LABORATORY COMPONENT of the Sound System Course:  TSLP 832
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     There is a laboratory component required as an integral part of TSLP 832.  In the Language Acquisition Resource Center (LARC), located in the basement of general classroom building, there is a collection of 11 audio tape recordings.  Each of these lasts from 30 to 45 minutes.  Each week you are expected to work through one of the recordings according to the schedule presented in the course syllabus.  The labs should be completed and requisite feedback sheet handed in at the beginning of each class (as specified).  You need to have access to the "Sound System Laboratory Text" (see required reading item 2-b) in order to complete the labs materials.  Also, I have arranged for identical copies, of the same audio-tape lab-recordings, to be available in the Media Center located on the 7th floor of the GSU Library South.  I encourage you to review the lab recordings more than once.  Unfortunately, you will not be able to keep personal copies of the audio recordings themselves (see below).
 
    The laboratory recordings are designed to reinforce, to provide extra practice, and to extend content material covered in class.  They provide practice in making careful auditory discriminations and in associating these discriminations with (a) articulatory features and (b) appropriate symbols in three systems of transcription.  It is doubtful that anyone would be able to master the content of TSLP 832 without having worked through the lab (and workbook) materials systematically.
 
    The three systems of transcription covered in the lab materials are:  (1) a modified version of IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet), (2) a modified version of the system found in the Prator & Robinette (P/R) text [which is based upon an earlier system by Trager/Smith (MT/S)], and (3) an orthographically motivated (OM) system (based on conventional dictionary systems of transcription).  Successful completion of TSLP 832 requires "productive knowledge" of one of these three systems and at least "recognition ability" for the other two.  
 
    The lab materials are also designed to familiarize teachers with potentially useful activities for students learning English as a second language.  Some (though not too many) of the activities may seem quite easy, particularly for native speakers of English.  Please be patient with these kinds of exercises; part of the reason for including them is to provide possible models to be adapted, modified as necessary, and expanded for your own teaching pratices.  At times they provide opportunities to experience pedagogical materials from an L2 student's point of view, . . . sometimes a useful experience for ESL teachers.

    Note: The authors of the lab materials (Clifford  Hill & Enid Pearsons of Columbia University) have explicitly requested that we not be permitted to keep personal copies of the TSLP 832 lab audio materials.  Legally, it would be a copyright infringement if you happened to do so.  Hill and Pearsons have asked us to comply with these restrictiong because there are plans in the works to have the lab materials made available through a commercial publishing house.  Hill and Pearsons have given permission for the materials to be used for the purposes of TSLP 832.

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