Esl Pronunciation Lesson Plans
Lesson One: Differentiating between /r/ and /l/
Target group: This lesson targets students learning English who speak Chinese, Japanese, and Korean as a native language. Additionally, this lesson probably works best as a remedial response to observed difficulties in perception or production of these sounds.
Time: 50 minutes
1. Introduction:
This section involves introducing the sounds to the students using learner friendly explanations. In this section, I will also model the sounds for students and play a sound file recording of another speaker producing the sounds. Here are the explanations I will give for how to produce each sound:
/r/ -- Point the front of your tongue towards the roof of your mouth. Use your voice.
/l/ -- Put the front of your tongue against the bump behind your front teeth. Use your voice and let air pass out of your mouth.
***Commentary: The purpose of this section is to give students several ways to figure out exactly what they should do with their mouths to make the sounds in question since this is the first barrier to proper production. Students can try to match the description, they can watch me and try to do what I do, or they can try to replicate the sound they hear, depending on what works for them. Hearing the sounds repeated in isolation will also help them hear the sounds in context.
2. Minimal Pairs and Drilling:
In this section, I’ll introduce students to 20 sets of /r/-/l/ minimal pairs in which the target sounds appear in various places in the word. I’ll display these words on the overhead (or whiteboard), and we will drill them as a class (choral drilling). The pairs of words chosen can vary based on the age/level of the students. Here are some sample pairs: Raw/law Rice/lice Rock/lock Rake/lake Read/lead Rain/lane Wrong/long Ramp/lamp Rather/lather Writer/lighter Free/flee Crown/clown Grammar/glamour
Grow/glow
Brew/blew
Pray/play
Fry/fly
Grass/glass
Target group: This lesson targets students learning English who speak Chinese, Japanese, and Korean as a native language. Additionally, this lesson probably works best as a remedial response to observed difficulties in perception or production of these sounds.
Time: 50 minutes
1. Introduction:
This section involves introducing the sounds to the students using learner friendly explanations. In this section, I will also model the sounds for students and play a sound file recording of another speaker producing the sounds. Here are the explanations I will give for how to produce each sound:
/r/ -- Point the front of your tongue towards the roof of your mouth. Use your voice.
/l/ -- Put the front of your tongue against the bump behind your front teeth. Use your voice and let air pass out of your mouth.
***Commentary: The purpose of this section is to give students several ways to figure out exactly what they should do with their mouths to make the sounds in question since this is the first barrier to proper production. Students can try to match the description, they can watch me and try to do what I do, or they can try to replicate the sound they hear, depending on what works for them. Hearing the sounds repeated in isolation will also help them hear the sounds in context.
2. Minimal Pairs and Drilling:
In this section, I’ll introduce students to 20 sets of /r/-/l/ minimal pairs in which the target sounds appear in various places in the word. I’ll display these words on the overhead (or whiteboard), and we will drill them as a class (choral drilling). The pairs of words chosen can vary based on the age/level of the students. Here are some sample pairs: Raw/law Rice/lice Rock/lock Rake/lake Read/lead Rain/lane Wrong/long Ramp/lamp Rather/lather Writer/lighter Free/flee Crown/clown Grammar/glamour
Grow/glow
Brew/blew
Pray/play
Fry/fly
Grass/glass