When teaching individual consonant and vowel sounds (otherwise known as “phonemes” or “segments”) the most commonly heard instruction from teachers is, “No, listen…” But therein lies the problem: many students cannot clearly hear the difference between sounds which seem as different as night and day to us. This means we have to go beyond listen-and-repeat drills if we expect to have any success.
Lucky for us, pronunciation is very physical in nature, which makes it fun! Here are three strategies for teaching consonants, which will put smiles on faces and have almost instantaneous “A-ha!” moments:
- The “Tissue Test” – voiceless stop-consonants (p, t, k) are usually heavily aspirated in English, especially at the beginning of stressed syllables. This means there’s a big “puff” of air when you say them, in contrast to voiced counterparts (b, d, g). To hear and see the difference, let students hold a tissue in front of their mouths and say “p…p…p…” and watch the tissue fly around, in contrast to saying “b…b…b…” where the tissue barely moves. You can model this first so they can see what the difference should “look” like for each sound.
- The “Buzz Test” – all voiced sounds, whether vowels or consonants, require use of your voice, which means your vocal cords vibrate inside your voice box when you make the sound. So if you put your fingers on the front of your throat (your voice box) and say “mmmmm,” “aaaaaah,” or “zzzzz,” you should feel it vibrate or “buzz,” which tickles your fingers. When you make voiceless sounds, such as “sssss,” “ffffff,” or “p,” you won’t feel anything. (Note: since the “p,” “t,” and “k” are voiceless, try not to say “puh, tuh, kuh” when doing the “tissue test,” so they don’t create bad habits for phonemic awareness.)
- The “Mirror Test” – Although you may often give suggestions such as “watch me” or “look at my mouth,” the problem is that they can’t see themselves, and thus are unaware of what they are doing that differs from your modeling. If you have little toy mirrors of some sort, you can fix this problem! First, let them watch you make a sound, and be sure to point out what to look for. E.g. “Let’s make the ‘v’ sound. Watch my lips; can you see that my top teeth are touching my bottom lip? ‘vvvvvvv.’ Okay, now look in your mirror, and make your top teeth touch your bottom lip too. Ready?…” (Note: be sure to give them 30 seconds or so, upon getting the mirrors, to look at their hair, teeth, etc… they’re going to be momentarily distracted by their own appearance anyway, so let them get it out of their systems first!)
Have fun with these ideas, and let us know how they work for your students! Feel free to share your own multi-sensory activities for teaching consonants too. Stay tuned for tips for teaching vowels next time.
This is Part II in my series on Pronunciation and English learning. Part I is available here.
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This had to have been the most humorous excercise I have used Laura. Kudos!! When I illustrated the difference between the words, “green” and “puppy” with the tissue test, my students were on the floor laughing. They loved it. BTW, I am working as an ESL teacher here in China. Illustrations like this really do keep the class at attention–and it makes me feel good to know they enjoy the class. Thank you.
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