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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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AbbeFaria
Joined: 17 May 2005
Location: Gangnam
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 Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 9:15 pm Post subject: Help with W |
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Anyone have any good ways to help get Koreans to properly say W? You know, wolf instead of oolf, and so on. It's driving me crazy and my students are too young to understand a detailed explanation in English of how to position your tongue n'stuff.
Thanks,
�S� |
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EdInstead
Joined: 20 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 9:30 pm Post subject: |
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I tell them to pucker and pretend they are going to kiss a pig. Then I tell them to hum and release just a little air out of that small opening in their puckered lips. Then open their mouth full: WAH!
Then have them do this saying some words: White, Wax, Willey, etc. |
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vdowd
Joined: 11 Feb 2003
Location: Iksan
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| Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 10:29 pm Post subject: W |
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Hi, The dreaded W - I hate 'oolf' too. It appears to be to combination of the 'W+O' that is not in the Korean language.
I used this and if worked but requires a lot of practice and reinforcement to make it stick.
Ask kids if they can whistle - most can or know how their mouths should be to do this. Hand them a few squares of tissue (toilet) paper (I've been in Korea too long), tell (and demonstrate) how when you whistle, the tissue paper flies up.
Then make them repeat a series of word beginning with 'W' - whistle,
wolf, won't when, worry, etc. - note: the 'wo' 'wi' 'we' combinations are alternated. Ongoing - everytime you notice a 'wo' combination in the text, make sure the kids repeat it correctly even if you have to stop and repeat the drill. Keep the tissue handy and don't let them shred it into small pieces of the floor. Drill, repeat, drill, repeat to infinity.
It can be done and remember if you have a Korean partner, they will probably not only not notice, will not be able to do it themselves, and will be teaching the children to say it incorrectly, so you have a lot of work to unteach the improper pronunciation.
If you can, share with your Korean partner the revelation you had and how it helped. Maybe they will become aware and assist in reinforcing the point or not. |
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jajdude
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 4:21 am Post subject: |
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I wonder why some W words are easy and others not? Wednesday and wonderful, why, what, where, "hag-won" when all come out normally, then a word like wolf, or maybe wood (not so much would) comes out without the W..
Beginners can say: win, wonderful, wow, Wednesday, wedding, what, where, why, window, we, worry, would, wait, woman (not so well),
but yet consistently mess up other ones....
weird |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 4:58 am Post subject: |
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I use the adapted:
"How much wood would a woodchucker chuck if a woodchucker could chuck wood"
Explain by use of picture and drama the meaning of the words, so they get the basic idea, then just lay into the practice of it, building up to the point where they can do head-to-head elimination challanges to determine class winner. Repeat. |
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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 5:41 am Post subject: |
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| jajdude wrote: |
I wonder why some W words are easy and others not? Wednesday and wonderful, why, what, where, "hag-won" when all come out normally, then a word like wolf, or maybe wood (not so much would) comes out without the W..
Beginners can say: win, wonderful, wow, Wednesday, wedding, what, where, why, window, we, worry, would, wait, woman (not so well),
but yet consistently mess up other ones....
weird |
The reason is that Korean phonology doesn't allow glides to precede homologous vowels.
Glides are those consonant sounds that are produced with the least restriction of airflow through the vocal tract. Korean and English have the same glides, /w/ and /y/, but Korean has greater restrictions on their occurrence.
/w/ is a labio-velar glide, that is, formed by raising the back of the tongue towards the velum (soft palate) while rounding the lips. In Korean, this glide cannot occur before vowels that are formed with the tongue in a similar position, that is, before high back vowels. In Korean there are two such vowels, /u/ (written in Hangul with a single descender from a horizontal line) and a vowel for which I can't produce the International Phonetic Alphabet symbol here (an upside down 'm'), symbolized in Hangul by a single horizontal line. I'm not entirely sure, but /w/ may also be restricted from occuring before the mid-back vowels /o/ (Hangul: single ascender from a horizontal line) and another symbol I can't produce here and can't describe, but symbolized in Hangul by a left facing line attached to a vertical line.
Similarly, the palatal glide /y/, formed by raising the body of the tongue towards the hard palate, cannot precede the similar high front vowel /i/, symbolized in Hangul by a single vertical line. (I believe it also doesn't occur before the second high back vowel mentioned above, but am not 100% sure about that). /y/ does occur before alll othere vowels in Korean.
Student problems with the glides are the effect of transfer of this restriction from Korean into English. Students minimally should have trouble producing /w/ in English before the high back vowels, /u/ 'wolf' (let's not confuse spelling with sound here) and /U/ 'would' or 'woman'. Similarly, they should have trouble with /y/ before the English high front vowels /i/ 'yield' and /I/ 'yin' (although, again, I'm not sure if this last case is as problematic as predicted).
As for teaching this, we need first to make sure that students can hear the /w/ produced before high back vowels in English, which should also raise awareness of it. It's good, as one poster pointed out, to show students that they do produce this sound easily in other phonetic contexts. We can then work with students on producing the sound in very controlled contexts, where we supply the language to the students, starting from individual words to sentences containing said words. Tongue twisters can be a fun way to do this, but I would let students get started with the individual words in the tongue twister first. We then need to move sudents into activities that are less controlled, but still guided toward using words with these sounds and with language largely supplied by the teacher, so they can continue to concentrate on producing the sound correctly. Information gap activities can be good for this. Gradually, practie needs to made freer, students supplying more of the language, but still with some focus on the sounds we want to teach. Telling stories made up aeround given vocabulary (with the sound) is a kind of activity that can accomplish this. |
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Grotto
Joined: 21 Mar 2004
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| Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 5:49 am Post subject: |
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| get some small hand mirrors for your class. demonstrate and then have your students practive making the proper mouth shape in the mirror...its effective and great for a laugh! |
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AbbeFaria
Joined: 17 May 2005
Location: Gangnam
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| Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 6:39 am Post subject: |
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Great advice, thanks. And Woland...wow. No pun intended there.
�S� |
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EdInstead
Joined: 20 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 7:10 am Post subject: |
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| Did I miss it, or did everyone skip the obvious that George W needs a lot of help?? |
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