Mad Gabs: Pronunciation and listening practice

Last Thursday I taught what must have been one of my most successful "talk sessions" ever. For my students, a talk session is where a large group (up to 15 people) of a similar level get together to do just that: talk. I facilitate the conversation, I interject questions when things start to go dry, or I orchestrate games or debates. This week with a group of upper-intermediate to advanced students, I decided to take the talk to a new level and concentrate on pronunciation.

There is a great board game that I remembered playing back in America called "Mad Gabs". Basically you have a card with what looks like nonsense written on it and you have to read it out loud until you figure out what you are saying. To take a really simple example, "Bri Tinys Pears" would be, as you probably guessed, "Britney Spears".

My objective was to force the students to stop depending on the written words in front of their face and to open their ears. I wanted to put everybody on an equal playing field by getting everybody just outside of their "comfort zone" rather than having one or two students with more confidence guessing all of the answers.

The way I set the game up was by having students read phrases off of a paper that were written how they sound and not how they should be spelled. Words ran into each other -- "aryagona getta kupa kofy" -- to get them thinking about where we put liasons in speech. Depending on where the native English speaker is from liasons can happen almost anywhere so this is tricky, but making students aware is the first step.

After everybody had read a phrase and was sufficiently relaxed/prepared, we started the game. I made it into an individual competition rather than a team or partners exercise by having each student read a phrase and the first person to guess it correctly was awarded the point. It took a lot of coaxing -- "you are doing great, repeat it again please" -- to get them into it, but by the end of the hour we were all laughing and they truly couldn't get enough of it. I have already decided that I will try this tomorrow with a slightly lower level of students to test how it will go, and that this will be a game my higher level students will play again in the future.

Here are the "warm up" phrases that I had the students read: 

Shwist Art Nao
Dywanna gedda koghy?
Eyve taleve
Ahye Gonaseim Biforee Gos?
Shizbin Promo Tidd
Shewiz Let
Didjego Winto Theofiz

And without further ado, the Mad Gabs printables that I found here: 

Isle of View

Easel Aid Ease Man

Eye Pillow Fizz Sigh

Of Lions Quarrel

Downed Rink Hand Arrive

Dew Wino Hue

Sea Can’t Higher Dove Fit

Ape Hand Hub Hair

Pretty Shack Scent

Dant Sir

Ail huck each arm

Brit Knees Peers

Black Beer Herd

Bon Knee Ankle Hide

By Chore Dung

Abe An An Appeal

Abe Autumn Lisp Hit

Abe Ax Tree Tally

Abe Hum Pen Thin Height

Ago Tidy Yeah

Ahems Hand Which

Ace Date Tough Gay Hoss

Ace Heck Hunch Ants

Ace Kits Offer in Hick

Ace Leap Lesson Height

Ace Lie Soap Eye

 Ace Nose Dorm

Ace Pea Ding Tea Kit

 Ache Hand He Eye Pull

Ache Hick Kin Tub Hut

Ache How Cue Later

Ache Leans Hurt

Ache Off Cores

Ache Up Puck Off He

Acre Hill Uh

 Age High Knees West Want

 Aged Who Woe

Agree Nap Hull

 Backed Ooze Queer Won

Bagged Who Thief Huge Her

Baldy Gull

Aid Are Crank Loud

Aid Arrive Her Slice Sins

Aid Hay Huff Ache Asian

Bee Way Rough Thud Hog

Bet Relate Thin Heifer

Aid Inn Hearse Owl Add

Aim Adder Rough Open Yen

Monk Ease

 Can Grew

Cause Mid Ticks Urge Jury

 Aim Hiker Owes Cope

Aim Honey Bag Care Runt He

Aim Other Ranch Howled

Aim Us Key To

Aim Who Vi


Stumped as to what they could be? Read them out loud as you'd have your students do until you find the answers! I'll post the answers next time so that you can test how you did.

This is only a selection of the phrases Wuzzles and Puzzles had available, so feel free to check out their site to get more. To make it more adapted to a particular group  you could even go as far as to make your own with key expressions and vocabulary words for their jobs/needs. I could have included something like "Gew Gull Anna Lit Tics" for my favorite web analyst, for example.


Thinking about giving it a try? Print off the list, cut them apart and let the games begin.
How do you practice pronunciation and listening with your students?

Pronunciation: Common Mistakes by French Speakers

The French are famous for their cheezy accent when speaking English. More times than I can count, students have come to me telling me that they want to work on their accents. The hardest phonetic sounds are R's, the "th", and vowels at the beginning of a word.

"R" is often pronounced like "Air" instead of a pirate's "Arrrrgh" or a tiger's "RrrrrRrrr". I know I must look absolutely ridiculous when I'm teaching but making a pirate scowl or a tiger growl usually gets people laughing, no matter their age.

The "TH" is just plain and simply ignored. I try to get my adults to put their tongues between their teeth when practicing this sound, but they just feel ridiculous. The more comfortable they are with you the more they'll dare to be embarrassed, but more likely than not, this is a sound I will be repeating for years and years to come -- until classroom teachers finally decide that they'll teach people how to say it correctly while they are still small, and not to say just a simple "T", a "Z" or a "D", as one poor primary school classroom teacher said.

Vowel sounds at the beginning of a word are tricky because a lot of people will put a mysterious, breathy "h", turning "ate" into "hate" and "apple" into "happle". I've observed this for long enough to have figured out that they just plain and simply don't hear it, which makes it hard to correct it.
So if they can't hear it, then what sense can you evoke to make them aware of the mistake they are making?

I have my students put their hand under their mouth and practice saying different words with breathy h's and non-breathy h's (think "horse" verses "hour") and then practice saying words that begin with pure vowels (apple, earth, orange, etc.).  When they feel their hot breath on their hands, they will realize what a breathy "h" feels like. Then, if they say "hate" instead of "ate", they will plain and simply feel their mistake. This requires practice and repetition, but it's a simple reminder just putting your hand as the teacher under your own mouth to remind them of breathy or non-breathy "h" sounds at the beginning of words.

What sounds have you mistakenly heard your students making and how did you go about fixing them?

Who Am I?

ESL by Amber -- but who is this Amber character?

In short : American. Mother. Sister. Daughter. Friend. Teacher. Coach. Trainer. Instructor. Translater  Interpreter. 26 years old. Lives in Roubaix, France.

When my fifth year of teaching came to and end and I still had the desire to be a teacher, I realized that in short, I had "made it". The first five years are the make-it-or-break-it years for teachers, especially when you live in a foreign country. Lots of people fall into this job because it's something they can do in their foreign country while they are learning the language or while they are in transition. I am not one of those people. Teaching was a deliberate choice for me, even more so teaching language.
I can proudly say that in my sixth year of teaching, I am a "young veteran" of ESL in France, and that after six years in this country, a year of which I have been teaching independently, I still love teaching, but I love pedagogy even more.

So I'm a teacher. But who do I teach?

I teach babies. I teach toddlers and little kids. I teach big kids. I teach adults that think they are big kids but behave like little kids. I teach the serious, the laid-back, the old souls and the young at heart. It doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, smart or struggling... in short, I just teach.

I spent a year teaching primary school and a year teaching preschool. I spent four years teaching in a private business school parallel to teaching adults in companies. I've spent the last year specializing in English coaching and training for Web and IT professionals, from back/front end developers to designers, from SEO project managers to web analysts, from the big boss to the secretary -- I've taught them all. My clients at the moment are web agencies full of dynamic individuals who need to use English for their jobs... but that doesn't mean that's all. I go through life with my "teacher hat" on -- if people ask me questions, I answer them. If there's any opportunity to teach somebody something, I take it.

But how do I do it?

With a carefully planned schedule and an open heart and mind, that's how! More specifically though, I use the direct method. That means that my learners and I speak English, or the target language, 100% of the time that we are together from the first day of their classes to the last day, whether we are in the classroom or in front of the coffee machine. They learn through speaking, through making mistakes, and being corrected first by their peers, then by me. They learn through prompts which encourage them to speak on their level, about a variety of subjects that have meaning to the student. They speak within their learning zone by building on prior knowledge. We learn together by correcting eachother, asking questions, and motivating each other. 

For my students and I, confidence, trust and security are the key elements to creating a positive environment for fostering learning. 

Okay. Is that all?

No. I also teach teachers. I pride myself in my network of education professionals because just like our students, we can also learn from each other! I believe in sharing my experiences and explaining the difficulties I've come up against and how I managed. Most of all, I believe in learning from our mistakes, testing out new ideas and concepts, and encouragement, encouragement, encouragement.

The majority of the adults I work with come to me with excuses -- "sorry for my bad accent!" "Excuse me for my weak vocabulary!" "Oh, this would be easier in French!" -- afraid to make mistakes or be laughed at. In my lessons, we laugh with each other and we learn and grow together.

But what makes me different?

I like best practices. I like learning from the people I teach. I want to create a user-friendly, ergonomic method of education. I want to create social learning where different teachers share ideas and can adapt them to whatever audience they may have. I want to promote a method of learning that will encourage and foster open, positive communication.

So why the blog?

I'm doing this for two reasons:
1) Every year I meet new teachers. They always have the same issues -- classroom management, not enough direction, boring resources, difficult age levels, misunderstanding of cultural norms. If I can share and encourage others to share their experiences with these issues, then we can all be more efficient and reduce the time it takes to adapt to a new group and get the learning started faster.

2) Every year I see new (old) resources. The same books and the same lessons over... and over... and over. I haven't found a single textbook that is tailored to my students' needs. I make a lot of my own stuff and I'm sure other teachers do too. Why not share it, why not adapt it, and why not use it? After all, nobody ever said that they wanted to "get rich teaching". We can't make a fortune off of this stuff, so why not "get rich" in experience instead? How can we do that? Well, first of all... by sharing!

So that's why I'm here. I'm here to share, to exchange experiences, and to grow as a teacher, a learner, and a human being. I'm here to give, and maybe to take. To ask you questions, and to answer yours. I'm here to motivate you to find a passion for learning and teaching, and to hopefully contribute something to your life, no matter how small.

Happy learning, happy discovery, and most of all, happy teaching.

Amber