ESL Lesson Plan

In Mandarin Chinese, all characters end in a vowel sound. Sorry, unbelievers, "n" and "ng" are essentially vowel sounds!
When teaching young students, one must be careful that they don't leave off the final consonant (ball = baaaah) or add a schwa (pink = pinkAAAH).
With the former, I get the kids to follow me with "laalaalaa". This is a Chinese sound, so easy for them, but watch their tongues.Show them that you are bouncing your tongue off your alveolar ridge. Okay, now, "Bah-laalaa", "Ballaa", "Ballll".
"VERY GOOD!! You sound JUST like me!"
With the unnecessary added schwa on "pink-ah" or "gooduh morning", I use a large pair of scissors to chop off that final grunt. Hold the scissors in front of your mouth and say "Pinkuh, pinkuh, pink(snap)". They will all want you to do it to them. Don't cut off their noses with the scissors!
I have found that these methods work from pre-school through about Grade 5.

Hi All
Having a knowledge of the physical requirements of pronunciation sure helps. There are many sounds that appear in English that the jaw, mouth, tongue and throat muscles of most Asians are not trained to cope with. My approach is to treat it like a physical workout, by saying the same sound with the correct physical positioning of everything, until the muscles are a little bit sore, and then stop. If the muscles all work correctly, the sounds will come very easily. This is probably more applicable to individual or small group coaching than it is to huge classes.

I hope this helps some people.

Regards
Duncan.

hello
i'm thinking of going to london this summer (I live in Lyon, in France), to get a teaching qualification.
would someone be able to tell me if TESOL, or CELTA is better????
I've looked at the International House website, it's courses are much more expensive then the ones Saint Giles offer.... Is it worth it spending the extra money???
thank you for the answer(s)
ciao!

Hello Morf,

I absolutely agree with you about the paramount importance of pronunciation. Words are first and foremost sounds and if the sounds are wrong, the speaker is incomprehensible. I have found the best aid to accurate pronunciation is use of the phonetic alphabet. If students hear the word, then see its phonetic realisation they do not make the mistakes that the wayward spelling system encourages.

Brenda

Hi Morf,

I, too, love using tongue twisters in class. I've recently put together a phonetics book with plenty of minimal pair sounds that my students have problems with.

For Korean students, I find that the l and the r sounds are extremely difficult. So, I have a list of words that I've got all typed up, like lake and rake. I go through the words, with the students repeating my pronunciation and watching how my mouth makes the words.

Then, I have a contest (for small groups, we just use the paper I've got typed up, for larger groups, I write it up on the board). I make two 'wands' out of rolled up paper and give one to each team. The two teams line up. The first two people standing at the front go first- I say a word and they have to point to the correct spelling. As soon as one of them gets it right, they move to the back of the line and the next to people go. You can use points, or give them tickets if they get it right.

At the end of the minimal pairs, I have them try out a tongue twister that goes with it. I always have them listen to me first. Then we say it together ex-treme-ly sl-oooooooo-wly... which always makes them laugh. Then we say it together faster and faster and faster until we can't say it anymore. Then I give them time to practice on their own and finally, we ask for the bravest to try saying it as many times as they can without faltering.

It's great.

If you have more time, you can also have the students make up their own tongue twisters to add to your own book of pronunciation.

Hello English speaking world... Over here in Malaysia the English language is widely spoken but not like the Englishmen, of course! We can understand English among ourselves but an Englishman, American or Australian finds it very difficult to understand our pronunciation. When in Australia and in the USA some time ago I had to speak like them which is a bit funny for our people here. Well, keep up the good job to teach English in a non-english speaking world. I like to add another tongue twister to Morf's list: "SHE SELLS SEA SHELLS ON THE SEA SHORE". Ask the kids to recite it faster and faster and listen what you get. See you.
Hamid

Hey dcole,

A CELTA just stands for Certificate. TESOL is a subject.

CELTA is respected especially in Europe I understand. Also there is a DELTA which is a diploma by the same group.

It really depends on what you are able to afford and where you are looking to teach.

I have an MA in TESOL and I did a TES/FL certificate before that.

I have heard that the CELTA gives a lot of time to having you teach a certain method and they observe you teach. Some draw backs I've heard about are only teaching their method which relies on grammar so much and I've heard some American teachers complain that they only accept British English.

It really depends on what you are looking for. Actually many people do one and then do another course later to get out of a rut.

I'd recomment taking a cheap class and get some experience teachin then you can always geet more training later but it really depends on your plans. If you have the time get your PhD!

After years of teaching pronunciation in various traditional ways, my research indicates that the best way to lower the affected filter is to light up and pass the wealth to your students.

However that's easier to do in an independent thinktank in the Netherlands, but surely there must be alternatives acceptable in any teaching situation.

Kim Min Su
Director
Institute of Visionary Language Art and Design
institutevlad.blogspot.com

I was wondering If I could get teaching qualifications by merely attending a crash course in teaching methodology. Actually, I only want to teach in order to be able to cover the expenses of my far-eastern journey. Any useful comments?
Twang

The comments from various people are really very
informative and enlightening.
I'd like to add a tongue-twister I have coined:
"Young yellow yappy yaks yearn to yodel"
I would like feedback about it and improvements
I could do with while composing tongue-twisters.

Cool stuff

I find many students, including indigenous can't ponounce "crisps"
We practise "Pssss", then tack it onto "Chris"

In your May 30, 2006 post you said, "With the unnecessary added schwa on "pink-ah" or "gooduh morning", I use a large pair of scissors to chop off that final grunt. Hold the scissors in front of your mouth and say "Pinkuh, pinkuh, pink(snap)". They will all want you to do it to them. Don't cut off their noses with the scissors!
I have found that these methods work from pre-school through about Grade 5."

How can I help a university student to "cut" this bad habit out of his system. He is doing this with words ending in t, d and s. Thanks