Session Four - Name Transcription

The relationship between English sounds and spellings can be well illustrated by studying Chinese names.

The following are some of the examples:

陳李張王何趙錢周吳鄭王馬謝曹梁

Chan Lee Cheung Wong Ho Chiu Chin Chow Ng Cheung Wong Ma Tse Tso Leung

Can you transcribe the above surnames into IPA symbols?

Session Three - Vowels and Diphthongs

Circle the word which does not rhyme/ has the same vowel or diphthong sound with the word on the left?

1. alone phone shown thrown town
2. buys advise price stick tries
3. clear bear beer dear fear
4. goes chose lose shows toes
5. knees niece peas pace trees
6. made afraid paid played said
7. most cost post roast toast
8. roof boot foot shoot suit
9. shoes choose does lose food
10. there care hair here wear
11. thumb come home some sum
12. throw go know toe too
13. weight great height late straight
14. word bird heard lord third
15. worse horse nurse purse reverse

Session Two - Sound Blending

Task 1:
Fill in the table with the right words:bad, bit, cut, box, bed, lot, let, lit, gun, dad, rat, red, rid, rod, rusty.

gate, bone, mute, free, file, tail, boat, due, pie, pea, bay, deep, high, foe,
dew

germ, deep, turn, term, cork, zoo, cheese, yard, farm, meat, pawn, put, scar, born, shoot

rare, beer, poor, tour, steer, share, join, loud, gown, toy

Session One - An Introductory to the 44 IPA Sounds

The first lesson is a challenging lesson. How can I help the participants become confidence in learning English pronunciation? Most participants have never learnt International Phonetic Alphabet before. So I decide to focus on familiarising them with the 44 IPA symbols. I also introduce the relationship between 26 English alphabet letters and 44 IPA sounds.

44 IPA letters

24 consonants

8 paired consonants

p, f, t, k, s, th, sh, th (voiceless)

b, v,d,g, z, th, sh, th (voiced)

8 single consonants

m, n, ng, l, r, w, y (voiced) h (voiceless)

20 vowels

Long Vowels: ae, ee, ie, oe, ue
Short Vowels: a, e, i, o, u
R-Vowels: ar, er, ir, or, oo
Diphthongs: are, eer, oor, oi, ou

English IPA Pronunciation Course

I am teaching a pronunciation course these days. The aim of the course is to help participants learn the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) sounds and their corresponding English letters. It is expected that by the end of the course participants will be able to

• recognise the IPA symbols and their frequently associated spelling patterns so that learners can check up words in a dictionary and pronounce them accurately

• understand the relationship between sounds and spelling patterns of words
• differentiate the 44 phoneme sounds of English
• identify the syllables in words and phrases
• read words and phrases with appropriate stress, andcontinue with the learning of pronunciation independently.

The total duration of the course is twenty hours. It takes ten sessions to complete the course. I will share more with you - how I prepare for all the ten sessions of the course in the coming ten days. I will also share how the participants react to some of the learning tasks and the in-class activities I've prepared for them.

A Testimonial for My Daugther School - the ICQM

I am grateful that my daughter, Carol has been studying at the International Christian Quality Music Secondary and Primary School for the past five years. I can see the difference that the school education has made on her.

Carol is tall and strong physically. But when it came to her intellectual and character development, I was really worried for her. It has been a great challenge to my family because Carol used to be a very strong-will child. There was always tension between us – mother and daughter. I could hardly make her work on anything that she did not like or did not feel comfortable with.

The tension has been easing since Carol joined the ICQM. She becomes more aware of her weaknesses and strengths. She is more willing to accept God’s love and guidance. These help her change and face her challenge more bravely. I can now see her become happier and cleverer in problem solving. I reckon it is because she has been surrounded by supportive teachers and good classmates.

Her teachers are patient, caring, and professional. I am especially impressed by her class teacher, Miss Kwok who shows her love, wisdom, and determination to help students blossom in their ways and time. She has always been supportive to their emotional needs, and constantly finds ways to help them grow intellectually and spiritually. Most importantly, she can easily discover the uniqueness of her individual students, e.g. Carol's strength and weakness, and respond to them accordingly.

I also appreciate the mental space created by the school teachers - not demanding too much from Carol when she was not ready. This helps Carol shift her negative feeling on studies to a positive mode of leisure reading and learning. This, in turn has built her confidence in learning and developed her habit in reading and self learning. In fact, the habit of reading and self-learning helps her blossom when it comes to her time - to finish the final year of her primary school study.

Apart from positive impact from the good teachers, I think Carol’s classmates have also helped her enjoy her school life and her studies. Being a mother, I really want to see Carol live a happy, healthy, and meaningful life. I also think it is important for her to have a strong faith in God and receive God’s love and respond to God's grace accordingly. I am now confident to say that her school is laying a good groundwork developing both her intelligence and character.

Thank you God, and thank you ICQM!

A Touching Story - A Unique Teacher

You may want to watch a touching story about a school teacher, Mrs Thompson and her student, Teddy Stoddard. The power point link can be found at http://www.teachermovie.com/ . You may also read the text version at Snopes.com where the origin of this fiction story is provided.

I beleive all of us can be the unique ‘ teacher' to others in life.