Expanding pronunciation instructional time beyond the classroom: Microsoft Office 2016 OneNote Class Notebook as an interactive delivery platform

Abstract

Like other performance‐based subjects such as theater or music, pronunciation is heavily time‐dependent because students need plentiful opportunities to receive input, practice skills, and get coaching and feedback from their teachers. When the Language Education and Partnerships Intensive English Program at Wright State University offered a short‐term, campus/community adult ESL pronunciation course, the course planner/teacher chose Microsoft's Office 2016 OneNote Class Notebook (ONCN) program to compensate for time and availability issues common to adult learners that would interfere with their characteristic desires to see substantial progress as they engage in personally significant activities in a low‐stress environment. ONCN's capacity for handling multiple data types, providing individualized content, and delivering multiple computer‐assisted pronunciation technologies on demand increased the flexibility and efficiency of delivering content, practice opportunities, and teacher–student interaction. Digital class notebooks were created, consisting of a content library to maintain reference and course materials, a collaboration space for cooperative learning activities, and individual student notebooks containing weekly assignments and individualized materials and practice opportunities. Students could also make audio and video recordings of themselves for teacher and self‐assessment and submit scripts to receive model recordings from the teacher. This article details how teachers can create and use course notebooks with ONCN to expand pronunciation learning opportunities.

Focus on form options in second language pronunciation instruction: The case of lexical stress

“…In order to make the most of what they teach and to achieve the desired learning outcome, teachers should provide FFI episodes on multiple occasions such that learners have abundant exposure to linguistic features; a single one‐shot form‐focused presentation of content may not be sufficient for sustainable retention, as was the case in our study. As Everly () put it, PI resembles other performance‐based subjects such as theater or music and is thus heavily time‐dependent because students need ample opportunities to receive input, practice skills, and receive coaching and feedback from their teachers.…”

Use ofOneNoteclass notebook as a combined electronic laboratory notebook and content delivery tool in an introductory biochemistry laboratory course

“…General information and guidelines for setting up an ONCN are provided by Microsoft 11,12 . A thorough overview including screenshots of the setup and features of the ONCN as used in a linguistics course is available 13 ; thus, it will not be repeated here. Rather, to gain a deeper insight into the effectiveness and acceptance of the ONCN in a biochemistry wet laboratory environment, feedback from BCH370H students was obtained voluntarily through an anonymous online survey conducted at the end of the term.…”

“…General information and guidelines for setting up an ONCN are provided by Microsoft. 11,12 A thorough overview including screenshots of the setup and features of the ONCN as used in a linguistics course is available 13 ; thus, it will not be repeated here. Rather, to gain a deeper F I G U R E 3 An example of how materials are organized for teaching assistants in the Teacher-Only space in BCH370H.…”