Good afternoon everyone...  It's pouring rain outside so I thought it would be a perfect time to blog about English Consonants:

Problem #1:                               Aspiration:  p   t   k

Many second language learners do not aspirate the voiceless stops of the above letters...  So words like plot, tot, and cot may come out sounding like blot, dot, and got...   Our group thought of an easy way to teach our students the best way to create these sounds.

P:    Using a feather as a prop, we can explain to our student that the soft sound of the letter P is created by putting our lips together , not needing our tongue or teeth, and to lightly blow.   The breeze from our mouth should be light enough to allow the feather to gently move...  Therefore the P sound is light like a feather.

T:    To create the T sound, our Tongue is used To Touch the Top of the Teeth...  (a nice memory jogger eh!)

K:   How do we let our students know how to pronounce a K sound?    Our mouth is partially open and the sound resonates from the bacK upper part of the throat...   Remember the word BACK and you'll be able to pronounce the letter K!


Problem #2:    Voicing of Final Stop Consonants:     b    d    g

Many second language learners will not voice final stops, but will substitute a voiceless stop for a voiced one.  For example:  a word such as cub becomes cup...   When teaching final voicing, keep in mind that the preceding vowels are longer before voiced consonants than before voiceless consonants.

Using minimal pairs is highly recommended.    The shorter sound of the word tap sounds much softer than the longer vowel word of tab!   So, use light, airy words like tap, pat, and back to emphasize the shorter vowel words.  Say them softly!   When you want to let them hear the louder, heavier sounding vowels, speak the words tab, pad, and bag in a loud voice, emphasizing the b d and g sound!