Describing Sounds

Hello!

Today while we were waiting for the rest of the class to arrive, we did a quick review of the symbols we learned yesterday. I used the flashcards and quizzed you on the symbols for all the consonants. You gave me words for each.

Next I drew a picture of a cross-section of a head with an open mouth on the board. This is called a Sammy diagram. You can see more Sammy diagrams here. We learned the parts of the mouth: top lip, bottom lip, top teeth, alveolar ridge or tooth ridge, palate or roof of the mouth, hard palate, soft palate (also called velum), tip of the tongue, back of the tongue.

Then I put this on the board:

1) Where

2) How

3) Voicing

We can talk about the consonant sounds in three ways. We can talk about where we form them in the mouth. We can talk about whether we stop the air or let it flow. And we can talk about voicing. I asked you what are the two kinds of voicing. Those of you who have been in pronunciation class for a few weeks gave me the answer: voiced and voiceless.

We put our hands on our throats to determine the difference between voiced consonants and voiceless ones. Then Lina came up and helped me. She showed you each flashcard and I stood at the board with a marker. You had to tell me which column to put each sound into: voiced or voiceless.

Next I gave you a handout. On this handout was a graphic organizer just like mine on the board. I asked you to work with a partner and the list of symbols from yesterday. You had to put the symbols into the correct box. This took a while, but it was fun! I heard lots of debate and saw you all touching your throats. Wonderful!

Lina gave us the answers to the voiced consonants and Esterlin gave us the answers to the voiceless ones. Great job!

Then we had some questions to answer. For example: If you say the /f/ sound and then add voicing, what sound do you make? You are right. You have the /v/ sound!

If you say the /b/ sound and take away the voicing, what sound do you make? Yes, it's a /p/!

Which sounds are made by bringing both lips together? You all did a great job brainstorming together. Someone said /b/; someone else said /p/. And then someone said /m/.

Which sounds are made by touching the tip of the tongue to the alveolar ridge? I heard /t/ and /d/ and /n/ and /l/ and /tʃ/ and /dʒ/. I love it when you are all shouting out answers faster than I can write!

Which sounds are made by closing the velum against the back of the tongue? You said /k/ and /g/ and also /ŋ/. I didn't even think of that last one until you said it! You are becoming linguists.

This was a really fun class. I noticed that the level one students were busy filling in their boxes with the right symbols. I also saw some surprised expressions on the faces of the upper level students as you discovered that the only difference between /d/ and /t/, /g/ and /k/, /f/ and /v/ is the voicing! They are produced in the same manner and in the same place. Only the voicing is different.

Tomorrow is conversation day. See you then!

Sound Symbols

Hello!

Today was day one of a new pronunciation course. We have two new students, Tauny and Ricardo. Welcome!

Today was all about the phonetic alphabet that we will use in this course. I asked you WHY we need a phonetic sound system in English class. You told me it's because English is so crazy. It's not like Spanish or Arabic or Romanian. You can learn to pronounce Spanish in one day or one week, no problem. Each letter has only one pronunciation. Is English like that? Oh, no, it isn't.

There can be many ways to spell one sound: too, to, two; one, won.

There can be many ways to pronounce one letter. Look at all the sounds that the letter "o" can make in English: to, son, not, most, cost, doctor, woman, women. Yikes!

So we need a reliable system for referring to the sounds of English.

I passed out a sheet with the symbols that we will use in this class. We won't worry about the vowels quite yet. Today we just looked at the symbols for the consonant sounds. Most of them are pretty easy to remember, aren't they? Many of them look just like the English letter: /b, p, g, k, d, t, h, f, v, s, z, m, n, l, r, y, w/.

But some of them are really weird looking symbols! For example: /ŋ/, /ʃ/, /ð/, /θ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/ and /dʒ/. Those are the ones we have to memorize. To help you learn them, I used flash cards and quizzed you individually and as a group. You all did really well with most of them.

For our final activity, we played BINGO! Each card had 25 words on it, most of them food-related. We went over the rules of the game, then passed out beans as markers. I held up a symbol and said, "Find a word that has this sound at the beginning." We had to clarify what "at the beginning" means.

Everyone did really well. I saw some people helping the newer students. I appreciate that! We had four people BINGO at the same time. I had some little prizes for the winners.

Every day we will continue to drill the consonant symbols for a few minutes at the beginning or at the end of class. Pretty soon we will know them by heart.

See you tomorrow. There is NOT a computer lab day this week.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hello!

The week of October 11th was a short week, wasn't it? Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving. (Americans celebrate Thanksgiving in November.) Tuesday was our biweekly computer lab day, so that left us with only two days in the classroom!

Wednesday was our weekly conversation day. We talked about the poem that we read last week. I really learned something that day. I learned that if the goal is for us to have conversations, I should not give out a list of discussion questions to each person. That makes it too tempting to get out pencils and spend a lot of time writing. Next time I will put the discussion points on the board, or I will give out prompt cards. Also, we might say, "No pencils."

We did have a good discussion about the poem.

Thursday was our day to read aloud and talk about the words that were difficult to pronounce. We looked at words from the poem to see if we could guess how to pronounce them using some rules we learned this term. We used the Two Vowel Rule to figure out how to pronounce many of them.

We also discovered that the past participle form of a verb can often be used as an adjective. To pot a plant means to put it in a pot with soil. A potted plant is a plant in a pot. There were many words like that. We discovered that the same rule we use for determining how to pronounce the regular past tense (-ed) endings also applies to adjectives that come from the past participle of regular verbs.

Food adjectives are a good example of this: grilled, baked, fried, steamed, tossed, chopped, diced, etc. All of those can be used as adjectives, and the same rule applies to their -d endings.

Okay! As we've said, I will begin the course again on Monday. This time we will take it very, very slowly. This means that we can study each pronunciation point in greater depth than before!

See you then!

Reading Day - a Poem by Naomi Shihab Nye

Hello!

Today we continued our discussion of stereotypes for the first five or ten minutes of the class. I put a new word on the board - "gender stereotypes." We learned that gender means sex, as in:

• my gender is female
• I am of the female gender
• Bashar's gender is male
• Federico is of the male gender

You might see that word on a form that you have to fill out. M stands for male, F stands for female.

I admitted that I am sometimes guilty of gender stereotypes. I also told you about a boss of mine that I had in 1990. She assumed that women were not good at computers, so she did not send any of us women employees for computer training. She only agreed to fund training for the men. I quit that job and went to work in an academic library where I had access to computers and computer training books. I taught myself to program in Visual Basic and designed software. Later I had a job supporting software users.

To get an idea of how we all have gender stereotypes in our heads, I told you this little riddle:

A man and his son were riding in a car. They were in a car accident. The father died. The little boy was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. The little boy was lying in the operating room. The doctor came into the operating room, looked down at the boy and said, "I can't operate on this boy. He's my son."

How is that possible?

Some of you suggested that the boy had a real father and a step-father. One of you said that perhaps the boy was adopted. Finally Elena said, "The doctor was the boy's mother."

Tania, who is a doctor, admitted that even she is guilty of gender stereotyping. I think perhaps we all are.

Next I explained that I wanted to pass out a prose poem for our reading material. I also explained that each of us will have a pronunciation evaluation sheet that I will use to give you feedback on your progress during the course. I passed them out. The top section has two blanks for you to fill in: "name," and "my goal for this class." The rest of the spaces are for me to complete as I listen to you speak and read in class.

Next I passed out the poem, which is entitled "Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal," by Naomi Shihab Nye. You asked me to read it all the way through first as a model for you. I did that. Then you asked if we could discuss the new words before we took turns reading. So we did that. Before the end of class, four or five people got a chance to read.

Tuesday is our day in the computer lab, so we will continue practicing reading the poem on Wednesday. I think we will probably do that again on Thursday, as well. Then on Monday we can start our new unit.

Have a great Thanksgiving weekend!

Conversation Day - Stereotypes

Hello!

Well! We had our first ever conversation day today. How do you feel it went? Did you enjoy it?

We had fourteen students but then two had to leave early. First I asked you if you knew what the word "stereotype" meant. Federico used the adjective in the example of "the stereotypical costume of a country." I said we were going to do an exercise in groups, and then we would ask the same question at the end.

I had posted about 12 items on the whiteboard for each group to do. I gave each group a piece of lined paper on which to record the group's answers. The items went something like this:

_____ are crazy drivers.

_____ are fat.

_____ are good at math.

And so on. In groups, you were to discuss which nationality you think should go in each blank. There was much animated discussion in each group. I was happy to see everyone talking.

At about 12:05 we stopped to compare notes. Some said Russians are good dancers. Many agreed that Asians are good at math. We think Canadians are polite.

By this time, I had put several discussion questions on the board. For example:

1. What is a stereotype?
2. Are stereotypes good or bad?
3. Where do stereotypes come from?

And so on. We had a good time thinking about our answers. All of those ideas are stereotypes. As Bashar and Husnieh pointed out, some people in every country are tight with money. Some people in every country are rude. I am from America, but I'm not too fat, eh? My brother and mother are not at all fat.

I hope you enjoyed our first conversation day. I think we will try to do this again almost once a week. Maybe we will do it three times per month. Also I will begin incorporating more conversation into our regular classes.

Again, thank you all for speaking up and helping me design the course!

More Tag Questions and Canadian "eh"

Hello!

Today we had more practice with tag questions. I hope you feel less confused and more confident about using tag questions with rising and falling intonation.

First we went over the explanation of what a tag question is. Then we practiced saying them with falling intonation and with rising intonation. We again explored some contexts in which each would be used. Some of you are really getting the hang of it now. Federico said that rising is easy for him, but the falling one is hard. Just remember that for the falling one, your intonation is pretty level throughout the statement, then you raise your intonation on the auxiliary verb and fall again on the pronoun.

We got out our bouncy ball and did a chain drill to practice tag questions some more.

Next I told you a little bit about the Canadian "eh." We talked about the fact that it is a stereotypical feature of Canadian English, which made you all ask me what "stereotype" means. We will explore that more tomorrow during conversation day!

I told you about three uses for "eh." It is like a little tag question that means, "right?" or "okay?"

The narrative "eh" means "are you listening?" People sprinkle that one through a story they are telling. "Eh" can also be informative. "It's cold out, eh? You should put on a coat."

We looked at some examples. We did not practice that because you don't need to use "eh." You just need to know about it in case you hear a Canadian use it with you.

Here is a link to a YouTube video where you can hear someone using "eh."

YouTube - Andrew Bravener

For our last 15 minutes, we pretended to go shopping in pairs. Each pair had a clothing or furniture catalog. We practiced saying things like, "Those are pretty curtains, aren't they?" and "That's a good price, isn't it?"

Tomorrow is conversation day. See you there!

Question Tags

Hello!

Today we did a little reviewing of what we learned last week, then I introduced a third type of question. Some books call it the tag question and some books call it the question tag. Either way, this is a little question at the end of a statement.

First we looked at how to form the question tag. Here are some examples we worked out together:

It isn't cold, is it?

You're from Jordan, aren't you?

You like chocolate, don't you?

Wen wasn't in class Thursday, was she?

We turn left here, don't we?

One use of question tags is in initiating small talk with a stranger or acquaintance, such as while waiting for a bus or riding the elevator with a neighbour, coworker or colleague. I asked you what Canadians talk about with strangers and Husnieh gave us the answer: the weather! Sometimes we might also talk about last night's hockey game, but mostly we stick to the safest subject... the weather.

We practiced matching statements with their question tags. We also talked about what it means if we say the question tag with rising intonation versus falling intonation. To sum up, we use rising intonation when we are surprised, doubtful or really need to know the answer. For example, "It's not snowing, is it?" If you say this with rising intonation, you really want to know if it is snowing outside.

We use falling intonation when we are just making conversation or commenting on something. We are just being friendly and we are looking for agreement. Also, we are pretty sure that what we are saying is true. For example: "You're not from Canada, are you?"

If someone says this to you with falling intonation, they are just trying to start a conversation.

We practiced asking and answering the tag questions with our partners.

Finally, we tried to remember some of the things we learned about each other last week. We learned each other's favourite foods, favourite colours, where we're from, when we came to Canada, where we live, etc.

So we were able to practice question tags by saying things like:

• "Your favourite colour is white, isn't it?"
• "You came to Canada three months ago, didn't you?"
• "Bashar's favourite food is chicken, isn't it?"

Tomorrow we will add one more question tag to our arsenal: the Canadian "eh?" Then we'll practice all of them in the same activity.

Oh, please remind me to get out our new name cards every day, ok? Oh, hey! There's another question tag: "OK?"

Survey Results

Thank you to everyone who participated in our pronunciation class survey. The results of our survey are here.

We will try to have a conversation day almost every Wednesday. Let's try that for a while and see how we feel in a few weeks, okay?

Also, I will try to have more games. About 80% of you said you like games at least twice a week.

Keep giving me ideas! I love it when we work as a team to build the best class EVER!

Needs Assessment Day

Hello!

Today we had a full house! Almost everyone showed up, plus two new students: Eric and Rehab. Welcome! After introductions, I listed on the board the language points that I feel a good pronunciation course should cover:

• sentence stress (content words, function words, etc.)
• word stress
• intonation / pitch
• linking
• vowels
• consonants
• assimilation
• deletion
• palatalization

I told you all that a misunderstanding on my part has recently been brought to light. I do not have just three months in which to cover the material. We can take it as slowly as we wish! This is wonderful news, isn't it?

In light of this, I wanted to get everyone's ideas and opinions on lots of things. For one, would you like to incorporate a full hour of conversation now and then? If so, how often? Once a week?

I also wanted to get your feelings on the format of the lessons. I wanted to know how many of you like the worksheets and how many want more variety in the lessons. I need to know how often you want to play games or go to the computer lab.

After we talked about this as a group, each of you shared with me your personal goals for the course. As many of you remember, we did this at the end of the spring term, and I did my best to incorporate your ideas and needs into the summer term's curriculum.

Finally, I passed out a questionnaire so that each of you could share your opinions anonymously. I will read those this weekend and begin thinking about changes that we can make to the course so that all of your needs are (hopefully) more fully met.

I really appreciate how all of you share your ideas with me freely. I value your trust and hope to be able to deliver an even more effective and fun class beginning Monday.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Intonation in Wh- Questions

Hello!

Most of you showed up for computer lab day yesterday. Many of you seem to be getting a lot out of Ellis Intro and the accompanying pronunciation quizzes. That's great.

Today we reviewed intonation and had fun with a few exercises to loosen us up. We took a question such as "Would you like some juice or pop?" and practiced saying it with two different types of intonation. If you go to a friend's house and they ask that question with rising yes/no question intonation, they are just asking if you are thirsty. It means, "Would you like something to drink?" But if they ask the question with intonation that rises on juice and then, after a little pause, falls on "pop," you are being given a choice between juice and pop. Right?

You divided into groups of three to take turns practicing similar questions. One person was the host and the other two were visitors.

Then we practiced falling intonation in WH- questions. I gave you a list of questions and explained that we would be playing a little game. We divided the class into two teams. Each team was given 15 minutes to find out all the answers to all the wh- questions from each team member. You were supposed to memorize all your teammates' answers to the best of your ability. The questions were things such as:

• What's your favourite colour?
• What's your favourite season?
• What's your favourite food?
• Where do you live?
• When did you come to Canada?
• etc.

After 15 minutes, we put a score table on the white board. Team one won the coin toss and got to ask anyone on Team Two a question about a team mate. For example, Husnieh on Team One could ask Angela on Team Two: "What is Bashar's favourite food?" When Angela correctly answered "chicken," she won a point for her team.

At 12:30 both teams were tied at 8 to 8. It was fun, eh?

I hope you enjoyed the game and practicing the falling intonation of wh- questions.

Intonation in Yes / No Questions

Hello!

Today we continued talking about rising, falling and level intonation. I asked you which intonation we use in questions. You said rising. I asked you if we use rising in all questions or just certain questions. Together we figured out that we use rising intonation in Yes / No questions, but not in Wh- questions.

I asked if any of you had ever played the game "Twenty Questions." None of you had. I explained the game and showed you some cards I had made up with names of some famous people, some places, objects and jobs. On one side of the cards was the category, such as JOB. On the other side was the name of the job or person or place, etc.

I demonstrated the game for you and then we brainstormed some good questions to ask the person who has the secret. For a person, we came up with questions such as:

• Is the person dead?
• Is the person a celebrity?
• Is the person a man?
• Is the person in politics?

For the category THINGS, one question we often start with is: "Is it bigger than a bread box?" Click here to see a picture of a bread box.

For a job, we can ask things such as:

• Does it pay well?
• Is it a dangerous job?
• Is it an outdoor job?
• Is it physical work?
• etc.

Next we practiced rising intonation while practicing these questions orally. Then we got into groups of three to play Twenty Questions.

I hope you enjoyed the class. See you in the lab tomorrow!

Field Trip: Thiessen's

Hello!

There was no pronunciation class today. Those who went to Thiessen's had a great time. We will show you pictures when they have been printed.

See you Monday!

Intonation in Lists and Choices

Hello!

I began the class today by giving you some news about the pronunciation class. Nick has told me that I (we) do not have to cover all our pronunciation points (vowels, consonants, stress, linking, intonation, etc.) in three months and then start over. We can take four months or five months or six months to cover all the aspects of pronunciation.

This is very good news! This means we can go as slowly or as quickly as you want me to. We can spend three days on a difficult sound if you want, or even a week. We can go to the computer lab more often than twice a month. We can even have one day of conversation per week if you want that. So I told you all to begin thinking about what you want to change. I will give you each a questionnaire on the last day of this term to gather your ideas and opinions.

====

Today we reviewed yesterday, then continued learning about intonation / pitch. Chris had written on the whiteboard what we need to bring with us to the orchard tomorrow. I asked you what are three things we need to bring. You said, "good shoes, a lunch, and an umbrella." What do you notice about the intonation of that list? You're right. The pitch falls on the last item in the list. That's how you know the list is finished.

We practiced the intonation of lists with seven statements about tomorrow's field trip.

Next we practiced the intonation of choices. "Do you want your cider hot or cold?" "What do you want on your sausage: mustard, onions or relish?"

On the back of the worksheet, there was a table. I asked you three things this table tell you about the apples at Thiessen's. Tania said, "description, uses and availability." That's right. I gave you a chance to study the table for a while, and then we asked each other some questions such as:

• Name three apples that are red
• Tell me two apples that are tart
• Name three apples that are hard and crisp
• Name three apples that are good in salads
• Name two apples that are green
• Tell me the names of three apples that keep well
• Name two apples that are good in pies
• Name three ingredients you need to bake an apple pie

And so on! You all did a great job with listing intonation and seemed excited about the information. Wen said she would carry the table with her tomorrow into the orchard.

See you at 9:00 in front of the building!

Introduction to Intonation

Hello!

Today we learned about pitch and intonation. Bashar told us that pitch is the way the voice goes up and down, high and low. It's like the notes in music, isn't it?

I asked you if you thought intonation was important for learners of English, and you said yes. You are right! If you don't learn the natural intonation of English, people might think you are rude or bored when you are not. I told you about my own story of learning Spanish. I had to learn to control my intonation because if I speak Spanish with American intonation, I sound sarcastic or condescending.

We took some words and tried to say them as many ways as we could think of. We started with the word "hello." How many ways can you say "hello?"

Say "hello" to:

• someone you haven't seen in a year
• someone you are angry with
• your boss
• your teacher
• a little baby

We talked about how intonation can change some words. Take, for example, the word "hey." How would you say it if someone cut in front of you in line? Use it to greet your friend. Use it to show disappointment in what your child just did.

We practiced saying some words three ways: with rising, falling and level intonation. For example, if you are answering a question, "fifty" has falling pitch. If you are asking a question, use rising pitch to say "fifty?" And if you are counting "forty, fifty, sixty...," then "fifty" will have level pitch.

Next we practiced falling pitch in declarative statements and commands. It was all about our field trip to Thiessen's Apple Orchard this week. And we practiced rising pitch in statements that express doubt. "I THINK we turn left here."

The next part was kind of fun, although some of you found it a bit confusing. We had three dialogues and for each dialogue we had three situations to read about so we would know which kind of intonation to use when performing the dialogues. Isn't it amazing what a difference intonation can make?

See you tomorrow!

B and V

Well, of course! The Mandarin speakers in our class were not present for the lesson on L and R, and the Spanish speakers were not present today for B and V. That's called Murphy's Law.

That's okay, though. We had a lot of fun with the V and B lesson. I noticed that Mandarin speakers do have a hard time with V, so we spent a lot of time practicing the V sound.

We had some fun minimal sentences using pairs like cupboard and covered, cabs and calves, boating and voting.

My favourite activity was when we looked at the picture and talked about it with a partner using as many V words as possible. You all came up with some I never would have thought of. Good job!

That wraps up our work on consonants. Tomorrow we start our 6-day unit on intonation and pitch. See you!

L and R

Hello!

Today we worked on L and R. A lot of students were absent. Maybe they got tired from going on the ESINC field trip on foot. In any case, those of you who showed up seemed to get a lot out of this lesson. I know Florin is really working hard on his native-sounding /r/, so today's lesson was good for him.

We had some listening practice then went right into minimal sentences. Everyone seems to enjoy minimal sentences a lot.

Our communicative activity was to fill out a little chart using "always, usually, occasionally, hardly ever and never," and then compare answers with a partner. The topic was whether you are a night owl or an early bird. Some of us are clearly morning people, some obviously night owls. But a few of us reported being a bit of both. For example, a person might naturally prefer to stay up late and sleep late, but because of a job or school makes an effort to rise early and enjoy the morning.

I am not much of a morning person, but I do love seeing the sun come up.

Enjoy your weekend!

Potluck and Pronunciation Lesson

Hello!

There was no blogpost yesterday since it was just another lab day; we followed our routine of choosing among Ellis Master Pronunciation Course, Ellis Intro with Pronunciation Quizzes, or Internet-based pronunciation sites. Many of you have told me that you really like Ellis Intro.

Today we started class by clearing up an earlier confusion. I said I thought there was a caribou on the Canadian quarter, but one student said that in another class, they learned that it was a moose. So I brought in a picture of a moose and a picture of a caribou and let you decide for yourselves. Florin, Bashar and Federico decided it's a caribou. Wikipedia also says it's a caribou. However, many Canadians think there's a moose on their quarter. Maybe you should tell them!

A caribou is an animal like a reindeer that migrates in very large herds--south in fall, north in spring. The caribou are very important to the native peoples who live in their territory. They use every part of the animal from antlers to meat to pelt to hooves. Nothing goes to waste!

I gave you each a scavenger hunt sheet to help you review everything we've covered so far, and we went to the potluck. Unfortunately, there was some confusion around whether our whole class had been invited by Zakieh or only the women. I will do a better job of communicating with Zakieh next time, if there is a next time.

Wen finished the scavenger hunt page. She found a food with an alphabet vowel sound, a food with a relative vowel sound, a food that forms its plural with /s/ and one that forms its plural with /z/. She found a food with linking and one with each kind of consonant sound: voiced and voiceless. Back in the classroom by 12:15, we took up the answers together.

Hopefully Thursday will go more smoothly.

See you then!

R-colouring

Hello!

Welcome to our new students! I sure missed you all while I was away on vacation last week. I hope you had a good time with Stephanie learning p/b, sh/ch and consonant clusters.

Today we talked about the North American English /r/ sound, which is different from the R sound in most other languages. Spanish, Italian and Romanian have the tap R and the trilled R. They say R-r-r-r-roberto. The tip of the tongue taps or flaps against the ridge behind the top teeth once or many times. The Scottish dialect of English also has a trilled R. But we don't have that R in North American English. Our R is very different.

I showed you how to produce the Canadian R. You can look up at the ceiling and relax the tongue. Just let it fall down in your mouth. It will curl back toward the back of your mouth a bit. Now bring your head back down while keeping your tongue right there and say "er."

When R follows a vowel sound, it changes the vowel sound a bit. This is called "r-colouring." For example, the /ir/ sound in "ear" is not really the tense vowel /iy/ + /r/ and it's not really the lax vowel /I/ + /r/. It's somewhere in between.

We practiced some words with the schwa + r sound, like purse, earth, hurt, girl. There are so many ways to spell this sound, eh? It occurs a lot at the end of job names. You helped me come up with a long list of those: plumber, teacher, doctor, lawyer, manager, ...

We also said that many comparatives end in "-er," like taller, shorter, bigger, smaller, smarter...

Next we practiced at words in which R follows the other five vowel sounds.

We read a passage about Kelly's holiday in Muskoka. The story had lots of words for practicing r-colouring: starts, meteors, farm, garden, bear, clearer, cooler, cleaner.

Finally we had some conversation topics to choose from in order to practice R-colouring in conversation with a partner. Most of the topics involved comparing two things, such as your home town with Windsor, or city life with country life, or a doctor's earnings with a dentist's.

After ten minutes, I asked you all to share what you had discussed with your partners.

I hope you enjoyed practicing the Canadian R sound today.

See you tomorrow in the computer lab!

I Like Yellow / Jell-O

Hello!

Today we did some practice with the sounds in "jail" and "Yale." This was for the benefit of the Spanish speakers, so I appreciate how everyone else helped out. Don't worry, the day will come when the Spanish speakers will be able to help you with a difficult sound.

First we looked at the Sammy diagram and talked about what our tongues do when we make each of these two sounds. You told me that for the J sound, the tip of the tongue touches the roof of the mouth behind the teeth. (That is the tooth ridge.) You told me that for the Y sound, the tip of the tongue doesn't touch anything; only the sides of the tongue touch your molars (back teeth).

We did a listening exercise where you told me whether two words were the same or different. Then we practiced with minimal sentences. Federico reminded me to go over the minimal pairs on the board.

If you want to know what the words mean, click on the links:

Yale Jell-O jam sweet potato yam

We practiced some minimal sentences first together and then with partners. I asked all the Spanish speakers to work with someone who does not share their first language.

Next we practiced a dialogue about someone looking for an apartment in Windsor. He looked at three units near the university and one loft over a yoga studio in a yellow building in Walkerville.

Finally we went on a quest around the classroom to fill in form. The goal was to find someone who used to be a university professor, someone who used to play the flute, someone who used to wear a uniform to school...

None of us could find anyone who used to be a university professor because Wen wasn't in class. Darn it.

I hope you have a great long weekend. Have fun with Stephanie! I'll see you again in a week.

P.S. Do you want to see where I'll be? I'll be HERE.

Palatalization and Relaxed Speech

Hello!

We covered two topics today, but they are sort of related. We looked at some cartoons in which we found the words "wanna" and "gonna." We analyzed these strange terms to see where they might have come from. We decided that they are the end result of a multi-step process.

I stressed the fact that you do NOT need to learn to use these reductions. In fact, it would sound very unnatural for you to do so now. Just wait ten or twenty years and these forms will creep into your language on their own. In the meantime, you need to be able to recognize and understand them when native speakers say them to you. So today was all about tuning our ears to these patterns of relaxed speech. These forms we talked about are not at all formal. They are the opposite of formal: very casual, to be used among children, relatives and very close friends.

Next we looked at a process called palatalization. We practiced saying words like tissue, issue, question, fortune, television, usual, soldier, gradual, etc. We analyzed together some rules for why we hear a /ʃ/ in issue and a /dʒ/ in gradual.

I gave you a table of rules so you could see what's what. We see that inside of a word, the palatalization is standard and has nothing to do with polite speech and relaxed speech.

Between words, like "Is your mother ready?" the palatalization will happen in fast speech. It's normal and again has little to do with formality.

In the third column we saw some forms that are very relaxed, an extreme example of palatalization combined with assimilation, vowels becoming schwa in function words, etc. For example, "got you" becomes "gotcha," and "did you" becomes "didja."

Okay, that's enough about assimilation, deletion and palatalization. Tomorrow we start our unit on consonants. We have lessons to help the Mandarin speakers, the Arabic speakers, the Spanish speakers and the Romanian speakers. It's gonna be...I mean it's going to be fun!

See you!