Date: 28th and 29th May 2011
Venue: SOAS, University of London (Russell Square, London)
Speaker: Dr Rie Oguma (BATJ member)

- Booking Form
- Case Studies
- Provisional Programme (Deadline Extended)

As a result of the recent advancement of computer technology, studies in Japanese phonetics have progressed greatly. Based on the outcomes, several good textbooks for Japanese pronunciation have been published in recent years. A great deal of computer software for sound analysis has been developed as well and is now very easy to access; for example, some is downloadable for free.

The conference will start with a lecture on recent research on instructing Japanese pronunciation. Then, case studies of pronunciation practice will be outlined by the participants and their methods and effects will be discussed. Moreover, recently published pronunciation textbooks will be studied through their actual use and assessed in order to investigate how new knowledge can be extracted from them. On the second day of the conference, opportunities to use computer software for sound analysis and decode the sound spectrogram on the screen will be provided, as we understand that computer assisted learning can enhance learners’ acquisition of accent, intonation, rhythm, etc. Our aim is to achieve more effective pronunciation teaching by making practical use of the latest textbooks and computer software.