- Know when to quit. If a student tries and tries and still
can’t “get it,” pushing further at that moment could just
lead to frustration, anger, and resistance in the future. It’s
sometimes better to say “It’s OK. We’ll keep working on
it,” move on to something else, and come back to that
problem later. Reassure students that learning
pronunciation is a process that takes time. They don’t
have to be perfect immediately.
Review is important!
Don’t be afraid to teach the same point more than once or to
review often. If students wonder why they have to practice
the same sounds again and again, make an analogy with
learning to play a musical instrument. Someone who is
learning to play the violin can’t say, “Oh, I’ve already played
that song. I don’t need to play it again.” They know that they
have to play the same song many times, haltingly at !rst and
then more smoothly, before they can play it really well.
Example activities
On the next pages are examples of some of the activity types
that have been described in this chapter. Any of these
activities can be adapted to practice other sounds or to !t the
needs of your particular students.
Which Vowel Sound?
Listening Discrimination Practice
The purpose of this sound-sorting activity is to practice hearing
and identifying sounds. The handout has boxes for some of the
vowel sounds, each labeled with a phonemic symbol and an
example word. Practice the example words in each box and the
words in the list at the top of the page. In pairs, students decide
which sound the words represent and write them in the correct
boxes.
A similar activity can be done by writing each word on a card
and having students sort the cards into groups based on the
sound they represent.88