Job Discussion Forums

[Roy Briggs]

Hi, any advice on how to help Spanish speakers with the "y" sound in "you" and "younger"? It seems hard for many of them to say this without sounding like "jew" and "junger"

Also, any advice on the "s" sound?
I show them how to blow the air out through their teeth but they have spent so many years pronouncing "s" like "es" it seems almost impossible to get some of them to pronounce "s" correctly in English.

Thanks for your help!

[ls650]

I've posted this advice before so it may look familiar...

Here's one exercise I've found highly effective. Find some interesting topics to write dialogues about. Break the students into pairs or small groups and have them write up the dialogues. They should then perform the dialogues in front of the class as you record their voices on tape.

Collect up the dialogues and find another native English speaker to help you make a second recording of the dialogues on a different tape.

Return to the class and give the students back their dialogues. Next, play their original recording, followed back-to-back by the native speaker recording on the second cassette. Ask the students to tell you what's different in the two pronunciations.

By about the third dialogue, the students start noticing the errors in pronunciation before I play back the native speaker recording. I've found this to be extremely useful.

[thelmadatter]

My explanation is a little simpler. Many cant hear the difference so I try a more tactile approach. I tell them that with both you raise the tip of your tongue towards the roof of your mouth (not completely true but close enough). With "j" you actually touch gently the roof of the mouth but with "y" you come really close but without touching.

Then I have them do it... most are able to feel the difference after practicing the words "yellow Jello" a couple of times.

Theres a Swiss educational site somewhere that has diagrams of the mouth as certain sounds are produced (pronunciation software often does this too). This can help some students as well.

[kitkat1]

For the "es" problem I always used a technique that my trainer in my certification class taught me. Write a few example sentences using the problems word or words i.e.

I went to school

Then write it again, this time moving the "s" from school to the prior word. So the sentence looks like

I went tos chool

The idea is to help the student to cut the "es" sound off the beginning of the problem word by moving the s to the prior word, thereby eliminating the "es" sound and ending up with just s.

Not sure if this makes sense in writing - it's a lot easier to explain verbally!

[J Sevigny]

You can also explain that the "y" in you is pronounced like the beginning of "hielo," the Spanish word for ice.

Regarding the old "eschool, estop" problem, someone once suggested having students saying "gas station."