LAHORE: The 8th DAWN in Education Spelling Bee Phonetics Workshop concluded on Thursday.

It was organised by DAWN as part of its Newspaper in Education programme and held in collaboration with the Oxford University Press.

The two-day event was attended by 200 teachers from 40 schools, mostly private across Punjab.

Conducted by Ms. Azka Khan, the workshop aimed at assisting teachers in acquiring a thorough knowledge of the essentials of phonetics, which would be extremely helpful to them in classroom. The activity also gave an insight into the various techniques by which the teacher would be able to give theoretical explanation for pronouncing a certain word in a manner that would appeal to the instinct of the pupils.

Talking to Dawn, Ms Khan said in the workshop the teachers were made familiar with the word sound through symbols. “Teachers getting good at pronunciation means students are the ultimate beneficiaries,” she said, adding correct pronunciation matters more than accent.

Azka Khan said such activities should be held at both private and public sectors for capacity building of English language teachers.

The teachers found the workshop very useful and informative. They found the customised exercises an invaluable resource to be replicated in their classrooms.

Maria Mazhar, a teacher at LGS, said the workshop helped teachers improve pronunciation skill and the method of understanding the sound symbols. Another participant, Sadia Imran, said English teachers needed to get such training for imparting better education to children.

A special module was also designed to help teachers prepare their students for the 12th DAWN in Education Spelling Bee Competition scheduled to be held in Oct–Nov this year.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2016