Donna Brinton and Jack Walker of Soka University of America in Southern California presented this pronunciation project. (It should be noted that Soka Gakkai is considered by many to be a cult religion from Japan. ) Jack is head of the ESL department and Donna heads the Masters in TESL department, so they decided to do a project where their students could learn from each other. Each ESL student was assigned a tutor according to the tutor's schedule. Tutors were given techniques, but not always in the order pronunciation was presented to the ESL tutees in Jack's classes. The tutors had to dialogue with Donna on techniques, links and other suggestions. Tutors changed their tutee after two months. For the most part, it seems that tutors and tutees were satisfied with their accomplishments.
This is a great idea and I am sure people at SAL have thought of working with the MA program at San Jose State University. But just as Donna and Jack realized, this is a logistical nightmare. If this could be simplified in some way...if one tutor were always available at a particular time or... It is a great idea!
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