first time. You and you colleagues have been asked to help with the preparations for this trip. Discuss the situation together, and decide: what travel and accommodation arrangements you will need to make before the trip which kinds of business customs in the U.S. it would be useful to know about, and how to find out about these before the trip
Then we let students construct their discussion by using the following words.

Management, department, distribute, payee, employee, automobile, experiment, sufficient, president, abroad, difficult

By using the above words, students can use these words containing the vowels we just learnt in the previous section. We will encourage students to use more words in the list by offering some treat as rewards. At the end of discussion, we will ask voluntary groups to send representatives to make mini conversations for their groups. In the end of the group discussion, we will present some of the dramatic differences between Arabic business etiquettes with American business etiquettes starting from eye contact in talking with their partners. Then, we ask students to come up some different situations they met when they did business in the U.S. context. Arab Islam/prohibit alcohol or certain food Predominantly men do business Sit close/exchange kisses/touch one another Modesty of dress/women cover hair in some countries Social conversation during formal business meetings, time keeping less strict U.S. o Christianity main religion/diverse and open o Both men and women/respect o Value physical space/limit to handshake/also men with women o More casual/most business attire during meeting and events o Social conversation in less formal occasions/meals or meetings not relate to work o Value time highly/more direct and value fast decision making/punctuality is very important

By embedding these concepts into students mind, we can help students to learn something really related to their works. All these activities used in this part push students to think in this business atmosphere. Also, we think that business people also get more motivated in the classroom if they can get some treat. Evaluation (1 min) In this part, we will ask students to review the vowels and gestures for the vowels we learnt in this class. All the class should repeat together since we suppose they should all have

learnt about how to pronounce those vowels as well as the words with all the three vowels. In this part, students can freely ask questions and concerns about previous sections. In the previous section of the activities can also show students understanding of the content we have learnt. After finishing all the activities and this reviewing section, students know they are ready to pronounce these vowels themselves with less help from the instructors. Expansion (1 min) In this part, we will assign homework for students after the class. For the homework, students are asked to record a genuine business conversation if allowed by interlocutors or a practice business conversation on http://www.podomatic.com/login. Then, the whole class can listen to others post, and comment on some language problems they found for at least one of their classmates or their own recording, and sending a word file or pdf file to instructors. Students can use what we learnt from the class to make genuine conversations in the real-world or in a simulated business world. In the next class, we can use the collected data to analyze some pronunciation phenomena in the future. Instructors will collect all the pronunciation material and problems students pointed out for further discussion the classroom.

Appendix Homework In this homework, you are asked to use http://www.podomatic.com/login to record a practice business conversation with your partners. After the recording part, you should find one of other students recording, and find out the pronunciation problem you found, also provide the examples of the problems. You do not need to transcribe the whole conversation, and you just need to provide the problem examples in your classmates recording, adding explanations about what the problems are. In your homework, you should provide the link of your recording and your classmates recording you reviewed. Then you should point out the problems you found as well as the examples of the problems. Make sure you send E-mail to the instructor before Mid-night on December 17, 2012.