Monthly Archives: September 2018

PhonoApps: online interactive tools for teaching and learning phonology

From Peter Jurgec

Advances in technology now make it possible to rethink certain aspects of how we teach phonology. PhonoApps are a collection of interactive online tools that help students learn basic phonological concepts. 

PhonoApps (including how-to videos and instructor resources) can be accessed at http://www.phonoapps.com

PhonoApps consist of two core applications: Featurize! and Derive!

Featurize! facilitates the understanding of natural classes. Users select a set of segments and the application determines whether it is a natural class, and if so, outputs the relevant features. The feature and segment set is entirely customizable. You can access the app directly at http://phonology.us/featurize

Derive! allows users to specify underlying representations, rules, and their order. The set of user-specified rules is applied in the order for a real-time derivation. You can access the app directly at http://phonology.us/derive

PhonoApps help students to grasp key phonological concepts more quickly and directly by engaging with the mechanism of feature assignment and rule interaction. Furthermore, students can explore questions that have not been easily addressable in phonology courses at the undergraduate level, including typologies, opacity, and rule formalization.