Vowels, Consonants, Dictionary Symbols
Lesson Objectives
1. Learners will practice identifying and using phonetic symbols .
2. Learners will pronounce vowel and consonant sounds using their dictionary
symbols.
3. Learners will identify three or more words that are difficult for them to
pronounce.
Rationale
This lesson introduces vowel and consonant sounds by focusing on dictionary
skills. Although the focus of PFP is suprasegmentals, it is unwise and impossible
to ignore vowel and consonant sounds. It is our experience that teachers and
students rightly see sounds as important to intelligibility.
In English, many sounds do not have a one-to-one correspondence with spelling.
This makes use of a dictionary essential. If a student doesn’t know how to
pronounce a word, a good dictionary can be of help, but only if the student knows
how to use the dictionary and connect symbols to the sounds they are meant to
represent.
PFP does not try to teach phonetic symbols in any systematic way. We use
phonetic symbols when they are necessary, but there is no attempt to make
students into phoneticians who can read and transcribe such symbols. This chapter
focuses on most vowel and consonant symbols, while the next chapter (on word
stress) introduces symbols for marking stress and the extremely important
unstressed vowel, schwa.
This lesson is meant to be done in small doses over several days. The beginning of
each section is meant to be done during class-time with a teacher’s assistance. The
Exercises marked “Homework” are meant to be done by students on their own.
There is no communicative exercise section in this chapter.
Outline of the lesson
I.
Warmup – Difficult words
II.
Essentials A – Vowels
Exercise 1 – Vowel symbols in dictionaries (Homework)
Exercise 2 – Listening for vowel sounds
III.
Essential B – Consonants
Exercise 3 – Listening for consonant sounds
Exercise 4 – Pronunciation differences in similar words
Exercise 5 – Transcription practice (Homework)
IV.
Essentials C – Variation in pronunciation
Exercise 6 – Discussion of when to use certain pronunciations
V.
Essentials D – Weirdo Words
Exercise 7 – Using your dictionary to identify pronunciations
VI.
Outside the classroom