Symposium on

Teaching of English Pronunciation in Bangladesh: Issues and Practices

14 January 2017

Call for Papers

Pronunciation is an important area of second/foreign language teaching and learning. In Bangladesh it is part and parcel of English Language Teaching (ELT), whereby teachers help the learners, first, to unlearn the wrong pronunciation, arising mainly from mother tongue interference, and then to learn standard pronunciation, British or American. Though subsumed under Speaking Skills, pronunciation is a vast discipline in itself which draws huge attention of the researchers and language teachers worldwide. Pronunciation has a theoretical as well as applied side, language-specific as well as general aspects. Its theoretical and general aspects are covered by phonetics and phonology while its applied and language-specific aspects are dealt with by language pedagogy and pronunciation practice. Such an important area of ELT claims focused attention of language practitioners and researchers in Bangladesh. Daffodil International University (DIU) proudly announces to host a Symposium onTeaching of English Pronunciation in Bangladesh: Issues and Practices on 14 January 2017. The symposium will be organized by the Department of English, DIU aiming to create an academic platform to raise the issues relating to pronunciation. The symposium will discuss the status of the teaching/learning of the English pronunciation in Bangladesh. It will look at policies, strategies, plans, methodologies, difficulties (perceived and actual), major problems encountered in teaching/learning and using English, analytical results from empirical research, and observations from practical experiences of users and suggested remedies to address critical issues, which would be beneficial for the teachers and learners alike. We welcome original and previously unpublished papers on the teaching of and research on English pronunciation in Bangladesh and beyond. The conference will comprise keynote speech, plenary sessions, paper presentations, workshops,discussions and performances on teaching of and research on English pronunciation. We also welcome presentations by non-academic users of spoken English describing their personal and practical experiences, observations and anecdotes which the educational institutes, researchers/teachers of English in Bangladesh can take on board when planning courses and making national policies in teaching of English pronunciation and spoken English. At this symposium, we wish to bring together researchers and teachers of English language and literature as well as day to day users of the language, working in different professions and capacities, who are interested in the issues relevant to English pronunciation for native Bengali speakers, both in Bangladesh and abroad.

 

Objectives:

1. To identify problems of pronunciation of Bengali learners of English.
2. To recommend possible remedies to improve pronunciation of the Bengali speakers.
3. To identify the role of teachers, students and others in developing the skill.
4. To share current practices of innovative and interactive teaching-learning process of English pronunciation in Bangladesh.
5. Too create an awareness about standard English pronunciation among students, practitioners and policy makers in Bangladesh.

Symposium Strands:

• Necessity and importance of the teaching of English pronunciation
• Problems of English pronunciation of learners of Bengali background
• Pronunciation in the school curricula
• Teaching/learning of English pronunciation at primary, secondary and tertiary levels
• Learning and using English Pronunciation by different groups of users for different purposes
• Teaching/learning the English pronunciation as a lingua franca
• Jennings’ core models of English pronunciation for Non-native English speakers
• Methods and materials for teaching different aspects of English pronunciation
• Assessing effectiveness of the teaching/learning of English pronunciation.
• Use of international and local corpora for pronunciation programs
• Use of IPA or other such systems for the teaching of pronunciation
• Contrastive phonological analysis and the teaching of pronunciation
• Like ability, intelligibility and acceptability of non-native varieties of pronunciation
• Influence of dialects on the pronunciation of learners and teachers
• Emergence and use of technology in the teaching/learning of English pronunciation
• Poetry recitation, prosody and pronunciation
• Teaching pronunciation through drama, songs and games
• Other related topics

 

Types of Presentations:

• Concurrent paper presentations (30 minutes)
• Workshops (60 minutes)
• Demonstration/Performance (30 minutes)

Important Dates:

• Registration Opens: 01November 2016

Registration time frame: 01 November-20December2016

Venue: DIU auditorium, Daffodil Tower-5, 4/2 Sobhanbag, Dhanmondi, Dhaka-1207, Bangladesh

E-mail: symposium@daffodilvarsity.edu.bd
Department of English, Daffodil International University