In the last class we had a discussion about use of IPA symbols to teach sounds, the book I mention in class HEADWAY has activity after each unit focusing two or three sounds e.g /i:/ or /i/ and then a list of words is given having the target sound and students are asked to choose words from the list and put it under the IPA symbol which corresponds the sound in the word, e.g the word 'beat' goes under /i:/.
I also found another interesting website which is full of interesting activities with direct involvement of IPA symbols. When we use IPA symbols directly it does not mean they are taught without or before the knowledge of conventional letters, I think the knowledge of conventional letters should come first and then the IPA knowledge, as it would not only enable them to understand the correct sound but would make it easier to understand the gap between spelling - sound correspondence and the learners will be able to see the same letter could sound in different manner.
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speaking of ipa, Wei-Fan recently suggested a resource for ipa that could be helpful in many ways if you want to use ipa directly:
ReplyDeleteWeb-based IPA Chart 'keyboard':
http://weston.ruter.net/projects/ipa-chart/view/keyboard/
I remain skeptical about the use of ipa in a language class. Although I know that it is done. It seems as though the more complicated sounds could be targeted for explanation rather than introducing an entirely new alphabet. Although, I don't have the research on this one either way.
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