Oral skills open vowels Ivan Bella Pilar Fernndez

Oral skills: open vowels æ, ʌ, ɑ: Ivan Bella Pilar Fernández 1

Content overview 1. What’s the problem? (æ, ʌ, ɑ: ) 1. Teach it communicatively 2

Part 1. What’s the problem? ● Confusion with vowel sounds / æ, ʌ, ɑ: / -> mæp, gʌn, stɑ: rt. ● Language specific error: not L 1 sounds, spelling inconsistencies lead to mispronunciation. 3

● /ʌ/ = A? (was, what -Am. E): hungry/angry ○ with “u” (but, fun) and “o” (come, mother). ○ with “oe” (does, doesn’t) ○ with “oo” (blood, flood) ○ with “ough” (enough, tough) ● /æ/ doesn’t exist in Spanish. ● /ɑ: / (car) -> careful with war and warm /o: / 4

Why is it important? ● To help the students recognise different words (minimal pairs) ● Improve listening and speaking ● Spelling can be an interference: ➔son /ʌ/ vs from /ɒ/ ➔ null like full and pull with /ʊ/ -> nʌll … so make the students aware of rules and exceptions through practice. And give them resources! 5

Part 2. Teach it communicatively Phonetics and COLT 6

“ Should I teach phonetics if I follow a communicative approach? -Yes, you should. 7

So, how do I teach it? ✘With examples of sentences where the meaning changes depending on the pronunciation. ✘A short explanation on how to produce the sounds may be necessary first. 8

Let’s see some examples 9

How to produce the sounds [æ] It’s between an /a/ and an /Ɛ/. You have to smile to produce it, so cheer up! Remember Michael Jackson? Who’s bad! That’s the sound. [ʌ] It’s similar to the catalan /Ə/ but strong, short and quite open. Like sun. [ɑ: ] It comes from the back of the mouth, you have to lower your tongue as when you go to the doctor’s. It’s a looong vowel. 10

COMMUNICATIVE EXERCISES (1) 1. Reading sentences which contain all the words of a minimal pair: a. Cacofonix was a bard, but a bad bard b. Sam’s truck can take some tracks 1. Silly long sentences containing only the sounds studied. They are tongue twisters, and tongue twisters are fun. a. Bart had bad luck and some lack of love, and sat sad. But Sam laughed at that. b. The lamp flashed and Bart flushed and as Ann cut the ham, the cat was harmed and the duck ran fast past the dark blood. 11

COMMUNICATIVE EXERCISES (2) 3. Sentences in which the meaning changes depending on the pronunciation of one or more minimal pairs. “The bandit's bullet went through the cowboy's hat/heart. Did he live? ” This one’s truly communicative because it shows how pronunciation affects communication. 12

A number of activities can use this: ✘A sentence with two possible answers depending on how you read it. The teacher (or one student) reads the sentence several times, choosing an option every time. The students have to shout the correct answer. ● Why do pirates use cats/cuts/carts? -To keep the ships clean of rats! -To kill their enemies! -To move the treasure! 13

Another possible activity ✘Running dictations / chain dictations. Either students run to hear the sentence from the teacher in turns, or they have to “pass the message” from one to another in larger groups. 14

Conclusions ✘The English open vowel sounds are a problem to Catalan and Spanish speakers because they have only one “a” sound. ✘Orthography doesn’t help much either as the “A” letter can take different sounds and other letters can also sound like open vowels. ✘Pronunciation can be taught communicatively by the use of minimal pairs to show the meaning of a sentence changes if pronounced differently. 15

References ✘ Burgess, John & Spencer, Sheila (1999). Phonology and pronunciation in integrated language teaching and teacher education. ✘ Celce-Murcia, M. -B. -G. (1996). Teaching pronunciation: A reference for teachers of English to speakers of other languages. New York: Cambridge University Press. ✘ Henrichsen, Lynn and Fritzen, Anny (2000) "Communicative Pronunciation Teaching and Its Effects on Learners, " Deseret Language and Linguistic Society Symposium: Vol. 26: Iss. 1, Article 9. Available at: http: //scholarsarchive. byu. edu/dlls/vol 26/iss 1/9 16

thanks! Any questions? 17

Credits Special thanks to all the people who made and released these awesome resources for free: ✘ Presentation template by Slides. Carnival 18