Phonology

Good morning! How are you, everyone? Have you slept well yesterday?
Before we begin with anything, let me show a video. (After watching):
Lovely, right? You do like babies. Tell me, what did you see? What were
the babies doing? Did you hear any understandable language? Because
those two babies seemed to communicate understanding each other
though they are too young to speak any language; however, it seemed
that they have created their own language.

In life; there are many important things, but let me ask you something:
what is the most important thing in life? Don’t you think that languages
are the most important and basic elements in life? I mean, people need
to communicate, but wouldn’t it be very difficult, in fact; almost
impossible, to communicate without languages? Even in the Stone Age,
people used to communicate using their own and special language. The
idea is that languages are very important. Of course, we know that
many ways are used to communicate; and the most common and used
one is speaking. Well, speaking is about using and mixing certain
sounds to form meaningful words, phrases and sentences in all
languages. In English, two kinds of sounds are used to form the spoken
language, vowels and consonants. In English, these sounds and the
study of them is called Phonology (write “phonology” as a title on the
board).By the way, learning the basics of phonology means, at least,
learning the correct pronunciation, and this is what we are doing today.

To make it easy, let’s start first with how to produce the speech
sounds; how to pronounce words. (Show an image, point to it and
explain):
We produce the speech sounds with the help of the articulators. What
do we mean by articulators? They are the consisting parts of the vocal
tract which is the system of producing sounds. (Point to the image and
show them the vocal tract and the articulators): The vocal tract starts
from the larynx and ends with the nose and lips. Let’s have a look at the
articulators:

These are the lips, upper lip and lower lip. Behind the lips, we have
teeth, upper teeth and lower teeth. Just behind the upper teeth, we
have a small area called “Alveolar ridge”. Try to touch it with your
tongue. Of course, this is the tongue.The tongue is divided into
different parts (Show the image of the tongue): tip, blade, front, back
and root. By the way; the tip, front and back are the most important
parts of the tongue because they are used more than the others are.
(Go back to the articulators’ image). Now, we have the palate; the top
part of the inside of the mouth. The palate consists of two parts: the
hard palate which is just behind the alveolar ridge (it is called hard
palate because it is hard. Try to touch it with your tongue) and the soft
palate which is just behind the two (It is called soft because it feels soft.
Try to touch it with your back of the tongue). Finally, we have the
pharynx and the larynx.

In school, we have been taught that “a, e, I, o, u” are vowels, and the
rest of the letters are called consonants. But; today, you are going to
meet the real consonants and vowels. Let’s start with the consonants:

1- /p/, /b/, /m/: these sounds are pronounced with the lips touching
each other. (Let them practice by looking at the way you
pronounce them, and let them imitate you. Let them know the
 difference between /p/ and /b/ regarding voiceness.) e.g. put,
bed, mouth
2- /f/, /v/: these sounds are pronounced with the upper teeth
touching the lower lip. (Let them practice by looking at you) e.g.
for, van
3- /ð/, /θ/: these sounds are pronounced with the tip of the tongue
being between both the upper and lower teeth. (Let them
practice) E.g. the, throw
4- /n/, /d/, /t/, /l/, /s/, /z/, /r/: these sounds are pronounced with
the tip of the tongue touching the alveolar ridge. (Let them
practice) E.g. not, do, teach, learn, so, zoo, rabbit.
5- /ᶘ/, /Ʒ/: these sounds are pronounced with the front of the tongue
touching the hard palate.(Let them practice) E.g. Shy, measure,
treasure, vision, beige, illusion
6- /k/, /g/, /ŋ/: these sounds are pronounced with the back of the
tongue touching the soft palate. (Let sb do it) E.g. car, go,
swimming
7- /ʧ/, /dƷ/: these sounds are produced on two levels. First, you
produce the /t/ with the tip of the tongue touching the alveolar
ridge, then you produce the /ᶘ/ the front of the tongue touching
the region between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. E.g.
chair, judge, jog
8- /w/, /j/: are called semi-vowels because the way they are
pronounced is similar to the way vowels are pronounced, but they
are consonants. E.g. what, yellow

Now, let me give you some Arabic sounds:

1- ‫غ‬
2- Ҁ=‫ع‬
 3- ‫ح‬
4- H=‫ه‬
5- χ=‫خ‬
6- ‫ق‬
7- Ɂ=‫ء‬

(We will repeat them together. Then, I will distribute the cards
explaining what they have to do with them)

Now, we will start with vowels:

Examples
Vowels Beginning Middle End
/I/ Example Fix Lovely
/i:/ Eat Read See
/e/ Egg Bed ×
/ae/ Act Black ×
/u:/ Ooze Fool Do
/u/ Oops Put Two
/ᴐ/ Or Board Low
/D/ Orange Rock ×
/ɑ:/ Art Father Car
/ɜ:/ Earth Bird Fur
/ə/ About Collapse Cola
/Λ/ Under But ×

(Repeat them again without examples. Then, I will do an activity: I will

distribute small cards. On each card a vowel will be written, and
students have to pronounce it and give an example)
Now, let’s move to something called “Diphthong”. A diphthong is a
combination of two vowels, but they are considered to be as one
sound.

Diphthongs:

1-/aI/ Sky
2-/au/ How
3-/eI/ Hate
4-/əu/ Go
5-/ᴐI/ Boy
6-/eə/ Hair
7-/Iə/ Here
8-/uə/ Doer

1- /aI/ sky, fly

2- /au/ how, bow
3- /eI/ hate, fake
4- /əu/ go, low
5- /ᴐI/ boy, joy
6- /eə/ hair, fair, bear
7- /Iə/ here, fear, dear
8- /uə/ doer, poor, sure,

(Work in pairs. Give two examples for each diphthong)

Now, let’s move to the Triphthongs. A Triphthong is a bit similar to a

diphthong except that a triphthong is a combination of three vowels,
but they are considered to be one sound.
 Triphthongs:

1-/aIə/ Fire
2-/auə/ Power
3-/eIə/ Player
4-/əuə/ Lower
5-/ᴐIə/ employer

1- /aIə/ Fire, lier, tyre

2- /auə/ Power, flower, coward
3- /eIə/ player, prayer, slayer,
4- /əuə/ thrower, lower, blower
5- /ᴐIə/ employer, destroyer

(Repeat them. Let them give you examples.)

After you have learned the basic elements of phonology, you can now
transcribe. To transcribe means to show the speech sounds using the
phonetic alphabet, consonants and vowels. In other words, we will
learn how to use the vowels and the consonants to represent the
sounds of words.

When transcribing, use /ə/ when you have words ending with “-or” or
“-er”.

(Teach them: fix, eat, egg, act, fool, put, or, rock, father, earth, sister,
under, fly, how, hate, go, boy, hair, here, doer, fire, power, player,
lower, employer)
(Give them transcriptions of some words, and let them write them in
ordinary spelling)

Transcription is also useful to read words from dictionaries. (Show the

image of the dictionary)

(Make them listen to a song. Then, repeat it and let them play a game.
Divide them into two groups and make a competition. The two groups
are competing to find consonants, vowels, diphthongs and triphthongs
in the song within the words. They have to give me the the word that
has the phonetic sounds. Consonant=1point – vowel=2 p– diphthong=3
p– triphong= 4p)

Now, let’s move to the Phonetic Processes. They are kind of rules that
help you pronunciation get better.

1- The first one is called cluster simplification (Write it). It means to

delete the middle consonant of three consonants following one
another while pronouncing them.
Example: sounds: (underline the three consonants with different
color) in this word, there are three consonants following one
another: n, d and s. According to the Cluster Simplification
process, we don’t pronounce the “d”.
Other examples: pounds, sandwich, handsome.
2- The second one is called Vowel Reduction or Shortening. It means
to change any vowel into a schwa when pronouncing fast. We do
this process when to make pronunciation easier when speaking
fast.
Example: (Read this sentence fast) “I can do it.” In this sentence,
“I” is pronounced as /ə/ instead of /aI/, and “can” is pronounced
as /kən/ instead of /kaen/.
Other examples: to: /tə/ instead of /tu/.
Should: /ᶘəd/ instead of /ᶘud/.
Finally, make a summary with some questions and finish.