Teaching EFL Pronunciation Through Audiovisual Remixes of Children's Tales

New Jersey

Conferencia; Emerging Learning Design Conference; 2017

Montclair State University

The pervasiveness of technological devices with available functions such as video and voice recording, paired with access to open software online have considerably widened the pedagogical horizon of language teaching/learning processes in general and pronunciation training in particular. Open Educational Resources (OER) are those sites, materials and tools available online that are released under open licences, which allow for their free re-use and adaptation (Twigg, 2003). These innovations have naturally brought about new possibilities of developing creativity and fostering studentsäó» motivation for language learning, without the dangers of infringement of copyright laws. Such is the case of the activity of remixing, and in this particular case, the remixing of classical children's tales like Aladdin, Cinderella and the like, which are, in their own right already, works in the public domain. The present presentation will thus aim at analysing the pedagogical, artistic and communicative potential of the remixing of classical children?s tales which will result in the production of originaly scripted audiovisual material based on the exploitation of mashup principles and the incorporation of fanfic features (Knobel & Lankshear, 2011), to be later used to cater for and enhance the practice of dictation and phonemic transcription in a core subject at Facultad de Lenguas, Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, Argentina. The presentation will describe and explore a project that started in 2015 and which yearly actively involves teachers, student-assitants and students doing Pronunciation Practice, a core subject in the first year within a five-year teaching and translation degree in a national university in Argentina. As the context of the project is Argentina and the participants cannot attend the conference, the presentation will consist of a 5-minute video entirely produced by the presenter and all the people involved in the project. The video/presentation will first briefly discuss the rationale to the project, namely the main principles underlying the concepts of remix, mashup and fanfics, then delve into the process of audiovisual production, to finally share some of the audiovisual material/activities produced, which is shared on Facebook and on a collaborative open interface like Padlet. The relevance of these activities to the teaching of the pronunciation ef English and to the objectives of the course in question (Pronunciation Practice) will also be briefly discussed.