Thursday, November 20, 2014

Nicky_TP_#11

11/19/14 TP 11
    Around three o’clock I met with Heelee. Though normally I am her conversation partner she decided to use me to help her with some homework. She figured it would be a great opportunity to get a native speaker to help her with pronunciation. She is really struggling with the pronunciation of Rs and Ls. Her teacher had given her a worksheet on tongue twisters. She did fairly well except she would focus so much on the correct pronunciation of one word in the sentence that all the rest of the words starting with R or L were ignored. I tried giving her other common examples of words that have the re sound, such as rewind. I said if you can pronounce rewind then you can pronounce the beginning part of the word reaped. I also tried giving her the definition of certain words and how they mean completely different things if they are pronounced with an L vs and R. For example, fright vs flight.

   Ultimately I gave her a few tips on songs she can practice pronunciation. I found songs helped me with my Spanish accent the best. I suggested a really silly song by Lady Gaga called Bad Romance. I told her Lady Gaga videos are really strange so don’t watch the video but the lyrics would help her immensely. Now there is one curse word but I told her this is a song usually listened to young Americans that is very popular. I would not suggest this song to a class but for a friend I thought it would work.The more I listened to this song the more I realized that this is such a good song for Rs and Ls in the chorus.

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