Language students - make your own notes

Writing language you hear helps you memorise pronunciation and intonation, especially when the content does not sound as you expected, for example when spoken with different regional accents (e.g. Spanish in Spain or in Argentina).

Listen to and note short examples of the language. Does it follow a particular pattern? Make a note of where the emphasis falls, for example

• in English - interest, international.

Check your dictionary to see how stress patterns are shown: the international symbols used against each word are explained in the introduction of the dictionary. You could check your understanding by looking up a word in your mother tongue.

You need a way of recording language so that you can remember how to say it: making your own audio notes can help with memory and specific issues of pronunciation.

You will find various pointers, guidelines, explanations and examples in your course activities, some of which you could record in your own voice.

Note

• useful words or phrases, such as cognates, in your own and the target language
• pairs of different or similar sounds
• sentences where some sounds are linked aurally
  • je suis_anglais - je suis-z-anglais
  • l’homme est_Italien - est-titalie
• other examples of pronunciation particularities, such as dropped vowels, or where particular accents affect sound.

Ask your tutor whether you can record some sessions during the tutorial so you have an oral record of pronunciation, corrections and explanations, and make sure that you make full use of it afterwards.

The book 'Success with Languages', The Open University, 2005, Routledge, expands on all these ideas, especially chapter 3, p42 on making and keeping notes, and chapter 7 on 'the world as a classroom'.