The chart in practice

4.3 Introducing and integrating the chart

The aim is to use the chart not only to add impact to your normal pronunciation
work, but to infuse all class work with an easy access to its pronunciation content.
Before the chart can be helpful in these ways you will have to think about an initial
introductory stage for the benefit of those (including yourself) who may not have
used the chart before.
So, there are essentially two stages:
1 Introduction of the chart
2 Integration of the chart
1 Introducing the chart
Introducing the chart refers to the initial two or three sessions where the class are
meeting the chart for the first time. Learners are beginning to identify individual
sounds and gradually to recognise and distinguish them from each other. In doing
this they are beginning to find out what there is that they can pay attention to. They are
beginning to attach the aural and oral impressions and the physical sensations of
individual sounds to the symbols on the chart, thereby investing the symbols with the
capacity to evoke the same sounds again when the symbols are pointed out.
As learners become familiar with the workings of the chart and become able to use it,
the chart increasingly becomes an instrument for all sorts of pronunciation work and
for integrating that work with other language work.
Once you have read about the seven modes for using the chart outlined in section
4.4, you will probably see how in the first few moments of this introduction stage
mode 1 is likely to predominate, but that it should quickly be followed by work using
modes 2, 3 and 4.
2 Integrating the chart
This is the main use of the chart. Both you and the learners are becoming able to use
the chart as an instrument for refining awareness of what is involved in making
isolated sounds and in running the sounds together to make words. The chart
provides an immediate way to test hunches and take risks. Its most important
attribute is that it enables objectification of inner processes that otherwise go unseen,
and this in turn makes possible a more subtle level of feedback, initially from teacher
to learner, but increasingly from learner to learner and from learner to teacher.
The chart is integrated into all areas of language work at all three levels using a wide
range of the applications described in section 4.1. Mode 1 will still be used from time
to time, modes 25 will be in constant use, and modes 6 and 7 will increasingly be
used as learners gain confidence.
4.4 Seven modes of chart usage
A vast repertoire of activities is possible. Many are specific to the chart, while others are
conventional activities made more focused and precise through appropriate use of the
chart. In this section I describe a way of ordering them so that they form a basis from
which you can investigate the potential of the chart and adapt it to your style of teaching.
It will enable you to create an unlimited range of games, exercises and techniques.
Each mode is characterised by its basic transaction. The transaction consists simply of
a first move and a second move in response to it. Eg the transaction of mode 2 is
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