LITMIR.BIZ

      Making your own resource recording

      Sometimes the best way of getting what you want is to do it yourself. Here’s how.

      Find a willing candidate or candidates to record. Two examples are better than one, as you will then have more information to work from. Try places like cultural centres, universities, acting schools, embassies and tourist centres to find the people you want. Remember to be as specific about age, gender, cultural background, etc, as you can: these things can make a huge difference.

      Here’s what you will need:

      Practise using your recording device: it really doesn’t help someone to be at their ease if you fumble about with microphones.

      This may be obvious but…do a test to make sure it’s recording! (Jan has several old dialect tapes with nothing on them because her pause button was still on.)

      Make sure the device is next to them and not you. You want their voice, not your own! (Edda has many a tape from her early days where she is loud and clear and the person being interviewed can be heard faintly in the distance.)

      Where to find existing resource recordings

      It is possible to find good commercial recordings, though they more than likely don’t have the KIT LIST or Standard Text in them. There are plenty of helpful booklets with CDs on the market (Allyn Partin and Gillian Lane Plescia and Penny Dyer, for example, produce a wealth of good recordings with basic vowel information and native speakers) and this book will enable you to use those materials more successfully.

      Needless to say, the internet is an invaluable resource. With good broadband facilities you can hear the sounds of the world, and, where copyright allows, even burn them onto your own CDs. We have given a list of some of the websites that we have found most useful in the Appendix (page 219).

      How to listen to your resource recording

      Once you have found or made your recording there are ways and means of listening to it to get the best out of both it and you.

      Unstructured listening

●	To begin with, let yourself respond intuitively to get your juices flowing! You may well find yourself wanting to mimic immediately, so do. Always remember to encourage that instinct.
●	Write down anything – and we mean anything – you notice: perhaps the tune strikes you first, maybe it sounds ‘flat’, or a bit ‘choppy’; or perhaps you notice specific words, either because they are unusual words or because they say them in a very different way from you. You’ll probably find you are noticing a lot in this unstructured way. As you work through this book you will be able to put these initial discoveries into the structure of your new accent.
●	If you have a video or DVD recording you can also look at the shapes the speakers are making, how the mouth is held, how much the jaw, lips and cheeks move, or don’t. These are all things worth noticing.

      Structured listening

●	Unstructured listening only kick-starts the process. What this book will show you is the next vital step: how to listen in a structured way.
●	As you work through this book we will give you examples of specific sounds and combinations of sounds on the accompanying downloadable tracks. These Скачать книгу В начало < 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > В конец