Jo Haracz

Biogram

English native speaker, working in EFL in Poland since 1998 : “ I had planned to stay for only a year!”
I’ve taught English to all ages and levels, though for the past decade or so I’ve been more involved with young learners. I still haven’t perfected my Polish – grammar issues aside – pronunciation is a killer! It’s really interesting for me to note the problems that learners at all levels, not just kids, have with this as I see a reflection of my own difficulties, I too feel the frustration when I can’t produce that sound! That’s why I decided take a closer look at pronunciation in my classroom, what can I do to help my students make progress whilst keeping the activity sociable and enjoyable, resulting in more confidence when communicating in English.

Practising pronunciation – no need to be afraid

In this workshop I’d like to share some ideas for developing learners’ pronunciation. Perhaps we’re a bit scared of it (who remembers studying intensive phonetics at university?), but let’s not pretend that starting early doesn’t make a difference. There are numerous brain-friendly techniques out there that, mindful of our students’ energy levels, can be introduced to liven up or settle a class.
For many years, I’ve been calling this moment in my lessons “ elasticplasticfantastic ”, highlighting the fact that it’s also a physical thing - we need to consciously work on pronunciation, intonation patterns, sentence flow.
We’ll look at – and practice - a series of ‘mouth movement’ and body awareness exercises, enjoyable ways to help our students produce those English sounds that can be quite difficult for Polish speakers.