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.