Reflection On Speaking English

I started this lesson right after winter break. I had taken some time to see where the students needed some of the most work to improve their English skills, therefore I decided their ability to be understood while speaking English should be a high priority. It was not simply a matter of pronouncing the letters correctly, but work towards stressing the syllables and building a more natural cadence while speaking. I went with a more simplified vowel sounds to start, i.e. Long and short vowels like I learned in grammar school, deciding to learn the more in-depth IPA vowel sounds for later. The vowels went easy and smoothly, most of the vowel sounds are identical is Chinese. The students quickly grasped the idea of voiced and unvoiced

Even when working on Tongue Twisters I try to physicalize the vocal sounds. We move a lot in class. I also try to link back English sounds with Chinese words and pronunciation. This is not always possible, but I have a Chinese co-teacher/translator that helps put new words in Mandarin while keeping me from inadvertently saying dirty words. I found out that Ba Ba is the word for father. I also learned that Bei depending on how you stress the EI can mean many different things some not too

Teach the basic parts of the vocal track as a beginning part to the lesson. At least the lips, teeth, parts of the tongue, sinuses, larynx, hard and soft palate.

2. Add videotaping to the “Solo Tongue Twister” portion.

3. Look for, or create, video of specific tongue twisters so all can see at once larger movement of correct articulator placement, it will also become a “reference” on our Moodle site for the students to check off line. I might also place them on my Youku page, (Chinese YouTube) so the students can watch them after classes.

These are the major lessons learned and the outcome of the lesson was positive. The students English pronouncing is better, but like many muscle memory tasks it is going to take practice. Some of the students made great improvements, others did not. I attribute this to the motivation of the students to work after classes to practice the new sounds. I will continue to reinforce the good SA accents when I hear them and help to correct the problems when I hear them, all while trying to not kill the student’s eagerness to learn