A few pronunciation games

Honesty Time: I don't have much formal education in teaching Pronunciation, as in a background in linguistics.  I took a semester-long course in Japanese linguistics in college, that's it.  Anything I know was the result of two quick sessions in the CELTA and being shoved into the position of a Pronunciation teacher for 5 weeks.  I definitely did not do the best job for those students, but I made up a few resources that helped break the monotony of fighting against what your brain can hear and your mouth can produce.

Here is one thing I have learned though: pretty much every students wants to take a "pronunciation class" because they are aware that they make the wrong sounds and it makes them feel bad.  They think that a class focused only on making the right sounds will fix the problem and then they will speak perfect English.  The reality of it to me is that a solely Pronunciation-focused class can be very dry and frustrating.  When I taught that pronunciation class, breaking up the frustration with a little fun got spirits up and everyone was ready to keep working.

So I made up these games, based off of a similar game idea the teachers in Japanese schools used often.

I made three worksheets here, but they are REALLY easy to whip up five minutes before class with pen and paper (if you have access to a copier).  You might be familiar with minimal pairs already, but in case you need some help, this site is useful.

You will need one copy for each group of two or three students.  There are two ways to play, one with you as the "caller" and one with a student in each group as a "caller".

Teacher as Caller:

1. Each group of two (or three) students receives one piece of the paper with various words on it.  They should both have a pen or pencil, preferably with different colored ink or something.

2. After making the students familiar with the different sounds of the words on the page, the teacher begins by calling out the words, one at a time.  After the students hear a word, they race to circle the correct word.  The student who circles the correct word (as called out by the teacher) gets the "point".

3. Then the teacher will call out the next word, and the students race again for the correct word on their paper.  The student who has circled the most correct words and gains the most "points" and wins the round.

Student as Caller:

1. In groups of three, two students have different colored pens or pencils, and one student in the group will call out the words one by one.  Like above, the other two students will race to circle the correct word.

2. The student with the most correct words circled wins.

Note: This version is harder for all the students since the "caller" may not make the correct sounds, but if there is an error, the students are very likely to address it and the "caller" is made very aware that they are being misunderstood.  Everyone in the group ends up repeating the difficult word multiple times and usually practicing the target pronunciation.

If you are interested, here are the worksheets to try out on your own.  (They are not the prettiest things...Working on formatting.)

A basic minimal pair worksheet like below, download here.

 The /e/ and /ɪ/ minimal pair worksheet like below can be found here.

The consonant minimal pair /f/, /b/, and /v/ worksheet like below can be found here.

Slowly Refining My Teaching

So I'm in the third week of my regular morning class, and it has been an enlightening experience.  It is so different to be the main person in charge of planning overarching lesson goals, and picking what kind of lesson we will be having what day.  If a lesson flows smoothly I get to take the credit, but conversely if things just don't work I have no one to blame but myself.

One of the main challenges I have been facing is how to review past grammar concepts or vocabulary, particularly since I was given a class that was three units behind in the textbook.  Add on to that the fact that out of approximately 25 students, only two have been there for the entire session so far.  Most days I have at least five absences, and it's rarely the same people over and over again.  This combines to a difficult situation for reviewing.  No time, and I can't count on the fact that all the students present have even learned this.  But, my attempted solution for the moment is to do the review in the beginning of class when the students are still filtering in (apparently 8 a.m. class is still impossible to get to on time, even when you leave college).  The majority of the students who arrive on time are the same ones who are pretty regular, or at least are more motivated.  And with only ten or so students there in the first half an hour - compared with about twenty in a cramped classroom - I can give them all the personal attention that they may need, even if they were absent the first time I taught a given grammar point or whatever.

So we'll see how that goes.  As I said, it's a whole new world for me, since my position with the Masuda BOE did not involve any curriculum planning, and - as I've mentioned - English in grade school is less about actual knowledge and more about being in school.  Review was unnecessary.  Language retention was pretty much unheard of.

Since I have become a teacher and moved myself to the other side of the learning process, I have found that I am slightly forgetting what it is like to be a student.  This became most apparent this summer when I was working with teenagers and I found myself getting frustrated with their behavior.  But honestly, what did I expect?  I was there myself.  Class was time to space out and occasionally pay attention if I felt the urge strike me.  Teachers can be nice, but they are the "other" and you are going to associate yourself with the other students before you get on the side of any teacher.  This at least is what I remember of being in class in high school.  I think about this often too with my study abroad experience, which is similar to some of the students at the school I work at now.  Yes, I signed up for the class, and yes, I wanted to learn Japanese.  But three hours a day was killer.  And immersion studying was bewildering.  Occasionally speaking English to the other students was a lifeline.  I am often amazed by how much these students are devoted to speaking English in class, since I know I wasn't that good about it, and dropped the Japanese speaking when I could get away with it.  Perhaps a personal flaw; can't say.

But recently the Japan-lust has been creeping back up on me, extremely intensely, and I find myself lingering sadly near Japanese grocery stores and book stores.  I dug out my old JET textbooks that I didn't have the will to study in Masuda, and I have been voraciously consuming them.  I have been happily creeping people out on the subway my muttering in Japanese to myself while I study.

Aside from just being good for my Japanese skills, I do believe that it will help me in teaching.  I have forgotten how long it takes to read a language I don't know, and I have forgotten the personal process of breaking down a long text into something manageable.  I have forgotten what kind of activities help me, at least, acquire a new word or a new grammar point.

Through karate, I've always known that when you are a teacher, you are also learning: you review the knowledge and you must feel comfortable in it in order to share it with someone else.  But I had never thought about the necessity of being a teacher and a student at the same time.  It is something I am exploring for the time being.

Anyway that's all for now.  :)