Interactive web-based review units for phonetics and phonology

Purpose of this e-learning moodle-course: That dreaded phrase "as covered in the Basic module" causes students much anxiety in advanced courses. This e-learning course was originally designed to complement introductory and intermediate classes in English phonetics and phonology. The course consists of multiple units that not only review but also reanimate the basics of phonetics and phonology. It serves two purposes: supplementing student learning in the English Linguistics Basic module, and providing review material for intermediate/advanced-level courses. With the proposed units, instructors have a resource for flipped classroom teaching or self-paced learning by assigning them to students to complete outside of limited contact hours. Students are able to review their most needed topics, and spend as much time as necessary. With less class-time spent on review, courses can more efficiently focus on new material. # Web demonstration: To explore the course, please go to https://moodle.phil.hhu.de/course/view.php?id=1113. You will have access to the review units, however quizzes are not available under Guest mode. Quizzes are only available in the full version (see: # How to acquire and implement the course) # What to expect from this e-learning course? The units cover different basic topics related to phonetics and phonology. Each unit is self-contained and is set up as follows: An intro quiz, interactive and/or explanatory content, and an outro quiz. The intro quizzes serve as an estimation of student's prior knowledge before working through the content part provided in the units. Depending on the achieved score in the intro quizzes, students can fill their individual gaps in knowledge by working through the interactive content parts. The outro quizzes, which should be taken at the end, are supposed to provide a final evaluation of the student\u2019s knowledge of the topic. The extent of the interactive content parts varies depending on the complexity of the topic. In general, technical terms, theories, and applications of common methods and analyses are introduced, explained, and illustrated with the help of examples and practice tasks. # Unit breakdown: Phonetics 1 (Vocal Tract); Phonetics 2 (Consonants); Phonetics 3 (Vowels); Phonetics 4 (Phonetic Transcription); Phonology 1 (Phonemes, Allophones, Minimal pairs); Phonology 2 (The Syllable, Sonority); Phonology 3 (Feature Theory); # What students will learn in this course: \u2022 Students will be able to name parts of the vocal tract that are relevant for speech production and relate them to speech sounds and articulation. (Phonetics 1) - Students will be able to categorize English consonant sounds based on the relevant consonant characteristics: place and manner of articulation, and voicing. (Phonetics 2) - Students will be able to categorize English vowel sounds based on the relevant vowel characteristics: tongue height, tongue backness, lip rounding, and tenseness/length. (Phonetics 3) - Students will revise basic knowledge about phonetic transcription. (Phonetics 4) - Students will be able to define phonemes and allophones, apply the minimal pair test, and revise the difference between complementary distribution and free variation. (Phonology 1) - Students will be able to name the parts of the syllable and their characteristics, revise the syllabification of words based on the Sonority Sequencing Principle, the Maximal Onset Principle, and English phonotactics. (Phonology 2) - Students will be able to understand the purpose of feature theory, the application of feature theory, and have a general overview of natural classes. (Phonology 3) # How to acquire and implement the course? This course is accessible via two website: ORCA (https://www.orca.nrw) and OSF (https://osf.io/kjnad/). Since the course was initially hosted on Moodle, the course files are available as a complete Moodle course as a zip file. You can restore the whole course on your university's Moodle platform by uploading the zip file (https://docs.moodle.org/402/en/Course_restore). # Acknowledgement: This project was supported by E-Learning Förderfonds, Service-Center für gutes Lehren und Lernen at Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf in 2022, awarded to Kevin Tang and Christopher Geissler and Akhilesh Kakolu Ramarao (https://www.elearning.hhu.de/projektfoerderung/elearning-foerderfonds/foerderprojekte-nach-runden/gefoerderte-projekte-2022-i-1). Lara Rüter and Julika Weber served as the content creators funded by the award. # Authorship contribution statement: LR and JW contributed equally to this work. KT and CG served as the senior and corresponding authors. We follow the CRediT taxonomy. Conceptualization: KT, CG, LR, JW; Data curation: JW, LR, CG, KT; Funding acquisition: KT, CG, AKR; Investigation: LR, JW; Methodology: JW, LR, CG, KT; Project administration: JW, LR; Supervision: CG, KT; Visualization: LR, JW; Writing \u2013 original draft: JW, LR; Writing \u2013 review & editing: LR, JW, CG, KT

Licence: Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International

Keywords: vocal tract, phonetic transcription, vowels and consonants, minimal pairs, syllable structure, Phonetics, Phonology, vowel chart, English linguistics, phonological features


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