I'm late in the game (the first week of this course was our final week of pre-sessional with nothing but exams,...

I'm late in the game (the first week of this course was our final week of pre-sessional with nothing but exams, resits and many late nights marking, last week I had a journal issue due out, and this week I was finishing off final corrections on my thesis which was submitted on Thursday!) I hope I'm still able to participate now that I have a week off to fully commit! Today I'm watching lessons 2 and 3, but here's my week 1 HW.

Homework #1 Should it be done?
•Who would read/use my material?
English teachers, teaching students of any level/ L1 and in any context

•Why? What would they gain from it?
Regardless of teachers' knowledge of pronunciation (something which is often lacking due to minimal training) the book would give them downloadable or printable 'tools' to use to assess (diagnostically) what their learners are struggling with in terms of perception and production of English- there are very few diagnostic tools available anywhere online or in books and they can take a long time to create, which most teachers don't have. Post diagnosis, based on students' results, the book will then provide step-by-step recommendations on how teachers can go on to integrate personalised pronunciation content for their students from the very beginning, no matter their lesson context.


•What are they currently using or reading instead?
Nothing, or the extremely small amount of pronunciation content most mainstream coursebooks insert, or specialised pronunciation texts which may be difficult to integrate into any lesson due to time constrictions. As i said above, even if teachers are teaching pronunciation, I doubt many of them are actually doing a 'diagnosis' stage to find out what students are having specific difficulties with.

•Why do I think my material (or idea) is good?

I want to create a text to help people like myself – or at least, how I used to be. I was once the teacher who had been given no pronunciation training and was then thrust out into the classroom and left floundering and embarrassed when it came time to do speaking and pronunciation work. I gave up on pronunciation as I simply had no idea how to insert it or what to do beyond listen and repeat/ drilling. Many years later, fed up of being afraid of it, I went back to university, did 5 years more learning, and I now have a modicum of knowledge about how to do it! I now give a lot of presentations on this subject, and people tell me all the time that they too have experienced the same thing and these are the people I want to target - those who want a practical but simple guide, telling them how to get started, providing them with the tools to do so, and then the steps to take in class to allow them to integrate pronunciation no matter the lesson.


Homework #2 Can it be done?
•What will the final product look like—text? images? size? format? length?
I haven’t yet got a final idea of how long this will be. There will be some images as some of the diagnostic tools will require them, I have an artist friend who has agreed to provide them for a reasonable price. Ideally, I would like this to be a paperback book, but I think initially I’ll be working towards an ebook that can be downloaded in PDF form. As this is a guide for teachers, not students, I wasn’t going to include audio, but this may change as I go along. If so, I’m happy to create a webpage where purchasers of the book can access the audio, ala Mark Hancock and his Pron Pack materials.



•How much have I already written? How much is left to do?
I have my structure written out (chapters etc) and have bits of chapters written in different files, so they need amalgamating. I’m still early on in the writing up process.

•How much of the thinking/planning have I already done? How much is left to do?
I’m at the stage when I just need to write now, I’ve planned and structured my ideas, so I need to just get a first draft down.
•When do I plan to write?
From October to December is the quietest time of year for me at work, so I’m hoping to get my writing done in the time between now and the end of the semester.