“ENGLISH!” I said.
“English, English, English, English!”
Wait, maybe I should start at the beginning.
Today we started consonant clusters. We had already learned about some internal consonant clusters that native speakers simplify, such as by dropping the /d/ sound in “handsome.” I told them about initial consonant clusters, where it’s important to pronounce every sound while not inserting any extra vowel sounds.
I passed out the day’s handout with a box at the top full of some new and some familiar soccer vocabulary: Soccer City stadium, speed, strength, sport, striker, score, Spain, Switzerland, jersey, cleats, etc.
I made three columns on the board for initial, interior and final clusters. Then I got them to shout out to me which words from the box belonged under column one. Then we filled column two and three. The purpose of this activity was just to make sure we all know what a consonant cluster is. The second purpose of the activity was to point out that internal clusters sometimes take care of themselves because each of the consonants belongs to a different syllable. Example: busting. Yes, there is an “st,” but you can say bus-ting. Also some final clusters become easier if the following word starts with a vowel sound. “It was the best of times.”
Next we did an oral exercise to raise awareness of the importance of not inserting vowel sounds where they don’t belong. I made them say pairs such as: prayed/parade; train/terrain; claps/collapse. Two of my three Spanish speakers were absent, so the one who remained had to bear being picked on a bit while I tried to get her to say the following pairs differently:
It’s a very big state. It’s a very big estate.
Do you steam them? Do you esteem them?
I taught her two tricks to help her. One is to start with a long “ssssss” sound like a snake, then glide right into the rest of the word. Sssssstreet. The other is to say “this treat” instead of “the street.” You trick your brain.
Next I gave them five minutes to find all the initial consonant clusters in a passage. When–after three minutes–some were done, I had them find the interior and final ones, too. I’m learning ways to keep my advanced students busy.
Then we took those up, practicing orally checking which words we thought started with clusters.
For the next activity, I had a surprise for them–one I knew they would love. As luck would have it, I had exactly eight students today. I passed out the eight photos I had cut out of MacLean’s World Cup issue this week and pasted onto construction paper. I then passed around the eight captions that I had glued onto manila stock, making sure I did not give any student the caption that actually went with the picture I’d given him/her. These captions had vocabulary words and consonant clusters we’ve been learning, such as “Ivory Coast’s Didier Drogba is a strong, explosive striker.”
I then told them that the captions did not match, and they needed to get them matched up by getting up and talking to their classmates. ”When you get them matched, bring them up here and line them up in the tray of the whiteboard,” I said.
They were soon up and milling about, happily chatting away. Then I noticed that in one pocket of the room, I was hearing A LOT of Arabic!
“ENGLISH!” I said.
“English, English, English, English!”
With a bit of trial and error, they managed to get them all matched, at which point they seemed very proud of themselves.
I think I’m not strict enough. It was time for a tiny speech. I told them I had spent two hours of my weekend cutting out and gluing pictures so that they could practice their ENGLISH, not so they could practice their Arabic.
I think they felt appropriately contrite.
Class ended before we got a chance to talk a lot about the pictures, so on Monday I might also have them repeat the matching activity only this time sitting with the picture hidden in their laps so that they have to describe the picture while the whole class listens. I don’t think that’s too much to ask since we’ve spent the whole week talking about soccer. Then I can have them divide into pairs to talk about one or two pictures each, then tell the class what their picture is about.
Monday we’ll start palatalization and my topic is Fireworks Night in Windsor.
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