Presented at ICDA Conference 2009

1. ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN DOMINICAN CULTURE
Geographical Anglicism is Created in:
• USA Backyard • Social:
Historical • “pariguayo”
• “guachiman”
• Invasions
• “parqueo”
Political
• Cultural Influence
• Sports:
• Beisbol
Business
• Futbol
• DR-CAFTA
• Technology

2. THE NEED TO LEARN ENGLISH: JOBS
 Administrative
 Secretaries, Receptionists, Hostesses, Translators
 Tourism Area
 Front desk, activities, waiters, croupiers, bartenders
 International Trade
 Managers, bookkeepers, human resources
 Internet and computer related works
 Web designers, net engineers, developers
 Telecommunication
 Call Centers

3. THE NEED TO LEARN ENGLISH: CONTEXT
 Changes In Economy
 Demands from companies
 International Ratings
 National Competitiveness Plan
 Education challenge
 Official Response
 Private Institutions

4. LANGUAGE TEACHING TEACHING METHODOLOGIES
ELT: the teaching of

 Autodidactic methods
English to nonnative
 English Institutes
speakers of English.
 EFL (English as a foreign
 Language Careers language) indicates the
use of English in a non–
 Bilingual schools English-speaking region.
 ESL (English as a second
 Degree requirements
language) is the use of
 Post graduate degrees
English within the Anglo
ENGLISH TEACHING IN DR sphere.

5. How English is Taught for Specific Business Needs
CASE STUDY: CALL CENTERS

6. CALL CENTERS’ ORIGIN
 How Service has evolved
 Customer Support
 Offshore companies
 Free Zones
 Technology frame
 Qualified manwork
 Product and language training

7. OPERATIONS
 Projects: The clients
 Structure: The personnel
 Internet: The technological base
 Customer Satisfaction
 Surveys
 Quality
assurance
 Communication skills

8. LANGUAGE TRAINING
 Trainees’ profile
 Lesson Plan
 Road map
 Training room’s facilities
 Setting up expectations
-CR rating, participation, scoring points, question’s
parking lot, good practices,…

9. EVALUATIONS
Call Role Play
Communication Essay
Proficiency Presentation
Vocabulary
+ Accuracy
+ Fluency
+Discourse
+ Pronunciation

10. CATEGORIES
 High advanced: speaker’s rating between a 100% and 79%.
 Low advanced: adhere to the standard within 78% to 69%.
 High intermediate within 68% and 58% of standards.
 Intermediate are still workable with a ratings of 57%- 56%.
 Low Intermediate is a scale under the possibilities to achieve the
training objectives (57% to 45%) so it’s considered not workable.
 Poor performance situates the student between high beginner and
low beginner categories, which are not considered enough to meet
the requirements for the training (46% to 36% and 35% to 26%).

11. LANGUAGE PARAMETERS
Grammar • Sentence Structure
(20 points): • Grammar Accuracy
Comprehension • Language Comprehension Level
• Communication Strategies
(30 points): • Discourse
Fluency • Fluency
• Sentence Stress
(15 points): • Pace
Pronunciation: • Pronunciation
• Word stress
(20 points) • Enunciation
Vocabulary: • Team-building wording
• Proper Manners
(15 points) • Proper Vocabulary

12. Teaching Phonetics
 Phonetics is the science of the sounds one makes during
speech. It is a combination of sounds put together to
form a language.
 Focus on where and how sounds are made in the mouth.
Once we get a clear picture and are able to connect how
and where the sounds are made in the mouth, it will be
easier for us to make changes to get the desired sounds.
 A consonant is a speech sound produced by a partial or
complete obstruction of the air stream by any of various
constrictions of the speech organs, such as (p), (f), (r),
(w), and (h).

13. VARIATION OF CONSONANTS
 Place of articulation (where the sounds are
made), Describe the 6 different places of
articulation i.e., lips, teeth, behind the upper
teeth, palate, back of the mouth, vocal chords.
 Types of Sounds. List the different types of
sounds i.e., stops, friction, non-friction and
combination sounds.

14. OTHER ASPECTS OF SPEECH
Voicing, nasalization & aspiration
Vowels and qualities.
Alphabet Theory
Syllable / Word Stress Rules
Sentence Stress
Rhythm & Schwa
Intonation
Fillers

15. VOICING, NASALIZATION, ASPIRATION
 Voicing - whether the vocal chords are vibrating or not.
If you feel your throat vibrating when speaking, that is your vocal
chords making sound. Some sounds are voiced and others are
voiceless.
 Nasalization - whether air travels through the mouth and/or the
nasal passage.
Nasalization in English is found in sounds like [m] and [n], where
the flow of air from the mouth is completely blocked off, but
continues to flow from the nasal passage.
 Aspiration (breath) - Whether stops are released lightly or with a
noticeable puff of air.
Some sounds are not pronounced as forcefully as other sounds.
A sound is aspirated if it has a slight [h] following the sound.

16. VOWELS AND QUALITIES
A vowel sound is made by keeping the vocal tract open. Consider:
 Tongue height: Vowels are classified in terms of how much space there
is between the tongue and the roof of the mouth. There are three
primary height distinctions among vowels: high, low, and mid. High
vowels have a relatively narrow space between the tongue and the roof
of the mouth, [i], [i:], [u] and [u:].
 Tongue Backness: Vowels are classified in terms of how far the raised
body of the tongue is from the back of the mouth, which is called the
backness of the tongue. front, back, and central. front vowels are [i], [i:],
[e], [ae], back vowels are [u], [u:], [o], central vowels are [uh] and
schwa.
 Lip Rounding/Tense vs. Lax: Some vowels, such as the vowels [u] and
[o], are formed with a high degree of lip rounding. Some vowels, such as
[i:] and [e], are formed without such rounding, and are called non-
rounded vowels.

17. AS YOU CAN SEE FROM THE DIAGRAMS, THE ARTICULATION OF THE FRONT
VOWEL [I:] IS MUCH FARTHER FORWARD THAN THAT FOR THE BACK VOWEL [U].
TONGUE BACKNESS

18. THE TENSENESS
 Some vowels, such as the vowels [i:] and [ae], are
formed with a high degree of tenseness.
 Such vowels are called tense vowels.
 In articulating a rounded vowel, the lips are rounded.
The rounded vowels of Present-Day English are:
 /u/ (the phoneme spelled oo in food)
 /U/ (the phoneme spelled u in put)
 /o/ (the phoneme spelled oa in boat)
 /ô/ (the phoneme spelled au in caught)

19. LAX VOWELS
 With a lax vowel, on the other hand, the muscles
of the vocal apparatus are relatively loose. The lax
vowels in Present-Day English are
 /I/ (the phoneme spelled i in bit)
 /e/ (the phoneme spelled e in bet)
 Note that the degree of tenseness varies
considerably in these different vowels. The other
vowels of Present-Day English are relatively tense
(also in different degrees).

20. THE ALPHABET THEORY
English Alphabet:
a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y,
z
Spanish Alphabet:
a, b, c, ch, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, ll, m, n, ñ, o, p, q, r, s, t,
u, v, w, x, y, z
 Notice how various characters in the Spanish alphabet are
highlighted?
 This is because these particular letters cause most of the
common problems in pronunciation.

21. THE ALPHABET THEORY
 How many times have you wondered why you speak
English with an accent?
 Many, if not most of us, who learned English as a
second language were taught what many consider to
be an advanced version of the topic, jumping directly
into grammar and conversation without first studying
the phonetic rules of the language itself, namely the
alphabet.
 Would it be fair to say that perhaps it’s not our fault
that we speak with an accent?

22. CONSONANTS COMPARISONS
B vs. V
Ch vs.
Cluster
Sh
The
E vs. I
Letter S
The
Y = LL?
Letter
Ñ=Ǿ
H
The J
vs. Y

23. Syllable / Word Stress Rules
 Syllable & Word stress can be defined as the placing or
distribution of stress within a polysyllabic word. These
are general rules for syllable / word stress.
 Only one syllable is stressed in one word.
 The word must have two or more syllables for a syllable
to be stressed.
 A word with a stressed syllable can have two or more
syllables. Regardless of the amount of syllables, there is
only one stressed syllable in each word and the stress
always falls on a vowel.

24. WHY IS STRESS IMPORTANT?
 Word stress is something that native speakers don’t even realize
they are using, however, they do recognize when it is used
inappropriately.
 Using the correct stress can also help people understand what
you mean, even if not every word in a sentence is audible.
 Think about photograph and photographer. If only part of the word
is heard, one may assume what was said because of the
difference in stress. Sometimes, if word stress is changed, the
meaning of the word changes.
 Look at three words: photo, photographer, photograph. If all you
heard a person say is “phoTO” then one may assume that the
speaker meant to say “phoTOgrapher”.
 If you hear “PHOto”, then one may assume that the speaker
meant to say “PHOtograph.”

25. SENTENCE STRESS
 Sentence Stress refers to the process whereby
particular words are stressed within an overall sentence.
It is actually the “music” of English, the thing that gives
the language its particular “beat” or “rhythm”.
 In general, in any given English utterance there will be
particular words that carry more “weight” or “volume”
(stress) than others.
 From a speaking perspective, Sentence Stress will affect
the degree to which a non-native speaker sounds
“natural”. In terms of listening, it affects how well that
person can understand the utterances they hear.

26. Rhythm & Schwa
 Speech rhythm can be defined as the arrangement of
spoken words alternating stressed and unstressed
elements. It is the beat that native speakers of a
language follow when they produce their utterances.
 Even though we are changing the word order, the beat
and rhythm stays the same provided that:
 The stressed syllable is louder and longer than the others
 The weak syllables are really weak
 The rhythm stays the same even when you change the
words
 This is the house that Jack built.
 DUH da da DUH da DUH DUH

27. RHYTHM & SCHWA
 The schwa is the vowel sound in many lightly pronounced unaccented
syllables in words of more than one syllable. It is sometimes signified by
the pronunciation "uh" or symbolized by an upside-down rotated e.
 Allows us to stress and stretch other syllables on which we want to
emphasize. It will never be found in a stressed syllable and because it
is so weak, it allows us to pay attention to the contrast between
stressed and weak syllables.
 It is also the most common sound in the English language system. The
schwa is not clearly distinguishable like other vowel sounds.
 It is often the blank or neutral sound that occurs as our mouth moves
from one consonant sound to the next.
 *x-PORT *KAUNt*nt *LAUw*ns
 VOU-ch* DEB*t card SLEN-d*

28. Intonation
It is the music of language. The stresses of words and syllables while speaking, which are
used to convey meaning
WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT? THREE WAYS TO MAKE :
 People from different countries,  Say the word or syllable
who come from different linguistic louder.
backgrounds, speak differently.
 Stretch out the word or
 When we start speaking English,
the Spanish accent influences our syllable and make it seem
pronunciation. longer to say than the
 The words we say, how we say it, others.
the words we stress and it can
even include various aspects of  Change pitch: even
humor and how we interpret the pausing before changing
meaning of words that are being
said. your pitch can be effective
if it isn’t overused.

29. FILLERS
 Fillers can be defined as words / expressions that people use,
and actions that people do when they don't know or are not sure
how to continue on in a sentence, how to continue within the
same topic or how to move to a different one.
 These are expressions such as umm; hmmm... err… ooh…and
actions such as licking their lips or snapping their fingers.
 The best way to eliminate filler words and actions is to substitute
that behavior for another. So at points of transition, or whenever
you feel the need to inject filler, simply PAUSE. Take a deep
breath and gather your thoughts.
 While English Native-speakers will use "ums" and "uhs", Spanish-
speakers tend to use "because", "you know" and "ehh".

30. CUSTOMER SERVICE
• Active Listening & Comprehension:
 Active Listening is defined as the behaviors used to listen, attend to
the person speaking, and to understand. These include, but are not
limited to: facing the speaker, removing distractions, demonstrating
attentiveness, asking questions, and summarizing. Active listening
intentionally focuses on who you are listening to, whether in a group
or one-on-one, in order to understand what is being said.
 How to improve your Listening Comprehension Skills:
 Spanish-speakers should listen to different varieties of English, and
become familiar with the varying native and non-native accents
from different parts of the English-speaking world. This will
consequently train your ear on the different variations and paces in
fast-spoken English.
 Additionally, when listening, we are reviewing a lot of English usage
such as vocabulary, grammatical structures, intonation, accent and
our own interpretation. As a consequence, we can imitate what we
hear and apply it with great confidence.

31. CUSTOMER SERVICE: AUDIOVISUALS
 Calls Listening
 Shadowing
 Video-Training
 Telephone Doctor Customer
Service Training produces
DVD-based training
programs and on-site
training workshops which
will improve the way your
organization communicates
with clients and coworkers

32. ICDA’S ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF TEACHERS
June 12. 2009