Error 1. Change the /s/ for /z/ (For example, the word ‘’was’’ should have a /z/ sound, not an /s/ sound)
Why does this error occur?: It occurs when non-native speakers cannot distinguish the pronunciation of both letters /s/ and /z/ as they can sound the same and it is because both sounds are produced in the same part of the mouth. We can find some differences; The /s/ sound is voiceless, and the /z/ sound is voiced, this means that the /z/ sound is a voiced sound because the vocal cords vibrate when the sound is emitted, and the /s/ sound is a voiceless or non-vocal sound because the vocal cords do not vibrate when the sound is emitted. Instead, we use air to emit the sound.
- Exercise 1: Practice the voiceless S sound and the voiced Z sound.
Instructions: Say these words out loud. The S sounds are in yellow, the Z sounds are in blue.
1. Is this house hers?
2. Six boys sat on the fence outside the store.
4. Sam is my son.
5. The seven dogs stay inside the house.
6. Please sit beside your friends.
7. The science quiz was easy.
8. The sun is so high in the sky.
9. He was so sad last Sunday.
10. The seven students took the first test for their driver's licenses.
- Excercise 2: Identifying sounds.
Instructions: With a red pencil mark the words pronounced with /s/ and with a blue pencil mark the words pronounced with /z/.
1. Sister
2. Zoo
3. Friends
4. Sunday5. Sits
6. Science
7. Bags
8. His
9. Roses
10. Face
Error 2. The pronunciation of the morpheme -ed in the past and participles
Why does this error occur? Regular conjugations in English are very easy, the past simple and the past participle are formed simply by adding “-ed” to the end. However, you have to be careful with that ending, which is not always pronounced the same: It is pronounced / ɪd / when it is preceded by “t” or “d”, as in wanted, expected, needed, or awarded. When immediately preceded by any voiced vowel or consonant, it is / -d /, as in the cases of playing, dribbled, touched, or moved. Finally, when "-ed" is preceded by a hollow sound, it is pronounced as / t /, for example, I liked, hit, jumped or packed.
- Excercise 1.
Instructions: Fill in the blanks and conjugate the verbs in the simple past tense:
Last night, my friends and I ____________ (decide) to go out. It was nice out, so we
_____________ (walk) downtown and _____________ (look) for a nice place to have drinks.
We all ____________ (settle) on a warm-looking and cozy pub, which ____________(ad-
vertize) a funk band playing that night. We ___________ (enter) and as we ___________ (glance) around, it _____________ (appear) that it was not too crowded. We ____________ (stay) anyway, and the concert was fantastic! We ____________ (dance) for hours and had a lot of fun!
- Excercise 2.
Instructions: Classify the following verbs in the corresponding columns according to their final sound /d/, /t/ or /id/.
1. played 2. wanted 3. kissed 4. helped 5. asked
6. needed 7. loved 8. started 9. stayed 10. walked
/d/ /t/ /id/
loved walked started
_______ _________ _________
_______ _________ _________
_______ _________ _________
_______ _________ _________
Error 3. Pronunciation of the /th/ sound
Why does this error occur? As we know there are 2 sounds in English pronunciation / θ/ and / ð/ Both are fricatives and are made with the tongue between or behind the teeth. The first thing to do to help students overcome this bad pronunciation habit is to show them that they need to put their tongues between or behind their teeth and let a puff of air out of their mouth. In this way, they will be able to practice the pronunciation of this consonant.
- Excercise 1. Say these words out loud
Instructions: Practice the voiced TH sound: ð
that
this
them
the
feather
weather
father
breathe
bathe
smooth
1.2 Practice the voiceless TH sound: θ
think
thin
thing
thanks
birthday
healthy
something
math
tooth
teeth
- Excercise 2:
Instructions: practice pronouncing these sentences using the 2 th sounds, then mark the phonetic symbol above the word.
1. I thank my three brothers.
2. My birthday is on Thursday April third.
3. These three teeth hurt in my mouth.
4. They went with their mother to the theater.
5. There are thirteen thin women there.
6. She has a loose tooth in her mouth.
Error 4. Get confused with the sound /c/ and the sound /k/
Why does this error occur? In English the letter 'c' is commonly pronounced as a /k/ sound, that is one of the reasons why Spanish speakers get confused in some words with /c/ and /k/. The letter c that is pronounced as /k/ can come almost anywhere in the word and comes before the vowels a, o, and u. If the word needs to contain a short vowel sound before the /k/ sound.
- Excercise 1.
Instructions: fill in the blanks with the correct sound, try to pronounce the word and identify the correct sound. You can be guided by the pictures.
3. bas_ et 4._rown
5._at 6. _up
7. _ar 8. bi_e
9. _lo _ _ 10. _amel
- Excercise 2.
Instructions: with a partner practice the pronunciation of the following words.
1. coin 2. carrots 3. cat 4. cap 5. kit
6. picnic 7. plastic 8. kid 9. cabin 10.panic
The process of learning English as a second language can be a challenge for students because we have a strong influence from our mother tongue and we often do a negative transfer from Spanish to English, we know that learning a second language involves committing errors but it is necessary to fix them if we want to be able to communicate correctly.
ReplyDeleteSo, it is important to have a good pronunciation from this way we can avoid misunderstandings.
I realize that we found some similar errors and I could practice with your exercises.
Something I liked is that you mention the error we make with past verbs we always generalize that they all go with "ed" and that they are therefore pronounced the same and we forget that it is not so that regular verbs in the past have 3 different pronunciations and that there are also irregular verbs.
I remember that when I was studying at Infop they mentioned to us about this but they never told us the reasons why, so I was lost all the time, I learned to pronounce them correctly until I started studying with the Mormons, there I realized that It is important for we that our teacher explain the subject well, identify our errors, give us feedback and teach us strategies and games on how to correct them.
Jeimy Gabriela Nuñez Umaña.
Hello classmates!
ReplyDeleteI loved your blog. I liked that you have wrote relevant information and then, you provide exercises, I consider that for students it will be easy becuase they have the information near to the exercises. I loved the exercises that you have here, for me, those are funny and practice to do them. I really enjoyed to make them.
You have done an excellent job!
Congratulations! :)
By: Kellyn Mabel Bonilla Brand
Hello Rossely and Roxana!
ReplyDeleteLet me tell you classmates, that you did an excellent blog, I really liked to read it because it contains a lot of interesting thing such as the error that you found and each exercises that you created for each of them, I think that all the errors that you described are essential to practice and also to improve our English and be understand in a correct way. So classmates, you have an amazing creativity because all of your exercises are very useful to correct the errors that we commit, I know that practicing with this kind of errors student can improve their pronunciation and also have an excellent pronunciation.
By Allisson Sanchez