Article | Published in The TES on 4th May 2012 | By: Catherine Paver - Modern Foreign Languages
Start with the sounds and pronunciation will follow...
“To speak a new language, become a new musical instrument,” a Spanish
teacher once told me. “Make new sounds.”
Introducing pronunciation this way is fun: it involves pupils physically
in the production of sound. They purr their way into French and growl
their way into German. You can go step by step, without giving tricky
explanations involving diaphragms and tongues. You are giving them phonics
and anatomy, but they remember it as “French tummies”.
Take the rolled “r”. They must watch your mouth when you say “error”
in English, then erreur in French. Your lips moved for the English “r”,
but not for the French “r”. That sound came from your throat, as if
you were purring.
Now make them purr at each other in pairs. If some still use their lips,
tell them to growl or gargle quietly instead. Once they can do it, in
plenary, tell them to put their hands on their waists and purr, growl
or gargle a big “r” together. They should feel their sides and tummies
expand briefly. Later, if the English “r” creeps back in, just say,
“French tummies, please!”
Build on their awareness of facial movement, too. Make an “oo” mouth
and then try to say “ee”. What comes out is the French “u”, as in “tu”.
Give pupils a general pronunciation rule and let them exaggerate it.
To sound French, stress the last syllable of a word. Take “Bizet”, for
example. Say “BEE-zay” and you sound English. Say “Bi-ZEH” and you sound
French. In groups, pupils can devise a short scene in which characters
exaggerate this rule.
Put pupils in pairs and give each pair a sound that occurs in the new
language. They must find a way to remember how to reproduce it. The
French word yaourt becomes a person dropping a giant yoghurt on someone’s
foot, with a cry of pain: “Ya-OURT!”
Sneaky rewards for correct pronunciation are fun. Tell the class that
when a word sounds right, it makes the thing appear to the listener.
Later, during group work, quietly put pieces of cheese on the desks
of pupils who are correctly rolling their “r”s in fromage. The look
on their faces when they see the cheese will be priceless.
Catherine Paver has taught French in England and English in Italy and
South Africa
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