I follow a couple of ELT things- one was BusyTeacher.com
Keeping this blog I am amazed at how little comes up on pronunciation, but I am *special* I guess.
BusyTeacher, run by yet another exhausted but optimistic ex-English language teacher trying to somehow salvage those good, underappreciated years spent teaching, had a "three good websites for..." this week post. So naturally I went to check it out.
My thoughts:
~Merriam-Webster?! you must be joking... it does have some suggestions and models but it doesn't teach or help it refers you to a model. That's like the easiest part of teaching. What kind of...~
~...cool... howjsay. I remember when I found that site. That was a good reference: uncluttered, single focus, obviously made by someone what knew what they were after was a clear student friendly reference-Not world domination.~
~...and what's this three character? Rachel's English? Probably some set of 21 accents videos, if it's anything like the quality of the last two there's nothing new...~
And that's how I left it for 12 hours, after posting it to a couple of folks who might find all three sites worthwhile.
This morning I went back to that link and checked out Rachel's English... and actually it gave me a little fright. It was a very nice if templated design. I watched the intro video. Then as usual went straight to the about section to see who made it and why and of course how.
Here's a link and the text if you don't want to get up:
Rachel has been working on Rachel's English for over 4 years. Having taught ESL off and on since 1999, she became interested in developing a pronunciation-focused resource while living in Germany under the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship program in 2008.
Rachel's initial idea in developing Rachel's English was to make the kind of resource for self-study that she wished she could find for her own foreign language study. As a classical singer, Rachel has spent much time immersed in singing in German, French, Italian, and Spanish. She studied with highly acclaimed vocal teachers and coaches and brings a body of detailed knowledge connected to the voice, placement, and the musical nature of speech to her work as a pronunciation coach.
Rachel lives in New York City. She was born and raised in Florida, went to college in Indiana where she studied Applied Math, Computer Science, and Music, and graduate school for Opera Performance in Boston. She loves being connected to people throughout the world through Rachel's English.
Well that's nice bu
actually this one is good: http://www.rachelsenglish.com/videos/shape-stressed-syllable It's a new website. We can see that the Rachel'sEnglish American English Pronunciation site has paid BusyTeacher for the article as a kind of infomercial. It presents 3 websites: 2 very old websites which are not user-friendly or authentically different from what a novice teacher can offer their students, and 1 which is better (and shinier!). We saw the same "we'll choose what to compare for you" sales pitch method used by the head of IATEFL last year but sometimes the thing they are selling is honestly pretty good. It does make me wonder what the factors are which help presenters choose this method of presentation.
