Jorge dos Reis from University of Lisbon (Portugal) will give the International Week workshop "Speechant – Chanting & Speeching" on April 24 9:00 am to 4:00 pm

The objective of this lecture is the presentation of a new vowel notation system as a tool for learning English as a foreign language. This Chant-Speech Vowel Notation System is a new device that works with print; the source is written text and the notation provides a method to translate from written text to sound and from sound to written text.

The first step to the construction of the system was realising that the English vowels had the same qualities of music. Musical scale varies in pitch (linked to the fundamental frequency of vibration of waveform) just as vowel sounds vary in timbre (related to the frequency spectrum of sound) producing sharp and deep sounds; vowels also present length variation – lax and tense sounds; and some vowels, like diphthongs, have dynamic properties.

Marking vowel timbre and vowel duration of monophthongs and the melodic line of diphthongs is a method for learners to differentiate the sounds in English.The construction of the system was followed by its intensive implementation in four adult education classes. This involved the design of a new curriculum for the classroom as teachers had to organize the sounds and words to be taught, using didactic materials like flash cards and spelling boards.

The subsequent evaluation of Speechant performance in the classroom used three sentences presented in plain orthography, without the notation system. The task consisted of reading aloud these three sentences (at the end of three established periods), without correction from the teacher. These productions were recorded on tape and rated by experienced phoneticians. The comparison between the Speechant experimental group and a control group, which were trained on the same sounds and words but without the use of Speechant, revealed the advantages of this new device, since the experimental group improved considerably more.

Registration on International Week workshops has expired, but there are free seats available for this and some other workshops. For instructions please consult the International week web site or FB page.
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The sixth International Week of Tampere University of Applied Sciences School of Art, Music and Media
23-26/4/2013
Art, Music and Media 6th International Week is an annual event this year with eleven workshops, seminars and discussions on new ideas and new creative cooperation. This year some of the main themes will be blended learning, collaborative on-line and real-life learning.
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Learn more: 
International Week web site
International Week on Facebook
Read about the previous International Weeks
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