Teacher Discussion Forums

Some advice please: some of the primary school kids I'm teaching have a problem knowing how to pronounce past tense endings, whether to make it an "ed" ending or more of a 't' or 'd' sound (eg "walkd" for walked). Should I be bothering to teach them rules for the different endings, or will they pick it up naturally with practice, just as native English speakers do?

Does anyone know any good games to help them practice this?

Hey Hay!

My advice is, don't teach them the four-pronged rule about pronouncing that -ed at the end of a regular verb in the past form. The grand majority disappear through reduction. The sense of the past is rather in the context of the sentence and they would better use their time learning "yesterday" and "last week" than trying to apply descriptive rules that reflect a physical reality of reduction of sounds. The only exception to my advice is verbs that end with "d" or "t" where there is actually another sylable added. Those verbs can be drilled a bit until the kids get used to saying them correctly.

No more rules, they already have a lot of them to swallow!

peace,
revel.

Thanks revel, for advice on -ed pronounciation.

Here's another one for you, or anyone else who can help: the chinese kindergarten children I teach find it very hard to say "N", so it's pretty hard for them to be intelligible even when saying something basic like "My name is...". Should I try to help them improve this, and if so, how. Even getting them to say "Th" has been hard, and that should be relatively easy as they can see me sticking my tongue out and goofing about. The difference between N and L is hidden inside the mouth, so how can I teach them the difference?

Good morning, Hay.

My answer to your last question is two pronged.

Students will often not hear a particular sound produced by the teacher until they are able to accurately produce that sound themselves. For a more detailed discussion on this with the r/l thingy that the asians seem to suffer, look for my comments in the "Pronunciation" thread here at Dave's. What I mean, in general, is that a sound that you make as a teacher will be "mentally" translated into the closest sound that the student makes in L1 production.

Second prong: pronuciation is a physical activity. The first day one goes to the gym, with all the good intentions and enthusiasm of a New Year's resolution, it seems easy to run through all the repetitions, knowing intellectually what muscle groups each machine is supposedly working. It is the next day, when all those muscles hurt, that one physically feels, identifies the work being done and where it's being done. Your students can indeed see your tongue when you make a "th" for them, but they can't see their own. Get a half dozen hand-held mirrors and have them look at their own mouths. Ballet dancers use mirrors until they feel the movements to be correct. Language learners should do the same.

A series of exercises that might help in your particular situation. First a long series of "t" tapping, that is, that the kids say "tee tee tee tee, tay tay tay tay, tie tie tie tie, two two two two" a couple of hundred times, making a sing-song game of it, one half tossing "tee" to the other half who respond with "tie" for example, or rapping the sounds. After several minutes of that, they should be able to feel the tip of their tongue and the area right behind their teeth where it has been tapping as being a bit numb. Those are the same points of contact for making the "l" and so now you alternate between "lee lee lee" and "tea tea tea" for a while. The form the tongue should take for the "l" is similar to the form it takes for an "ah" so you have them do "la la la" for a while. The form needed for the "n" is similar to that used to produce an "ee" so you get them to alternate between "la" and "knee". A quick drawing on the board of the tip of the tongue and the cupped form used for "la" contrasted with the form and part of the tongue making contact in the "knee" might help out. The mirrors might not show everything going on in their mouths, but it will make them focus on the fact that it is their lips/tongue/teeth that are responsible for the sound that comes out, not the brain, something most speakers simply take for granted when speaking L1 and even L2.

Get them to think about their vocal apparatus and then you can get them to begin to use it to produce the sounds you want/they need. Make them aware of the feeling, the physical feeling, of those sounds, not just what they are supposed to sound like. Drill them to death, but make sure the drilling seems like a game (drilling can be and is fun).

You will be a long time working on these points with them, buck up and get down to it!

peace,
revel.

I'm surprised you didn't mention the nasal aspect of "n". Was there a reason you didn't?

revel wrote:Hey Hay!

My advice is, don't teach them the four-pronged rule about pronouncing that -ed at the end of a regular verb in the past form. The grand majority disappear through reduction. The sense of the past is rather in the context of the sentence and they would better use their time learning "yesterday" and "last week" than trying to apply descriptive rules that reflect a physical reality of reduction of sounds. The only exception to my advice is verbs that end with "d" or "t" where there is actually another sylable added. Those verbs can be drilled a bit until the kids get used to saying them correctly.

No more rules, they already have a lot of them to swallow!

peace,
revel.

I'm sure we can all follow (understand) the advice on offer here well enough, but are you guys aware of that thing called the IPA, not to mention the slash key?

Summary of revel's advice:

DON'T teach: -/d/ and -/t/

DO teach: -/id/