/aɪpiːéɪ njúːz/

How to cite:

Kanazawa, Y. (2023, November). /aɪpiːéɪ njúːz/: An engaging way to teach phonetic symbols [Workshop]. JALT2023 International Conference, Tsukuba/Online, Japan

• Kanazawa, Y. (2021). Do not (just) think, but (also) feel!: Empirical corroboration of Emotion-Involved Processing Hypothesis on foreign language lexical retention. SAGE Open, 11(3), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244021103215 

Link 1 (Template on ResearchGate)

Link 2 (Template on Academia dot edu)

/aɪpiːéɪ njúːz/ - how to

1. Choose a news article / topic to introduce.

2. Edit it to make it appropriate for your students’ proficiency.

3. Convert the English sentences into IPA.

4. Finalize the slides.

5. Introduce it in class (10 min. each class)

• how to choose appropriate news topics

  • News websites from different countries (and academic domains):
    cf. https://sites.google.com/view/goldstreamyu2/osakau-classes/resources  

  • (lower motivation/proficiency) easy and familiar news relevant to students’ interest

  • (higher motivation/proficiency) Various topics including news not broadcasted in your/students' country

    • Science news, 100 years ago (history tips), news in different languages (with the help of machine translation to get the gist)

  • Be careful of sensitive and controversial topics (esp. political and cultural issues)!

• how to make suitable questions 

  • Recommendation = fill-in-the-blank type questions, all in one slide, Arial font (size = 40)

  • Answers: words or phrases rather than sentences, unequivocal rather than multiple correct answers 

  • (lower motivation/proficiency) easy and directly related to the main topic of the class 

  • (higher motivation/proficiency) Challenging questions for Aha! experiences

    • Cf. Knowledge Connector in Challenger’s Reading Circle (Kanazawa, 2023)

• how to edit the original articles

  • Check the readability (such as via the function on Microsoft Word).

    • Demonstration – Flesch Kincaid Calculator https://goodcalculators.com/flesch-kincaid-calculator/ 

  • Check the word difficulty and paraphrase the sentences.

    • Demonstration – New Word Level Checker (NWLC) by Professor Atsushi Mizumoto, Kansai University https://mizumot.com/nwlc/about.html

  • Consult teacher’s intuition based on observation of your students.

• how to convert the English text into IPA

  • Use an automatic converter (ideally for foreign language learners)

    • Demonstration – Phoneme Counter by Professor Noriko Nakanishi, Kobe Gakuin University
      https://noriko-nakanishi.com/phoneme/ 

• An engaging and effective learning activity should be meaning-focused, relevant (curiosity-arousing and emotion-involving), challenging, and repetitive in varied contexts.

  • Cf. Emotion-Involved Processing Hypothesis (Kanazawa, 2021)

  • Deep Epistemic Emotion Hypothesis (Kanazawa, 2024)

• Question – Can pronunciation/IPA teaching be engaging and effective? 

• The answer is yes. 

• The speaker introduces /aɪpiːéɪ njúːz/, which is an engaging and effective way to teach phonetic symbols implicitly to language learners in tertiary education.

• It is meaning-focused and relevant because the materials are real-life affairs and news. 

• It is challenging because students need to decipher English texts in IPA. 

• It is repetitive in various contexts because different news articles are featured each week. 

• It improves students’ self-efficacy – remind them that they have a special ability to read what many learners cannot understand!

• https://researchmap.jp/yu-kanazawa/ipa?lang=en

Topics covered by Yu Kanazawa (2019~) 

2019 Spring Semester (*no quizzes)

1. 1. The first photograph of a black hole

   2. Notre-Dame blaze

   3. Australian real estate company REIWA celebrating Japan’s new era

   4. Saint-Exupéry’s words

   5. Donald Trump watching sumo wrestling with Shinzo Abe

   6. Theresa May stepping down as Tory leader

   7. Japan to ban free plastic bags at stores

   8. Chinese extradition bill and the protesters in Hong Kong

   9. Hassan Rouhani commenting on the US

   10. G20 summit and its history

2019 Autumn/Fall Semester (*no quizzes)

1. 11. Taro Kono’s article on the issue between Japan and Korea

   12. Xi’s big parade, marking 70 years of Communist rule

   13. Turkey begins ground offensive in northeastern Syria

   14. Protesters clash with police in third day of Catalan pro-independence demonstrations

   15. Thai King strips disloyal royal consort of titles and ranks

   16. Private English tests for Japanese university entrance exams delayed after minister’s gaffe

   17. Evo Morales and the situation in Bolivia

   18. 1984 in China

   19. Pope bids farewell to Japan

   20. Australia launches anti-espionage task force.

2020 Spring Semester

1. 21. IPA introduction

   22. Amabie, the Japanese Yokai and the pandemic

   23. 100 years ago in Japan – Spanish Flu, Nikolayvsk incident, Kanto earthquake

   24. The pandemic affecting events – Tokyo Olympics, Dubai Expo, Glastonbury Festival, We Are One

   25. LGBTQ rights in the US; Joint liaison office destroyed by North Korea; Fugaku’s simulation of COVID

2020 Autumn/Fall Semester

1. 26. Israel-UAE normalization agreement and the Abrahamic religions

   27. Armenia vs Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region

   28. Demonstration in Tbilisi, Georgia; indigenous minister in New Zealand; Free speech in France

   29. RCEP and TPP

   30. Iranian nuclear scientist assassinated in Tehran

2021 Spring Semester

1. 31. Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca

   32. Earth Day; COVID-19 cases in India; and the death of the president of Chad

   33. 500 years since Magellan died; 100 years since Coop Kobe was made

   34. A few simple tricks make fake news stories stick in the brain.

   35. Hamas in Gaza and the Israel’s boundaries today

   36. The newly discovered unnatural rock and the Manhattan project

   37. Eruption in Congo; governmental hijacking in Belarus; coup d'état in Mali

   38. Ship accident in Sri Lanka; WHO introducing Greek alphabets for COVID-19 variants

   39. Jyokyu war (800 years ago); Tenochtitlan (500 years ago); Great Northern War (300 years ago)

   40. Apple Daily ending its 26-year history in Hong Kong 

2021 Autumn/Fall Semester

1. 41. Why the government of Afghanistan collapsed

   42. The genocide of Tigray people in Ethiopia

   43. Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov, the Nobel Peace Prize winners

   44. The Associated Trio (Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia) and the EU

   45. 100 years since the decisive battles and the rise of Turkey led by Atatürk

   46. No-quarantine reopening of Thailand

   47. COP26, Kyoto Protocol, and Paris Agreement

   48. Dalai Lama commenting on Mainland China

   49. COVID-19 cases on the rise in central Europe

   50. De facto Taiwanese embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania

2022 Spring Semester

1. 51. War in Ukraine, NATO and the Crimea Crisis

   52. District 2020 – the sustainable World Expo in Dubai

   53. Glimpse into the Big Bang – Astronomers discovered HD1, the oldest and most distant galaxy.

   54. Discovery of Easter island 100 years ago and how Moai could be useful for robotics.

   55. Want to prevent pandemics? Stop spillovers.

   56. Einstein vs. Bergson, a big debate on the nature of time 100 years ago

   57. Georgia celebrating its independence day

   58. Biggest earthquakes in history

   59. Business attractiveness ranking of China 2022 - rising Shanghai (and Chengdu)

   60. RIP – Internet Explorer (August 17th, 1995 – June 15th, 2022)

   61. Giant stingrays found in Cambodia

   62. Maldives’ plans for a floating city and the increasing influence of foreign companies

2022 Autumn/Fall Semester

1. 63. RIP in 2022 summer – Queen Elizabeth II, Mikhail Gorbachev, Shinzo Abe

   64. James Webb Telescope vs, Hubble Telescope

   65. Siebold’s souvenir – Japanese knotweed (Itadori) as an invasive species in the UK

   66. “Woman, Life, Freedom” – the death of Amini Mahsa and what is happening in Iran

   67. THE university ranking results 2023

   68. New neuroscience study reveals why people daydream – which is a good thing!

   69. Mussolini supporters march in Italy while Giorgia Meloni shuts down rave.

   70. A very rare total lunar eclipse & Uranus eclipse

   71. G20 Summit in Indonesia

   72. Scientists using capsaicin for various purposes.

   73. Croatia’s new Euro coin and Nikola Tesla

   74. Middle East’s first World Cup in Qatar and the Palestinian issue.

2023 Spring Semester

1. 75. Japan’s first quantum computer and Osaka University

   76. SpaceX launching the biggest rocket in history

   77. New study revealed diets to slow down Alzheimer’s disease

   78. War in Soudan and the role of Djibouti

   79. G7 Hiroshima

   80. Turkish presidential election – who is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan?

   81. Linear Precipitation Zone (senjou kousui tai) in Japan 

   82. New study shows moral decline is an illusion – here’s why.

   83. Japan-UK alliance – one hundred years ago and now

   84. Implosion of OceanGate’s Titan submmersible

2023 Autumn/Fall Semester (ongoing)

1. 85. THE university ranking results 2024

   86. American mathematician solving a 50-year-old puzzle about Möbius band

   87. Saving the Siberian Children – celebrating the historical friendship of Japan and Poland

   88. 100 years since Vegemite was invented

   89. New prime minister of Montenegro is a Japanese speaker.

   90. Blue Lagoon in Iceland is closed due to the volcanic earthquakes.

   91. APEC sideline – discussion between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping

Any questions? Have you tried /aɪpiːéɪ njúːz/ in your own class? How did it go? Any idea for improvement? Let me know!

 yu [dot] kanazawa [dot] hmt [at] osaka-u [dot] ac [dot] jp

. . . or via my SNSs