Our next Phonatics meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 11 from 4-5pm. Please note that this meeting will be in the Ver Steeg Lounge in the University Library (Room 3770).

This is a joint meeting with the Council on Language Instruction. Drs. Jen Alexander, Erin Leddon, & Julie Moore from the English Language Programs and the Department of Linguistics will be presenting “Pronunciation Training in the Language Learning Curriculum.”

Abstract: English language learners typically want to reduce interference from their first language and sound more intelligible to native speakers of the English dialect that they are trying to acquire. But this can be difficult for many reasons: limited training in the sound structure of English, limited opportunities for corrective feedback, and even limited exposure to the target dialect. In this presentation, faculty from Northwestern’s English Language Programs will report on the strategies we have implemented to support international students working to improve their intelligibility and effectiveness when using spoken English. We’ll discuss how we apply our training in phonetics, phonology, and speech language pathology to create interventions across multiple pedagogical contexts and programs-group classes, one-on-one tutoring, and digital learning. We hope to also address implications for teaching pronunciation in other languages (and especially to English L1 learners).