CATESOL

Date/Time

3/13/2026
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Pacific

Event Registration

Event Type(s)

Prof Dev Meeting/Workshop
Interest Group (IG) Event

Event Description

Using Praat

Praat can make pronunciation visible. In this TOP-IG professional development webinar, participants will learn how to use Praat—a free, open-source software program for acoustic analysis of speech developed at the University of Amsterdam—to help ESOL students notice, practice, and improve key aspects of English pronunciation. The session will cover how to set up Praat, navigate its core visualization tools (including pitch, intensity, and spectrograms), and integrate them into classroom teaching. Participants will follow along and use Praat on their own computers during the workshop.

Particular attention will be given to suprasegmental features of speech such as word stress, intonation, prominence, and pausing. Through practical, live demonstrations, participants will see how these features can be visualized and taught using Praat. The webinar will show how Praat can be used with both individual learners and groups to raise awareness of pronunciation patterns and support targeted practice, and will include classroom-ready activities adaptable to different proficiency levels and teaching contexts.

NOTE: Participants are encouraged to download and install Praat before attending the workshop: https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/

Presenter

Patryk Mrozek is an ESOL instructor with extensive experience teaching pronunciation in adult education contexts. He currently teaches at Portland Community College and Clackamas Community College and serves as Co-coordinator of CATESOL’s Teachers of Pronunciation Interest Group. His work focuses on helping learners develop clear, confident spoken English through research-based approaches to pronunciation instruction, with particular attention to suprasegmental features such as stress, rhythm, and intonation. His wider research interests include accent bias and perception of foreign-accented speech, listener training, and mobile-assisted pronunciation training (MAPT).