Teaching High-Value Pronunciation Features: Contrastive Stress for Intermediate Learners

Pronunciation features are not equal in how they affect listeners’ ability to understand. Some are low value, while others are high value. This study explores whether contrastive stress is high value. Previous research has shown that identification of contrastive stress is learnable (Pennington & Ellis, 2000), and that explicit teaching about contrastive stress patterns can improve production for advanced learners (Hahn, 2002; Muller Levis & Levis, 2012). To test whether instruction on contrastive stress improved comprehensibility and fluency in spontaneous speech, we developed a 3-week class for intermediate ESL learners, whose pre- and posttest productions were rated by native listeners. Ratings for fluency showed no improvement. Ratings for comprehensibility significantly improved for the experimental group while control participants showed no improvement. Improvement resulted both from better contrastive stress and greater comfort with producing grammatical frames to express the contrasts. The article concludes by discussing the importance of high-value pronunciation features for improved comprehensibility

Towards a unification of HRT and SCOZA. Analysis of exactly solvable mean-spherical and generalized mean-spherical models

The hierarchical reference theory (HRT) and the self-consistent Ornstein-Zernike approximation (SCOZA) are two liquid state theories that both furnish a largely satisfactory description of the critical region as well as the phase coexistence and equation of state in general. Furthermore, there are a number of similarities that suggest the possibility of a unification of both theories. Earlier in this respect we have studied consistency between the internal energy and free energy routes. As a next step toward this goal we here consider consistency with the compressibility route too, but we restrict explicit evaluations to a model whose exact solution is known showing that a unification works in that case. The model in question is the mean spherical model (MSM) which we here extend to a generalized MSM (GMSM). For this case, we show that the correct solutions can be recovered from suitable boundary conditions through either of SCOZA or HRT alone as well as by the combined theory. Furthermore, the relation between the HRT-SCOZA equations and those of SCOZA and HRT becomes transparent.Comment: Minimal correction of some typos found during proof reading. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Written English into spoken: A functional discourse analysis of American, Indian, and Chinese TA presentations

International teaching assistants (ITAs) often receive specialized training because their spoken English is not easily comprehensible. Lack of comprehensibility may be influenced by grammatical issues (Tyler, 1994), incorrect or inadequate discourse structure (Tyler, 1992; Williams, 1992), or aspects of their pronunciation, such as unclear sentence focus (Hahn, 2004) or intonation (Pickering, 2001; Wennerstrom, 1998). Problems with comprehensibility may be compounded by ITAs having learned English through formal, written models. However, we do not know how ITAs change written text into an oral lecture, nor how their strategies differ from those of native teaching assistants (NTAs) doing the same task. This paper reports results of such a study. We video-recorded three different groups of engineering TAs (American, Chinese, and Indian) presenting information from a textbook passage. Each TA was asked to read the same passage taken from a first-year college physics textbook, and then to teach the content in spoken English. Presentations were transcribed and analyzed using a Systemic Functional Linguistics approach (Halliday, 1994; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004; Mohan, 2007). Changes made by each group of TAs from the written to the spoken language were compared, and the strategies used by each group to mark their changes from written into spoken language were examined. The results provide a baseline measure of strategies for turning written into spoken texts used by the TAs in our study. Implications for TA training are discussed

Spoken Parentheticals in Instructional Discourse in STEM and Non-STEM Disciplines

Parentheticals, information that is not directly relevant to the topic being addressed, appear in all academic lectures and help listeners distinguish important from less important information. Their use is a critical skill for all teachers. Despite their importance, research on parentheticals in teaching is scarce. This chapter explores the instructional discourse of native English-speaking teaching assistants and international teaching assistants regarding the use of parentheticals, primarily in terms of the intonational and informational patterns they exhibit. Our analysis involved discourse data collected from sixteen classes, eight from chemistry (four taught by native English-speaking TAs and four taught by ITAs) and eight from English (also four taught by TAs and four by ITAs). While our study suggested that parentheticals can be used to connect the teacher and students interpersonally, and to break up the density of the lecture, we uncovered interesting differences between TAs and ITAs

Intelligibility, Oral Communication, and the Teaching of Pronunciation

A proper understanding of intelligibility is at the heart of effective pronunciation teaching, and with it, successful teaching of speaking and listening. Far from being an optional \u27add-it-on-if-we-have-time\u27 language feature, pronunciation is essential because of its tremendous impact on speech intelligibility. Pronunciation dramatically affects the ability of language learners to make themselves understood and to understand the speech of others. But not all elements of pronunciation are equally important. Some affect intelligibility a great deal, while others do not. With a strong emphasis on classroom practice and how pronunciation teaching can be more effectively approached in different teaching contexts, this book provides an important resource for pronunciation researchers, with a distinctly practical focus. It shows how intelligibility research informs pronunciation teaching within communicative classrooms, enabling language teachers to incorporate intelligibility findings into their teaching. Professionals interested in oral communication, pronunciation, and speech perception will find the book fascinating.https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/engl_books/1010/thumbnail.jp

An Investigation Into Optimal Descent Trajectories for Multipurpose Long Range Space Vehicles Under Advanced Conditions

In this work, we investigate the problem of fuel-optimal control of space vehicle descent trajectories. The main tool we use to establish optimality is Pontryagin’s Maximum Principle. We present a variety of scenarios with increasing complexities, including drag, wind, and moving landing platforms in the context of differing atmospheric and gravitational conditions. Throughout the paper, we use a balance of analytical and numerical techniques. Finally, observations and conclusions drawn from the investigation form the basis for suggestions into additional areas of analysis

Prominence in Singapore and American English: Evidence from reading aloud

English has spread far beyond the boundaries of the traditional L1 varieties (eg British, American, Australian English). Not only is English a leading foreign language throughout the world, it is also a central language for many multilingual communities throughout the world. The speakers of these new Englishes are not yet fully seen as ‘native speakers’ by many speakers from the traditional L1 varieties but cannot be called ‘non‐native speakers’ in any meaningful sense of the word. Kachru (1990) calls these new varieties ‘outer circle’ Englishes, a contrast to the ‘inner circle’ native speaker varieties and the ‘expanding circle’ foreign language speakers of English. The outer circle varieties of English (eg Singapore, Indian, Nigerian English) differ from the inner circle varieties in a number of ways, but few are more noticeable in speech than differences in prosody, that is, in the use of stress, rhythmic structure and intonation. To those familiar only with inner circle varieties, outer circle speakers of English can sound both fluent and choppy, comfortable with English yet incomprehensible, perfectly grammatical yet far too fast. These inner circle judgements grow out of unfamiliarity with the music of outer circle speech. One area of difference between inner and outer circle Englishes is intonation, or the systematic use of voice pitch to communicate phrase‐level meaning

Teaching-oriented research

This paper examines some of the factors that make for a good teaching-oriented paper, in which research and practice are most clearly connected. Such papers have clear research questions, explicit and systematic approaches to teaching and learning for experimental and control groups, improvement measured by pre and posttests, and well-developed teaching implications. Various papers from different journals are used to illustrate the characteristics of successful teaching-oriented papers

Home bias persistence in foreign direct investments

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the issues related to home bias and foreign direct investments (FDIs). We study the role of physical, cultural, and institutional distances from home on FDI decisions taken by corporations to assess whether the globalization of the past two decades has reduced their influence. Using the ‘home bias’ framework from the finance literature and the gravity model from the economics literature, we utilize a large sample of both developed and emerging markets, using FDI flows of 6263 unique bilateral country pairs over a 30-year period. We find strong empirical evidence of persistent home bias in FDI outflows, and we show that not only physical distance but also cultural and institutional similarities between host and source countries remain a decisive factor in foreign corporate investment decisions. We also show that such home bias is persistent over time and is observed around the world

Herding in foreign direct investment

This paper, to our knowledge, is the first to examine herding in foreign direct investment (FDI). We investigate it from two perspectives, first the number of countries investing in the host country and then the dollar volumes of those investments. Our results provide strong evidence of herding in FDI. We also show herding in the divestures of these investors. We show that herding in FDI is related to host country characteristics and governance parameters