Re: [iatefl_pronsig] Re: "There's no agreement..."
Hello Everyone
Long time no write...
Nearing the end of 2 months of oral
entrance examining into the school, evaluation is very much in the forefront
of my thoughts at the moment. I'm not familiar with the IELTS
scale (we use a specialist Aeronautic English Scale or the Common European
Framework here) but on scales everywhere for pronunciation I find there
is a real practical problem with evaluating people on "intelligibility"
as denoted in a scale. After all, my colleagues who may not be as
versed as I with pronunciation matters, all find it very easy to "understand"
even a very strong French accent because they are living in France, are
familiarised with a multitude of different levels of pronunciation and
some have been here over 30 years. They could even understand the more
pronuciation challenged sibling of Inspecteur Clouseau!!! So
based on the IELTS scale they might put someone who has problems with vowel
length, pronunciation of dipthongs, intonation, misplaced word stress in
the top box because "they can understand them" and who am I to
challenge that? Examiners follow a scale. Does research
exist into levels of pronunciation features in terms of what may
be easiest to work on first to what would be hardest to correct? Is
this relevant and should it be included in scales or is this too difficult
with internationally used documents? Your thoughts please.
Anna
Anna Bernard
EFL Lecturer
Ecole Nationale de L'Aviation Civile
7, avenue Edouard Belin
BP 4005
31055 Toulouse CEDEX
Tel: 00 33 5 62 17 41 15
"Chris P. Bluetree"
<japaneasynow@...> Envoyé par : iatefl_pronsig@...
19/06/2009 05:39
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Re: [iatefl_pronsig] Re: "There's
no agreement..."
Hi Steph, Alex et al.
I read the IELTS rubric, and it does seem pretty detailed and likely to
be useful to scoring test takers. However, i noticed that there was no
mention of prosody or suprasegmental features. I liked the part about "L1
accent has minimal effect on intelligibility." This alludes to native-like
pronunciation, and we can infer, prosody.
Well, i must get back to my sylable-adding and phonetically challenged
Japanese university students. Today is presentation day...
Cheers,
c.
--- On Fri, 19/6/09, stephanie gilkes <stephaniegilkes@...>
wrote:
From: stephanie gilkes <stephaniegilkes@...>
Subject: [iatefl_pronsig] Re: "There's no agreement..."
To: iatefl_pronsig@...
Date: Friday, 19 June, 2009, 12:28 PM
Hi Alex,
that's a very good point, the descriptors are quite vague and, at least
by default, they are native-speaker referenced. I can't quote them exactly
(for confidentiality reasons, although also due to a poor memory!), but
the description of prosody (in the higher bands) is mainly in terms of
discourse 'chunking' and only talks about it being 'acceptable' . I'm sure
you are right that examiners would interpret 'acceptable' to mean 'the
way native speakers do it.'
Although fairly vague, the 'revised pronunciation scale' (2007) is a vast
improvement on the old scale, which was extremely vague. It's available
here for anyone who is interested: http://www.ielts.
org/PDF/UOBDs_ SpeakingFinal. pdf
Steph
--- In iatefl_pronsig@
yahoogroups. co.uk, "pronsig_mod"
<pronsig_mod@ ...> wrote:
>
> Hi Steph,
>
> I think the fact that prosodic features are 'tested' in oral exams
is an important point. The problem is deciding which aspects of prosody
should be measured. The definitions used in international exams and in
the Common European framework are incredibly vague - generally they just
say that intonation must be correct!
> Oral examiners are experienced teachers and are given training, but
intonation seems to be judged subjectively with little indication of what
counts as a significant error. If intonation patterns are just about 'sounding
like a native' then surely we should drop them completely from tests that
are supposed to be measuring communicative competence.
>
> Alex.
>
>
>
>
> --- In iatefl_pronsig@
yahoogroups. co.uk, "stephanie gilkes"
<stephaniegilkes@ > wrote:
> >
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I just wanted to add a minor point to this discussion. Regarding
item 5 'intonation doesn't really matter': on a practical note, it does
matter for people intending to take the IELTS exam. In the new pronunciation
scale, prosodic features are essential criteria for bands 7 to 9.
> >
> > Steph
> >
> > --- In iatefl_pronsig@
yahoogroups. co.uk, jmtiziani@ wrote:
> > >
> > >
New
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