The "r" sound

<b>Forum for ideas on how to teach pronunciation </b>

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CEJ
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more info. on the topic of /r/

Post by CEJ » Thu Dec 29, 2005 10:34 pm


Superhal
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Post by Superhal » Sat Dec 31, 2005 6:48 am

What I do is try to get them to do the "L" sound. If they can do the L, they can do R, and vice versa.

L -> R: Keep your tongue down, use more stress on your vocal chords like you are trying to sing a low note.

R -> L: Touch your tongue to the gum above your top teeth, and then lower it while making the "r." Then, use less vocal chords by trying to sing a high note.

Works well enough for me.

CEJ
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Post by CEJ » Sat Dec 31, 2005 10:34 am

Superhal wrote:What I do is try to get them to do the "L" sound. If they can do the L, they can do R, and vice versa.

L -> R: Keep your tongue down, use more stress on your vocal chords like you are trying to sing a low note.

R -> L: Touch your tongue to the gum above your top teeth, and then lower it while making the "r." Then, use less vocal chords by trying to sing a high note.

Works well enough for me.
I will try getting them to move back and forth the two sounds to practice this. In the case of Japanese students who are beginners, it's usually too much to get them to contrast the two sounds as simple phonemic contrasts. Phonetically speaking, they overlap in their own language (which as sounds that are interpreted by English speakers as [r], [l], and [d]). So I think more control and sequencing are required here. English /l/ makes a nice contrast with /d/ in initial position.

Superhal
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Post by Superhal » Sat Dec 31, 2005 6:48 pm

I've been able to do it with pure beginners. Imho, pronunciation is purely mechanical, and high level speakers who have trouble with it are trying to do it at an abstract level.

CEJ
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Post by CEJ » Mon Jan 02, 2006 9:57 am

[quote="Superhal"]I've been able to do it with pure beginners. Imho, pronunciation is purely mechanical, and high level speakers who have trouble with it are trying to do it at an abstract level.[/quote]

I think you might have point. Insofar as what is teachable and immediately learnable, it often has to be treated that way.

However, in terms of phonological acquisition, it has to integrate with a much larger language system. And it also might have applications for learning to read and write an alphabetic language. The problem is a lot of our theoretical apparatus is really not up to the job in terms of telling us what is teachable and learnable, and how best to do it. This is a huge area, and this is why I've argued that pronunciation has to be re-thought as applied phonology, with extensive implications for language acquisition/learning, including vocabulary learning. It might even interface with grammar because a phonology is constructed and controlled with that sort of complexity (in other words, it is one structured element that contributes to the recursiveness of recursiveness that makes language difficult to analyze).

Do you teach EFL beginners or ESL students, by the way?

Superhal
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Post by Superhal » Mon Jan 02, 2006 11:19 am

Bleah, lost a long post to that "could not connect to the database" error.

What I remember:

1. Technically, I teach ESL as I'm in the US and I don't know any other languages other than English, so that's the only language I teach with. However, I tend to allow low-level students to use more of their L1, so sometimes my class resembles an EFL class.

2. I don't think teachability and learnability is an issue with pronunciation because individual sounds don't carry meaning and correct pronunciation can be taught extremely quickly. However, from a receptive point of view, it must have something to do with language as native speakers can understand a variety of accents, even ones they have never heard before, while non-native speakers have trouble with new ones. But, is it absolutely necessary for communication? In the case of deaf or mute native speakers, I would argue that it is not.

CEJ
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Post by CEJ » Tue Jan 03, 2006 9:01 am

Superhal wrote:Bleah, lost a long post to that "could not connect to the database" error.

What I remember:

1. Technically, I teach ESL as I'm in the US and I don't know any other languages other than English, so that's the only language I teach with. However, I tend to allow low-level students to use more of their L1, so sometimes my class resembles an EFL class.

2. I don't think teachability and learnability is an issue with pronunciation because individual sounds don't carry meaning and correct pronunciation can be taught extremely quickly. However, from a receptive point of view, it must have something to do with language as native speakers can understand a variety of accents, even ones they have never heard before, while non-native speakers have trouble with new ones. But, is it absolutely necessary for communication? In the case of deaf or mute native speakers, I would argue that it is not.
Well deaf or mute people hardly present the same native language development picture as one who can use articulation triangulated with visuals and acoustic information. However, without face-to-face communication with a speaker of a language, language doesn't develop, which is why putting little kids in front a video with foreign language isn't going to turn them into native speakers. And that includes the very foundation of a language, it's phonology. I'm not sure you can I share enough of the same background knowledge to take this discussion much further.

As for understanding a largely variety of Englishes, that might well be because native speakers have redundant strategies and a much wider exposure to English than beginning or intermediate level learners of English. The problem is it really doesn't allow you to back engineer it into beginning students. It's like anything else. We say the native speaker does this or that, let's teach it to the EFL beginner. But what we migth be teaching is really only a surface level effect, and not the real reason the native speaker is the fluent native speaker able to handle a lot of variability in English.

Superhal
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Post by Superhal » Wed Jan 04, 2006 5:43 am

Yes, it all boils down to which system of language acquisition you subscribe to. I'm pretty open-minded about it, and I feel that we still don't know The Answer yet.

littlepoet
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practice

Post by littlepoet » Tue Feb 07, 2006 9:19 pm

does anyone know of a good website or source for practice material for the pronounciation of the letter "r"? such as little poems or sentences or tongue twisters that would be good for students to develop their mastery of the sound..

Mellody
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Re: The "r" sound

Post by Mellody » Mon Jan 22, 2018 4:46 pm

Lorikeet wrote:Hi all,

So how about the rest of you? I'm curious to know what techniques you use to help students with the "r" sound, and also whether your tongue is pointed up, down, or in the middle. (I speak American English, by the way.)

Here's to sticking your finger in your mouth :twisted:
My tongue is in the middle, compact and rounded and toward the back (out of the way) For UL I teach to pull the tongue down in the back.

For the R sound, the tongue must pull back and not touch anything. Since they don't understand an explanation of what to do, or pictures of proper tongue placement, I teach my very beginning students to bark, saying

ruff ruff ruff (like a little dog)
errh errh errh
and even crow with an
errh errh er errrrhh

This (usually) pulls the tongue back to a good place for R.

Then I say "where is your tongue? That is where the American R is!" and I explain with my hand to pull back the tongue.

It is fun and funny and they learn how to say the R!

As we pronounce words with Rs in the future, I remind them with a hand signal, to pull the tongue back and then I applaud and reward them when

It works for most students but not all!

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Lorikeet
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Post by Lorikeet » Wed Jan 31, 2018 6:13 am

My goodness, I started this thread in 2004. Thanks for reminding me ;)

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