/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Well, I'd start by putting emphasis on the English alphabet pronunciation.. that is, getting them to pronounce each letter exactly the way we do, instead of the Kata equivalents. You may not need to touch on all the letters, but at least make it clear that "r" is not actually pronounced "aru" like they're first taught. It's "arr". "L" is not "eru", "G" is not "gu"; it'd could easily be a few lessons in of itself trying to get them to say these or even try to note the movements of the mouth/tongue to say these words (that's the most alien part to them), although, I don't know if you have the time or permission in your program to do this. Maybe as extracurricular or during breaks or something, if any curious students are willing to sit around and participate.

You could then extend this to syllables too, especially ones that are not at all intuitive. Imagine just learning English, and not knowing anything remotely similar to it, and being confronted with the "pr" in "pretty" as your example. Your students wouldn't really have a clue how to tackle it on their own, since they can't just ask a native English speaker "hey how is this word pronounced" every time they come across something, with the rare exception of when they're in your class... so, they just use the kata system because it takes a metric shit ton less effort for them to understand, and gets it to sound basically close enough to their ears.

English is full of syllables that look strange or even unpronounceable on paper to people who didn't grow up constantly learning and refining how written English translates to spoken. Ones involving R and L would obviously be the ones that they will probably need to practice most. There are certain words good for teaching them syllables and pronunciation, such as "glamorously", "gliding" etc.

>>5828377