After that we had a wonderful celebration with many types of delicious Filipino food including chicken adobo, lumpia, sweet rice cake and other things that I don’t know the names of.

Thank you to everyone for your dedication to the students and the teaching profession. I know that you all work very, very hard and I admire and respect you for that!

Thanks also for the very lovely gift. I hope that you will email me so that we can stay in touch!

Susan

Here is the text with the stressed syllables CAPITALIZED. Remember that the vowels in stressed syllables need to be lengthened!

TEAching is not an EASy occuPAtion. In order to sucCEED you need EXcellent prepaRAtion and organiZAtional skills. You must know how to eVALuate STUdents and appREciate their DIFferences.

If you can do these things you will find TEAching to be very enJOYable. The PEople in your comMUNity will apPREciate your VALuable contriBUtions to the eduCAtion and deVELopment of their young PEople.

1. “s” is pronounced as /s/ after these sounds;/p/,/t/,/f/, /k/, & voiceless th.

2. “s” is pronounced as /ez/ after these sounds; /s/, /z/, /sh/, /ch/ & /j/.

3. “s” is pronounced as /z/ after all other sounds.

CLICK HERE to be taken to the page with the assignment.

We started with by reading the Glossary of Language Varieties. Then the teachers read and discussed an essay about AAVE.

The pronunciation work included lessons on the /s/ and /z/ sounds and on the importance of voiced and voiceless consonants. The teachers practiced lengthening vowel sounds before voiced consonants in order to improve the rhythm of their speech.

The teachers also worked on 5 new idioms including: “hit the nail on the head” and “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”.

During the last part of the class Realista lead a discussion on language mentors and Jake and Helen shared their experiences with the group.

REMINDER! Those teachers who did not send Susan an voice recording should do so using the easy recording tool below.
Those who have already sent a recording are welcome to send another one using the new paragraph posted below the original.

Cristina and Myrna were the first to arrive. Realista was with us again to take care of all the paperwork and “housekeeping” issues.

The first lesson was on African American Vernacular English. The notes from the lecture are posted below.

After that the teachers worked on American English vowel sounds and spellings. They used their color vowel charts to sort words according to their vowel sounds. This was tough because some English vowel sounds have multiple spellings. Amy, Merlyn and the other members of their group were sent out as “experts” to help some of their colleagues. Vangie and Jake agreed on almost everything.

The teachers did some short presentations using reduced speech such as hasta, hafta, wanna and gonna. Everyone laughed at the dialogs, especially Helen’s.

The teachers also learned 5 new idioms and played the Millionaire Game.

At the end of  class Realista introduced the Mentoring Assignment that the teachers need to work on between March 20 and April 17th.

Students can send Susan an spoken audio file for evaluation at: susan.communicate@gmail.com

The next two classes will meet on Friday, April 17th and Friday, April 24th.

A. The verb be

In AAVE the be verb is often not included. 

The verb be is often omitted before adjectives & locations and noun phrases.

• She __ all right.
• Antoine ___at home now.
• You __ the one I’m talkin to.
• He ___the kid who lives on my block.

Future Tense

• He ____ gon laugh at me.
• We all _____gon go home now.

Future events and those that have not yet occurred are marked by gon or gonna. The use of gonna is very common in Standard English. 

Events that occur habitually or repeatedly are often marked by be.

• She be working all the time.

B. Subject verb agreement 

Subject verb agreement is not always standard

• Brianna walks to the store. (SE)
• Brianna walk to the store. (AAVE)

C. Perfect Tenses

Standard English present perfect and AAVE can be different.

• He has been married since 2005. (SE)
• He been married since 2005. (AAVE)

Sentences equivalent to standard English perfect tenses may be conveyed by the use of done. 

•  He has eaten his dinner. (SE)
•  He done eat his dinner. (AAVE)

D.  The word ain’t

AAVE uses ain’t to negate the verb in a simple sentence. This is common in other English dialects.

• I’m not going to take the train today. (SE)
• I ain’t goin to take the train today. (AAVE)

AAVE uses ain’t in standard English sentences which use haven’t. You may also hear this in other English dialects.

• I haven’t seen him. (SE)
• I ain’t seen him. (AAVE)

AAVE speakers also sometimes use ain’t for standard English didn’t.

• I didn’t step on the line. (SE)
• I ain’t step on no line. (AAVE)

E. Negative Inversion

AAVE also has a special negative construction which linguists call “negative inversion”. A negative auxiliary verb (can’t/don’t) is moved in front of the subject (nobody).

• There’s no one who can spell better than him. (SE)
• Can’t nobody spell better than him. (AAVE)

Adapted from African American Vernacular English, by Jack Sidnell,

http://www.une.edu.au/langnet/definitions/aave.html#grammar-hce

There were 24 students in attendance including; Tess, Cora, Susan, Merlyn, Cristina, Josie, Abby, Rosalyn (Rosie), Dolly, Enda, Myrna, Ruth, Amy, Larmi, Jake, Vangie, Shiryl, Liza, Aida, Charis, Edita, Josie S., Helen & Meliza.

We started with a lesson on vowels in stressed syllables. Then we studied the schwa sound and practiced the pronunciation of  the schwa in words and sentences.

After that we worked on the vowels sounds /iy/ as in sheep and /I/ as in ship. This was challenging because both of these vowel sounds are made in the front of the mouth with the tongue in a high position. The difference is that the /iy/ is a tense sound and is made with the jaw and lips pulled back. The /I/ is a more relaxed sound and is made by lowering and relaxing the jaw.

We ended the class with a session on American English Idioms. The students did some excellent skits with idioms such as: buy a lemon and bring home the bacon. Now everyone knows that Susan lives high on the hog!

Homework for this week is to email Susan at  susan.communicate@gmail.com. In your message tell her three things:

·      the subject that you teach

·      a communication goal that you have for this class

·      something you like to do when you’re not teaching

Students in attendance were: Thess, Enda, Delores, Rosie, Cristina, Josie, Merlyn, Cora, Teresa, Abby, 

Dolores, Susan & Beeb.

We studied syllables, syllable stress, the voiced and voiceless th sounds and five common American English Idioms.

Next week’s class meets at the same place. We will start at 5:00 and end at 8:00. 

Don’t forget to do your homework from Susan using this website (below) and from Realista (find a language mentor).

    1.         Word Stress Video 1-Watch and participate

    2.         Read Article 1-Four Steps to Accent Improvement

    3.         Vocabulary Activity #2 Vocabulary Lists with Audio-Choose at least 2 vocabulary lists to listen and practice

    4.         Send Susan and email message at susan.communicate@gmail.com. In your message tell her three things:

·      the subject that you teach

·      a communication goal that you have for this class

·      something you like to do when you’re not teaching

That’s it for now. Have a good week!

In this video Jennifer introduces the concept of word stress (syllable stress) in American English.