| Lerninhalte |
- The mechanics of voice production
- Breathing techniques
- Rhythm and intonation
- Training individual sounds of English (with a contrastive focus on ENG-GER)
- The description of accent varieties
- Accents, identities and attitudes
- The representation of varieties of English in ESL/EFL school books |
| Kommentar |
In his Institutes of Oratory, Quintilian wrote that "[t]he voice of a person is as easily distinguished by the ear as the face by the eye" (Book XI, ch. 3). From the quality of a person's voice and from their accent, we can usually infer the speaker's identity (e.g. age, gender, regional origin, social status, ethnicity) and draw conclusions about their personality and mood. It has also been shown that a speaker's voice can influence our attitude towards that person and what they are saying. It is therefore vital for any teacher to develop an awareness of the impact their voice can have on others, especially learners.
Furthermore, as teachers belong to the group of "professional voice users" and use their voice as a "physical instrument", voice training should not be neglected in order to avoid vocal misuse and strain. Language teachers are an even more special case as they act as role models for their students in terms of target language pronunciation.
The course "Voice training for language education" has four main aims: (1) to provide trainee language teachers with exercises for vocal health and effective communication; (2) to discuss methods of teaching and assessing pronunciation; (3) to develop the tools needed to describe systematic differences between accent varieties of English, including the so-called "New Englishes" (=post-colonial varieties such as South African English, Singaporean English, Jamaican English); (4) to explore the relationship between accent, identity and attitude. |
eG