Gadgets

[Donna M. Brinton]

In 1991, Judy Gilbert published her seminal article "Gadgets: Non-verbal tools for teaching pronunciation." Pronunciation teaching hasn't been the same since. What are your favorite gadgets?

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Donna M. Brinton
Educational Consultant
http://www.amazon.com/author/dmbrinton
https://www.linkedin.com/in/donnambrinton/

[Marsha Chan]

Thanks, Donna, for this gadget post! Judy B. Gilbert, a super-TOP, has been an amazing model and mentor. I use the wide rubber band very frequently. It's such an easy, cheap, accessible tool to demonstrate vowel length. I love it! And I haven't found a user who hasn't found it beneficial yet.

As for kazoos, they're the buzz! On my recent pronunciation teacher training gig with the U.S. State Department, I gave out 200 kazoos and even more rubber bands. Now imagine the music all over Thailand and Malaysia.🎶🎶 I channel my Judy Gilbert whenever I share this tool.

Another super-TOP whose energy I channel is Donna M. Brinton. The inaugural TOP colloquium that Donna, Judy, and I delivered at the CATESOL Annual Conference in 2013 forms the basis of numerous seminars I give. If you missed it, no worries, you can see it here: https://youtu.be/MhSGqVgvAz8

Ask me about my collection of chopsticks and straws (and coins and...) some day. Ooh, but I'd better stop here and leave room for other TOPs to respond!

Marsha

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[Ellen Lange]

Dear Colleagues,

I really like kazoos and, with my mouth as a gadget, singing and humming.  I have recently been teaching length and pitch with symbols and colors, beyond

gadgets and more attuned to the vowel color chart, and plan to present on this topic at the Annual and at Northern.  

I order my kazoos from Kazoobie (kazoos.com) as they have a huge selection and will take special orders.  When I have a particular short-term group, I give them all kazoos with

the UC colors and UC Davis printed on them as a souvenir.  

Jeff Mattison, last year's Co-Coordinator for TOPs, demonstrated how he uses a string to help students learn English intonation at our rap session in Anaheim.  I even kept the

string as a souvenir!

Keep pronunciation front and center!

Best,

--Ellen, Co-Coordinator, 2019, TOPs

Ellen Lange

Lecturer in Linguistics, ESL Program, Emerita, UC Davis

President, CATESOL

[Donna M. Brinton]

Love it!