Error 1

Short and long vowel sounds often sound the same

    Explanation why this error occurs: That is because in Spanish there are five vowel sounds that correspond to five letters, that is, wherever you see the letter A it will sound the same. In English, this does not happen, because English is not a phonological language, which means that although in spelling there are only five letters to represent vowels, in phonetics there are around twenty vowel sounds. So in English when you see the letter A it is not always pronounced the same way. For example, in the word batter, the A sounds /æ/ but in the word barter, the A sounds /ɑ/.

    In order to generate these sounds, many students overstretch all vowel sounds or merge it with the closest sound in Spanish, and confuse pairs of short and long English vowel sounds such as "boat" and "sheep" in both comprehension and speech.

To fix the problem:

There are different exercises that students can do to improve, such as:

• Mouth exercises: When there is a long sound, you have to shape your mouth as you were smiling and then close down, this exercise students can apply them to enrich their pronunciation.

• Have fun with songs: Differentiating the different vowel sounds can be more exciting with songs. They are one of the best methods to teach short and long vowel sounds, because their rhythms may help students to acquire vowel sounds and remember them.

• Create Practice Sheets: Students can practice the short and long vowel sounds using activity sheets. This helps them acknowledge, comprehend, and differentiate the words.

• Recordings: Students can listen to and repeat vowel sounds that are difficult for them to recognize and record themselves. Then they can listen to their pronunciation and identify mistakes to improve.

Exercises to help improve the pronunciation of vowel sounds:

1. Whisper challenge

This activity consists of identifying words through pronunciation.

Materials

• Index cards
• A list of words
• Something to write with
• A pair of headphones
• A Device to play music

Set-up

• Two students must be chosen to play.
• Each player has a stack of five index cards.
• Both players write 5 words with long or short vowel sounds on index cards and place them face down in front of them. They do not reveal the words they have written to each other.
• These are the list of words that it can be use:

Long vowel sounds	Short vowel sound
Feet Cheap Seat Peel Eat Bean Heel Seen Leak These Seek Feel	Fit Chip Sit Pill It Bin Hill Sin Lick This Sick Fell

Instructions:

• One person puts the headphones on and turns on music. The music has to be loud adequate so that they cannot hear the other player talking.
• The other person then takes a card from the pile of cards and reads it, facing the person with headphones on.
• The person wearing the headset has to try to guess what word the person reading the card is saying.
• Then the player with the headset has three chances to guess the words on one of the cards in the stack, upon guessing the word the player with the headset has to say the word pair in order to win.
• After this the players switch roles, and the other person puts on the headset and tries to guess the words
• To end the first to three correct guesses wins!

2. Colored dice

This activity consists of pronouncing words, a fun way to practice.

Materials

• Colored dice.
• List of words with vowel sounds that are often difficult to pronounce for Spanish-speaking students.

Set-up

• All students must line up.
• Teacher will have a list of words that the students will read.
• These are the list of words that it can be use:

 

Red	Green	Yellow
Beat	Pool	Beach
Bit	Cot	Kid
Bark	Coat	Reach
Back	Dough	Rich
Wok	Dot	Had
Woke	Thought	Hard
Foot	Through	Heart
Food	Sheep	Computer
Pull	Shit	Company

Instructions:

• Students form two rows; each row will be a team.
• Each student will pass according to her turn.
• The student will take the colored die and roll it.
• The student must pronounce a word from the list according to the color that the dice shows on its face when it falls
• Once she pronounces the word correctly, she will get a point for her team.