Working with phonetics

1 Introduction Increasing demands for transferable skills and courses geared more closely to employment have led to development of new work-experience courses and modules in the undergraduate curriculum. At the University of Westminster, we have recently introduced a unique, work-related module called ‘Working with Phonetics’. Students taking this exit level module are already phonetically accomplished – holders of the IPA Certificate of Proficiency in English Phonetics, for example, and/or with a score of at least 50% in prerequisite basic phonetics modules taken earlier. Among the employers with whom we have worked is the British Broadcasting Corporation (the BBC). Here we describe this new module and consider its success from the viewpoints of the student, the teacher and the employer. Dependent on a minimum enrolment of 12 students to run, it has so far run once. The aims are to: