Hello everybody,
I'm a M.Ed. student confronted with the task of planning a lesson for teaching German learners the correct pronunciation of the sound /w/. I was thinking about working with little mirrors that the children hold up in front of their mouth to check if they're moving their lips correctly, because it is the most common and apparently a very effective method. But because it is so common, my lecturer is expecting something else. A new way of teaching pronunciation that my fellow students havent heard of yet. I was thinking about instructing them and let them repeat the sound a couple times in a row in a very exaggerated manner and then letting them turn to their partners in order to check each others pronunciation. The child takes over the function of the mirror so to speak. Now I want to hear from experienced teachers, whether they think this is a good idea, or if you can think of a better, more effective method to teach pronunciation!?
I'm thankful for every sort of advice! :)
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Hi lilly87 !
Your way of teaching the /w/ sound seems good. However, I have an activity that might just do the job for you better. Ask each learner to put their pens in their mouth. (Please make sure they are clean. You don't want a hygeine situation in your classroom!) Once all of them have done that, ask them to form a round 'O' with their lips and enunciate the /w/ sound. The pen will prevent the lower lip from touchin their teeth and hence differentiating it from the /v/ sound.
And there you have it - the perfect /w/ !
Let me know what you think.
Hi lilly87 !
Your way of teaching the /w/ sound seems good. However, I have an activity that might just do the job for you better. Ask each learner to put their pens in their mouth. (Please make sure they are clean. You don't want a hygeine situation in your classroom!) Once all of them have done that, ask them to form a round 'O' with their lips and enunciate the /w/ sound. The pen will prevent the lower lip from touchin their teeth and hence differentiating it from the /v/ sound.
And there you have it - the perfect /w/ !
Let me know what you think.
I also think so.
W sounds are tricky, not just for Germans!
Consider the sounds of, 'we knew what we wanted, it was just that we were not willing to watch water wasted.'
The sound of the W is modified slightly by the following letter. It is also modified if it is not the first letter of the word, as in knew.
The last three words have three different W sounds; wot, wort, waist, all slightly different.