Korean Job Discussion Forums

[inverse_narcissus]

Good morning teachers!

I'm preparing a lesson for tomorrow's 1st grade (middle school) boys class, in which the issue of pronouncing the letter "S" is to be covered.
The above sentence appears in the textbook and I find myself stumped (and also, as a native speaker, a little ashamed) as to the following question:
What are the criteria for pronouncing "s"? Why do we pronounce it as as hissing noise for one word and as a zzee (zed) noise for another?

Answers on a postcard please. The winner gets a bag of chocolate ABCs.
Thanks in advance,
i_n

[Novernae]

"Why," you ask? Have you not yet learned that it is best not to ask why when it comes to English spelling?
Because of the history of English spelling there are not always consistent rules. [rant](ie some snooty academics that got together years ago attempted to bring English spelling back to it's upper class 'roots' of Latin and Greek but they didn't really know what they were and doing so they misattributed roots to words and changed the spellings accordingly and inconsistently and that's partly why English orthography is so messed up today as a quick and dirty summary). [/rant]

Sorry, this won't fit on a post card:

First, you have to know a little about phonetics. Look into the IPA a bit (not necessarily to teach to your kids, but to know what you are really teaching them, though I have taught it to my more advanced and interested students).

Anyway, the only s rule I can think of is syllable final, like in the case of a plural, and of course there will be exceptions to it.

Basically, [s] is a voiceless alveolar silibant (fricative) whereas [z] is a voiced alveolar silibant fricative. (the easy way to tell if a consonant is voiced is to hold your fingers to your upper throat. If it vibrates (like with [z] it is voiced, if it doesn't, it is voiceless (all vowels are voiced).

In general an s that follows a voiced consonant (b, d, g, l, m, n, w, y [j], j....) or a vowel, such as the es that follows silibants (ch, sh, s, z...) will be voiced, just like what it follows. An s that follows a voiceless consonant (p, t, k...) will be voiceless.

A similar rule can be followed for knowing when to pronounce 'ed' as [t] or [d].

As for the rest of the [s] vs [z] words, I think you just have to know, or look in a dictionary. (though maybe someone else will chime in with more.)

[mj roach]

As mentioned....possibly...."there are exceptions"

but, to make it as simple as possible....try this -

(Z) when following a vowel sound (not only spelling), as in -

telephone..if you say the letter 'n' you get 'en' (you hear the 'e')
so, telephone'z'

camera...camera'z'

bookbag...'a g'...you hear the 'a'...so, bag'z'

(S) when following sounds not made in the 'throat'...try describing it as "param" (wind)...

desk...the 'k' sound is like "param", so..desk's'..."param + param"

map.. the 'p' sound is like blowing wind...map's'..."param + param"

wastebasket..the 't'..no sound in the throat...so, wastebasket's'...good time to go back over "it's"..."what's"

(IZ) like the pronunciation of "is"...following words ending with 'z' or 's' sounds (remember - not only spelling)....can't really just doubble up on those and be still clear....

sentence...'ce' sounds like 's' ... so, sentence'iz'

exercise...'se' sounds like 'z'...so, exercise'iz'

Hope this helps...not very 'masters' in lingustics'...but hopefully easy for the students to understand.

examples from "Interchange", unit 2. there is an expansion exercise using the words; address; briefcase; clock; key (y sounds like 'e'); newspaped; purse; stamp; television; and ticket.

you might have to come up with some pictures (or other examples)

[mj roach]

'lingustics' -> 'linguistics'...typo

[thebum]

[Chicoloco]

When in doubt, blame "The Ghoti Effect"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti

This is quite useful when you need to highlight how random some English pronunciation is!

[kimchi story]

It seems like we're using the same book, and I was doing that lesson last week. Even though Sounds in Lesson One had nothing to do with voiced or voiceless letters, I started the list with the classes using f/v d/t g/k and b/p and using minimal pairs. Z/s was natural progression in week two. Many kids have no idea that there is a difference between voiced and voiceless letters.

As noted above by novernae, distinguishing between voiced and voiceless letter sounds helps allows kids to solve the [z] vs [s] question, as well as the [d] vs [t] question for the past with -ed.

[inverse_narcissus]

Thanks for the replies so far, they've been really helpful.

Having thought about it for a bit, it'll be hard to fit all this explanation into a 45-min class tomorrow, especially considering I've also gotta work on the conversation of introduction. And especially considering the amount of explanation of voiced-versus-unvoiced which is bound to be involved. For the time being, I think I'll have to be content with teaching them the difference in pronunciation between "brings" [zz] and "us" [ss].
That said, I've found this all very educational and it'll no doubt come in useful somewhere down the line.

Chicoloco: I love the ghoti example!