English Sounds Worth Stressing Early

English Sounds Worth Stressing Early in a Child's Education

/θ/

(Targeted upon Korean ESL learners)

Unvoiced th Think of three thick thumbs. It's no sin to be thin. compare: think - sink, thank - sank, thing -sing, thought - sought, thick - sick, theme seem math - mass, mouth - mouse, faith - face, myth - miss, path - pass, forth - force, worth worse

/ð/

Voiced th Then that boy went there. The thing about them is that they are never thinking. Lesser leather never weathered wetter weather better. F /f/ Unvoiced A funny fat fish is floating by. I want some coffee before I make a copy. Let's go to the Philippines for our honeymoon. compare F and P: fine - pine, fat - pat, fun - pun, full - pull, face - pace, foot - put, feet Pete, compare V and B: very - berry, vane - bane, van - ban, valley - Bali V /v/ Voiced It is a very heavy van. Wave to the volleyball team. Z /z/ Voiced (This is not the 'j' sound as so many Koreans have learned in school) A zany zebra zigzagged by. Si /si:/ We can sit and sing on the seashore. She sells sea shells by the seashore. Please sit down. (Careful not to swear!) Compare: with the Korean alphabet R /r/ A red robin hurried by. (Tongue placement is very important) TS /ts/ What's up? It's late. Let's go. pots, dots, pets, cats, mats, hats DZ /dz The bands on her hands were gold. Also any combination of consonant with s (e.g. backs, dogs, things, etc. . .). L-R /l-r/ All right. Let the ball roll. K-L and K-R What do they look like?

They are in the back row. It's all right. You're still wrong. Let's call Rosa. Let's stay up all night. What's your nickname, again? Don't sit in the back row. You can't see well in the back row.

Listen to the recording and mark the problem words with a pen or pencil: Male Voice (Korean 1) 1. final consonant devoicing (bold) 2. vowel insertion (larger 3. th sound (underlined)

font)

Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a

snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station. Female Voice (Korean3) Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station. Male Voice (Korean 11) Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station. Classmate reading 1 Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station. Classmate reading 2 Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station. Classmate reading 3 Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station.

From the Speech accent archive: http://accent.gmu.edu/browse_language.php

Some Additional Helpful Exercises for Teachers and Students "minimal pairs" (website has flashplayer sound files) i:

i

sheep

ship

heat

hit

eel

ill

receive

sieve

practise: These six silly sisters are sweet to meet.

i

e

tin

ten

Jill

gel

hill

hell

ill

"L"

did

dead

practise: Did Ed wed Liz or did Liz wed

Mixed words to use for a quick game: lunge

lunch

zoo

Jew

think

sink

sit

shit

clothes

close

verb

burb

bop

bob

worse

worth

pull

bull

rot

lot

roared

lord

lice

rice

as

as

Resources: http://www.shiporsheep.com/

Links for English audio resources (speaking and listening): http://www.shambles.net/pages/learning/EnglishP/SpkLis/

Phonics Resources Minimal Pairs with 'instant sound' (uses a flash player that you may need to download) sheep - ship caught - cot And many more! at http://www.shiporsheep.com/

Online pronunciation guide with American, British, Australian, Canadian and Scottish English with 'instant sound'. Also has many other 'mouse over' resources: http://www.fonetiks.org/

Fonetiks: the sounds of spoken language English, Spanish and German with interactive diagrams of the mouth and the sounds of native speakers: http://www.uiowa.edu/%7Eacadtech/phonetics/

Some instant sound links with quizzes, games, and songs you can buy online: Phonics: http://genkienglish.net/phonics.htm Picture books: http://www.genkienglish.net/picturebookfoodanimals.htm

http://www.jollylearning.co.uk/ Audio files and resources to adopt a phonics program Actions and words that go together to create an entire context of sounds and actions for your students. http://www.songsforteaching.com/phonics.htm Sample Songs for teaching phonics (You must pay to get the whole song) http://www.kiddyhouse.com/Songs/alpha/a.html Very simple songs for teaching the 'main' sound of each letter in the alphabet.

http://www.genkienglish.net/phonicsabcsong.htm