the words really sound like. It’s important to encourage
students to hear and produce the sounds of a new language
as they really are, as accurately as possible.
Consonants and vowels
We can divide the phonemes of any language into two types
of sounds: consonants and vowels. Consonants are
sounds in which the air stream meets some obstacles in the
mouth on its way up from the lungs. The air stream is
bumped, squeezed, or completely blocked. Words like big,
map, and see begin with consonants. Most words contain at
least one consonant, and some contain many more. For
example, saw contains one consonant sound, play contains
two, and split contains four. But a word doesn’t have to have
any consonants at all. For example, the words I, a, and oh
don’t have any consonant sounds—only vowels.
Vowels are sounds in which the air stream moves out very
smoothly because there’s nothing blocking or constricting it
—it doesn’t meet any obstacles on the way. Vowels are the
“heart” of words and syllables. Words like apple, east, over,
and out begin with vowels.
We sometimes think of consonants and vowels in terms of
stationary positions of the tongue, lips, and teeth, especially
when we look at diagrams of the vocal tract like the one
shown here. (This one might represent /t/, /d/, or /l/.)
However, phonemes are actually produced by movements of
parts of the vocal tract, not static
positions. The tongue doesn’t
pause in one position—it keeps
moving smoothly from one sound
to the next. The diagrams show
just one instant in the whole
movement of a sound.Minimal pairs
A minimal pair is a set of two words that are exactly the
same except for one sound. Here are some examples of
minimal pairs:- Boat and vote
- Sat and sad
- Paper and pepper
Minimal pairs are very useful in teaching pronunciation,
especially when students confuse two similar sounds. We’ll
hear more about using minimal pairs in pronunciation
practice in Chapter 7, “Teaching Consonants and Vowels.”21