The traditional pronunciation model EXCLUDES virtually every teacher - Robin Walker & Gemma Archer
So many teachers feel they can't teach pronunciation if their speech doesn't sound a certain way. Listen to this episode to discover why that isn't true.
Robin Walker and Gemma Archer are pronunciation specialists who co-authored "Teaching English Pronunciation for a Global World," which aims to encourage pronunciation instruction from a lingua franca and intelligibility perspective.
We chat with Robin & Gemma about:
intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness
why the Lingua Franca Core is what teachers should learn
their disdain for Jennifer Jenkins' criticism of them - before realizing she was right
how intelligibility is the thing that allows pronunciation to do its job
weak forms and why they're not necessary for intelligibility
why the goal of international intelligibility doesn't exclude other goals
how to measure intelligibility & use Linca Franca Core diagnostics with your students
For more from Gemma:
For more from Robin:
Watch the Video Version of our Podcast
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About Robin Walker
Robin has been in ELT since 1981, working first as a teacher, then as a trainer, materials writer, and more recently as a consultant. A former Vice- President of TESOL-SPAIN, from 2008-2015 he was editor of Speak Out!, the respected journal of the IATEFL Pronunciation Special Interest Group.
In 2019 he was a member of the Oxford University Press Expert Panel for the teaching of pronunciation to the 21st-century learner, and is currently a member of the OUP ELT Expert Advisory Board.
Robin has published numerous articles on pronunciation, principally in English Teaching professional and Modern English Teacher. He regularly collaborates with Oxford University Press, and is the author of their teacher’s handbook Teaching the Pronunciation of English as a Lingua Franca (2010). He is the author of the OUP position paper English pronunciation for a Global World (2021), and is joint author together with Gemma Archer of Teaching English Pronunciation for a Global World (2024), the pronunciation title in the OUP series Into the Classroom.
About Gemma Archer
Gemma Archer is an EAP teacher and programme co-ordinator in the ELT unit at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. She is also a pronunciation specialist, materials writer, teacher trainer, and is joint-coordinator of IATEFL Pronunciation special interest group (PronSIG) as well as being outgoing editor of the SIG’s biannual journal Speak Out! (2017-2023).
She is co-author of Teaching English Pronunciation for a Global World (OUP, 2024) and her research interests lie in the field of pronunciation pedagogy and accent, and the issues which can arise when students and teachers of English are confronted with diverse regional and global varieties of English.
This led to her creation of The Scottish Sound School a resource to help new arrivals to Scotland acclimate to the unfamiliar sounds of Scottish speech.
Podcast Creation:
This episode was created with support from Skool & Podbean. If you're looking to launch a course or start a podcast, we highly recommend them - and use them ourselves.
As always, thank you for listening. Your support has been overwhelming and we couldn't do what we do without you. We hope this podcast serves as an effective CPD tool for you.
If you have a comment or question about today's show, we'd love to hear from you: info@learnyourenglish.com
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