Teach English in LijiAduan Zhen - Yueyang Shi

Two years ago I had the opportunity to travel to Talayuela, Spain and teach at a two-week summer English camp. One of the most common mispronunciations I encountered was the embedded pronunciation habit that occurred with S words such as school, smile, stop, etc. Many of the words that start with S in English begin with an ES in Spanish (i.e. school/escuela, Spain/España) and it can become a pronunciation habit for students to try and pronounce words that begin with S with an ES sound. For example, when learning to pronounce “stop” students commonly say “es-stop” adding an “es” sound to the beginning of the word. After researching the subject, it appears that students specifically struggle with S words that contain S consonant clusters. These are words that begin with S and are followed by other consonants. When searching for ways to teach native Spanish speakers the proper pronunciation of S consonant clusters; I came across an S pronunciation lesson written by Lorena Siegel, a TEFL teacher who had been teaching English for over 20 years and is a native Spanish speaker. Seigel breaks the lesson into a 7 step process, but after studying it, I realized that it followed an E-S-S-S-A format. I restructured the lesson and adapted it to follow the ESA format. Before beginning the lesson, have a list of 4 or 5 practice S consonant clusters in mind. E - The elicit phase of the lesson begins with drawing a picture of an S-shaped snake on the board and introduce the class to your friend, Stacy the Snake. Ask the class what sound Stacy the Snake makes. After they all make the hissing ssssssssss sound, remind them that this is the long S sound they will use when pronouncing the following words. If you would like to save time, have the snake pre-drawn on the board before the start of class. S1 - The first study phase of the lesson begins by reading your list of words out one at a time and having the class practice repeating after you all together. Refer them to Stacy the Snake if they have trouble remembering to make the sssssss sound. It’s also important to note that at this stage of the lesson you do not want to write the words on the board. Siegel explains that writing the words out in this stage of the lesson can hinder pronunciation because English words are often pronounced differently than they are spelled. Seeing the words early on may make some students struggle. S2 - In the next study phase, Seigel goes around the room and has each student repeat the words after her. If I had a larger class I would adapt this phase and have the students turn to a partner and practice saying the words to each other. Again, reminding them to speak like Stacy the Snake. I would walk around the room and listen to students' partner sharing and check for understanding. After this stage, you can write the words on the board emphasizing the ssss sounds as you write. You can write the phonetic spelling if your students know the phonetic alphabet next to the words as well! S3 - In the final study phase, have your students copy the words with phonetic spelling down into their notebooks and draw a picture of an S-shaped snake to help them remember what sound an S makes. I would add, that they can also choose a name for their snake that starts with S. It could be Stacy, but they could also change it to Stan, Sparkey, Stella, or any other S name (preferably a name that starts with an S consonant cluster). A - The activate phase of the lesson includes students forming a sentence using their snake character and the words they wrote in their notebooks. Seigel uses the example sentence, “Stacy snake likes to speak in Spanish, but she goes to school to study English.” The creativity is endless for all the sentence possibilities students can make. If the students are relatively young you could adapt the lesson by creating sentences together as a class on the board for them to copy in their notebooks, or you could put the students in groups to create their sentences. At the end of the activate phase, go around the room and have students share their sentences with the class. If they still seem to be struggling with pronunciation, suggest that they join the S consonant clusters with the words that come before them. For example, “Stacysnake likes tospeak inSpanish, but she goes toschool tostudy English.” Joining the words together like this eliminates space for students’ brains to sneak es sound into the words. I found this lesson very creative and helpful. I learned why the students I encountered in Spain struggled with the S sound. Beforehand I did not know what S consonant clusters or embedded pronunciation habits were and I lacked the teaching techniques for sharing proper pronunciation. Now I have new skills and knowledge I can use in the classroom. If I go on to teach young English learners who are native Spanish speakers, I will definitely reference this technique when teaching S pronunciation. Works Cited Siegel, Lorena. “ESL Pronunciation Lesson for ‘S’ Words.” BridgeTEFL, Bridge Education Group, Inc., 1 May 2019, bridge.edu/tefl/blog/esl-pronunciation-lesson/.