This activity was really fun to do. I had been shown the vowel power quiz before yet I still had trouble doing it. I think it is really interesting that language in one country can be so different. I think that these quizzes were a really fascinating way to showcase the fact that we do not think about how different language can be. I liked the vowel quiz better that the Where is the Speaker From because I felt it was easier to do for me because the other one had to do slightly with geography and I am horrible at geography.
I started by taking the vowel power quiz because I knew that I had seen it before and so I was sure about how to go about it. The last time I was shown this, it was in class and we were given two times to guess what each speaker was saying. So I decided I was only going to give myself two times this time as well to challenge myself. I could have used more than two times though since I had already taken this quiz in a class. What I would have liked is for the website to list the dialect or accent of the speaker. That is what I found hard when trying to figure out the word. After I and submitted my quiz and the sentences were revealed, I looked at the two I got wrong and could not believe that those were the sentences because they looked nothing like what they had sounded like. Overall, I did not do too bad on this quiz. I got 3 out of 5. I was happy with this because many of them I did not think I had guessed correctly. I was pleasantly surprised though to find out that I had.
The second quiz, Where is the Speaker From, was a lot more challenging for me. I only got two answers right. I have never been a person that knows geography well and this proves that. I do not know where people come from based upon the sound of their voice. It was very hard for me to do this quiz, I think I changed my answers around three times before deciding that I should just get it over with and submit my quiz. I took this quiz twice, once yesterday (Sunday) and once today (Monday). I thought it would be interesting to find out if my answers improved the second time around. My answers did improve but only slightly. The second time I took the quiz, my result was 6 out of 12 - half way there!
I thought that this was a really good activity for this chapter. It makes students look at language in a different way. With these quizzes, we begin to understand the idiosyncrasies of our language - especially with the vowel power quiz. I really appreciated the Where is the Speaker From quiz. I wrote the answers down and then went back and replayed each letter to allow me to hear the dialect/accent again.
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The activities were a great activity to show the diversity of the country. I wonder how the geographical regions attained different accents? I suppose it has something to do with the ethnicity and heritage of the area. The hardest quiz was the Where is the Speaker From one. I thought they sounded too similar for the most part!
ReplyDeleteI really liked these activities too. I thought both of the quizes were difficult. I had the most trouble with the one where you had to place the speaker in a region. I thought I would have done much better than I did. I agree with Laura that the speakers did sound too alike.
ReplyDeleteI also thought I would be much more capable of identifying regional dialects than was the case. It really stunned me that I couldn't identify my own region's dialect, and I really struggled with the western region as well. I guess when it comes to dialects, the south and the eastern coast tend to get the most over-exaggeration (as well as the "Fargo" dialect, but who really speaks like that anyway, ya know?) Very enlightening, and very informative.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Matt that I thought I would be able to identify my own regions dialect easily. I always get made fun of because I have a major "Minnesotan" accent, which is fine, but I thought I would be able to recognize it pretty easy! I also thought that it would be simple to recognize a southern accent or an east coast accent but this also proved to be a challenge.
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