ESL RULES, LLC Newsletter                          June 2010
marjorie                                                                           
 
Marjorie Feinstein-Whittaker, of The Whittaker Group, and 
Med Speaking book
 
 
   Lynda Katz Wilner, of Successfully Speaking, join together to form ESL RULES, LLC for their joint workshops and training materials. Visit their individual websites at www.successfully-speaking.com and www.prospeech.com.
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Summer Special !!!
We are  offering a sizzling summer special. Order the Trainer's Edition of RULES BY THE SOUND between now and July 31, 2010 and pay $80.00 ($99.00 value) plus shipping and handling.
 
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Are you puzzled about how to set it up or add it to your Blackberry or iPhone? Thank you, Mariel Wilner, MBA  from The Smeal School of Business, for providing step by step guidelines.
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Dear Friends and Colleagues, 

We hope that you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, and that your summer is off to a terrific start! 
RULE of the Month - More on Y-Insertion
 
We appreciate your responses regarding the rules for Y-Insertion. Thank you, Carolyn Samuel, from McGill University, for reminding us that the book Teaching Pronunciation: A Reference for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, by Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D.M. & Goodwin, J.M., Cambridge University Press (1996), is a wonderful resource filled with many rules and ideas for teachers.
 
There are always exceptions to these rules, however let's look at some more specifics on the Y-Insertion rules found in this resource: 
 
Y-insertion occurs before the letter "u", unless preceded by "j", "r", or "ch". For example, we say "menu", "confuse", "fuselage",  "museum", "humidity", "acuity", "soluble", and  "university",  but not "jury", "rule",  or "chutney". What about "fun" vs. "funeral" or "hum" vs. "humidity"?
 
Y-insertion occurs before the vowel sound /u/ when it is spelled "eu" or "ew" and is NOT preceded by "j", "r", or "ch". For example, we say "feud" and "pew", but not "jewelry", "Reuben", or "chew".  As always, there are exceptions; Y-insertions do not occur if preceded by "t" (Teutonic), "d" (deuce, dew), "s" (sewage, sew), "z" (Zeus), "n" (neuter, news) or "l" (lewd, sleuth).  Please note that in British English, Y-Insertion often occurs between the consonant and "eu" or "ew", e.g., "news", "neurology".   
Some Thoughts on RULES BY THE SOUND
 
Given the economic hardships of the past year, we, as trainers, have been looking for versatile, and cost-effective products to use with our clients. Although we are slightly biased in our opinion of RULES BY THE SOUND, we have been overwhelmed by its flexibility. With each client we are impressed by how high-interest, sound-loaded fictional stories can be used to teach segmental, suprasegmental, semantic, and syntactic features of English. We are amazed at how quickly students progress from sentences to paragraphs to unstructured conversations about the topics, characters, and cultural content of the stories, while practicing targeted communication goals.  We use these stories in individual, as well as group sessions, and find the PDF format so easy for e-mailing independent assignments to students.  We know there are times when supplemental materials are indicated, and we wanted to share with you how easy it is to adapt this program for a wide-variety of instructional objectives.
 
Many of our clients have asked for audio files to accompany the stories. We are excited to announce that we are compiling voice files that correspond to the different units (Fricatives, Plosives, etc.) and will be releasing them in installments beginning this summer! These voice files are intentionally spoken at a "slow-normal" rate to help the student hear the pronunciation and stress patterns. As they become more familiar with the passage, they are encouraged to read them at a faster rate. 
 
For those of you who are not familiar with our RBTS stories, please click below to see and hear a sample. 
Questions or Ideas?
 
We welcome your questions, ideas , and feedback and will publish answers or ideas in upcoming newsletters. Keep them coming!
 
With best regards,
  
Marjorie Feinstein-Whittaker
Lynda Katz Wilner
 
 
marjorie
  
  ESL RULES, LLC
 
 410.356.5666