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Instituto de Educación Superior N.º 28 “Olga Cossettini”

Trayecto de Práctica: Fonología y Dicción II

Magic Achievement:
Getting Spanish speakers of English to
produce affricate and fricative sounds

Alejandro Hoet

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Index
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………... 3

Building second language learner’s phonological self-awareness……………………………. 4

The fricative and affricate sets in British English and Argentine Spanish……………………. 6

Phonological differences: RP English […] ……………...…………………………………….. 10

Methodology: Teaching fricative and affricate sounds to Argentine Spanish speakers……... 13

Methodology: proposed activities…………………………………………………………… 17

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………... 18

References…………………………………………………………………………………... 20

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Introduction

The prime objective of the following project is to stress the difference among the set of fricative

and affricate sounds in English – each group being composed of nine and two elements

respectively – and provide Spanish-speaking students of English with a set of tools that will

ensure both the accurate perception and production of these problematic sounds. The concern

that I want to express in this paper has to do with the poor training regular ESL students receive

which gives birth to unintelligibility when performing in L2. It is fundamental to mention that

some of the previously mentioned sounds are inexistent in the Castilian variety of Spanish spoken

throughout the area of the River Plate, which makes the production of such sounds even more

complex and challenging for students. Others exist with a slight variation in their manner or point

of articulation. Another reason why the production of these sets of sounds might be troublesome

has to do with the fact that, but for a handful of teachers – phonology ones included, the majority

of teachers of English as a Second Language (ESL) fail to consider pronunciation as an important

aspect of the English language. As a result, not so much attention is paid to pronunciation

teaching or learning which results in, as already stated, unintelligibility when producing in

English.

It is understood that the process of learning a second language entails the development of the

four basic skills: writing, reading, listening and speaking. These abilities have their foundations

in four main pillars – four systems: grammar, lexis, discourse and pronunciation (Uribe,

Fuentes, Vargas & Rey, 2019). When it comes to the ultimate goal of using a language,

communication, the phonological system plays an overriding role. Communication means to

understand and be understood. Therefore, pronunciation will determine the extent to which the

message is intelligible. Harmer (2001) emphasized that the main aim of teaching and learning

in any language is to enable students to communicate in the target language. As stated by

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Fangzhi (1998, p.39): “good pronunciation is closely linked with clear oral communication”.

Just like messy writing and doctors’ scribbles are a poor representation of the written language,

an unclear and lacklustre pronunciation is a poor representation of the oral language.

Intelligibility in the production of sounds may stem, among many factors, from the absence of

an accurate pronunciation model or the lack of practice. The latter contributes to a lack of self-

perception, which needs sharpening so as to produce sounds correctly. According to Harmer

(2001), a big number of teachers pay little attention to English pronunciation. Many are of the

opinion that as long as they can understand their students then polishing this skill is not

necessary. Many excuse themselves behind the idea that students will never achieve a native-

like pronunciation – when the aim should be intelligibility. As claimed by Harmer (2001), the

lack of high quality, suitable teaching and learning materials, and the lack of time to practice

pronunciation are the major reasons that cause teachers to pay little attention to English

pronunciation. As a result, the learner will perceive, produce and internalize sounds of the

target language based on the native language sounds. When accuracy is neglected, fossilised

pronunciation mistakes is the outcome. All in all, as educators, the onus is on us to teach our

students the way the different English sounds are produced in order to ensure intelligibility.

We have to facilitate learners’ learning pronunciation to improve their comprehensibility.

Building second language learner’s phonological self-awareness

Let us begin by posing the following interrogative: how do we define language awareness? It

is the “explicit knowledge about language, and conscious perception and sensitivity in language

learning, language teaching and language use” (Association for Language Awareness, 2012).

Then, how is this connected to the practice of teaching phonology? Phonological awareness is

seen as a composite of language awareness and it is the result of the combination of declarative

and procedural knowledge. The former has to do with all that knowledge that a student can put

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into words and make explicit; the latter would be intuitive knowledge that cannot be put into

words and that can only be accessed – in terms of phonology – through mimicry and imitation

tasks. Considering this, we can see why learning L2 pronunciation might be a complex and

demanding activity. Not to mention the fact that this aspect has to be combined with grammar,

lexis and vocabulary accuracy when expressing a message, which makes it even more daunting

for learners. The nature of speech makes conscious noticing of phonological features difficult

for L2 learners (Jilka, 2009). According to Schmidt (1995), if a (phonological) feature is not

noticed, it will not be acquired. For these reasons, helping learners to notice features of L2

pronunciation is paramount.

Therefore, the most effective way of teaching phonological awareness in a foreign language is

including activities that will bring specific and particular aspects into the students’

consciousness – this is known as consciousness-raising. These activities may include teaching

L2 phonology explicitly (Gordon & Darcy, 2016); comparing and contrasting L1 and L2

phonology (Paolantonio, 2009) and using articulatory and perceptual training. Consciousness-

raising activities will serve as tool for students to gain autonomy and make their process of

learning go beyond the boundaries of a classroom. In this way, learners will develop self-

monitoring abilities and therefore be in control of their pronunciation. What I mean by “be in

control” has to do with the fact that students will signal those aspects that they need to polish

in favour of their intelligibility and work on them – misunderstandings related to phonology

will no longer be a result of automatic mistakes produced when speaking.

In conclusion, I strongly believe that a combination of explicit teaching and self-awareness

should be aimed at when it comes to learning pronunciation. This method also goes hand in

hand with the main objective of education: providing students with a set of tools that will enable

them to continue learning on their own.

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The fricative and affricate sets in British English and Argentine Spanish

Argentina is a South-American country that covers a vast territory of land. Even though its

whole population does not concentrate in a specific point, people from very distant locations

manage to understand each other. This shows that, but for some geographical and regional

varieties, the pronunciation of what we know as “Argentine Spanish” or “River Plate Spanish”

is relatively unified and uniform (Coloma, 2017). Only those significant aspects in phoneme

variety will I highlight, if necessary. As for English, the focus will be on “Received

Pronunciation” (RP) - the standard way in which middle-class speakers of southern British

English pronounce words, according to the Cambridge Dictionary.

Fricatives are defined as consonantal sounds that are produced when the air escapes through a

narrow passage and therefore producing a hissing noise. These sounds are continuant as

speakers can continue producing them without any interruption as long as they have enough

air in their lungs. The fricative set in British English is composed of nine elements. Each

fricative, with the exception of the glottal one, has its counterpart. In other words, each place

of articulation has a pair of phonemes, one fortis and one lenis. Fortis sounds are articulated

with greater force as they do not imply vocal cord vibration. It must be highlighted that their

friction noise is louder. On the other hand, lenis fricatives entail the use of the vocal folds so

they are voiced – there is vocal cord vibration (Roach, 2012).

According to their place of articulation, fricative sounds can be classified as follows:

- Labiodental: the upper teeth articulate with the lower lip. Examples are “very” and

“ferry.”

- Dental: the blade of the tongue articulates with the upper teeth. The air escapes through

the gaps between the tongue and the teeth. Examples are “this” and “think.”

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- Alveolar: the blade of the tongue articulates with the alveolar ridge and the air escapes

through a narrow passage along the centre of the tongue. Examples are “prize” and “price.”

- Palatal: the blade of the tongue articulates with the alveolar ridge and, at the same

time, the front part of the tongue articulates with the hard palate. Most speakers tend to

round their lips when producing this sound. These fricatives are also called post-alveolar,

which can be taken to mean that the tongue is in contact with an area slightly further back

from the alveolar fricatives. If we produce the word “sip” and afterwards “ship,” we should

be able to feel that our tongue moves backwards (Roach, 2012).

- Glottal: in this case, the narrowing that produces the friction noise is between the vocal

folds. This consonant always has the quality of the vowel sound it precedes. Therefore, we

could say that, phonetically speaking, it is a voiceless sound with the quality of the voiced

vowel that follows it.

The fricative set in Argentine Spanish is composed of four elements (/f/, /s/, /ʃ/, /x/) and

allophonic variations of other consonantal sounds. It is worth highlighting that the consonant

phoneme inventory of the variety of Argentine Spanish differs from the Castilian Spanish in

two respects: the absence of /θ/, and the merger of /ɟʝ/ and /ʎ/ into a single phoneme (which is

here represented as /ʃ/). The merger of these sounds is known – in phonetics literature – as

‘yeismo’ while the absence of /θ/ (and its merger with /s/) is generally referred to as ‘seseo’

(Penny 2004: 118–121). All in all, the fricative set includes (Salcedo, 2010):

- Labiodental /f/: the upper teeth articulate with the lower lip as in the word “fama”.

- Alveolar /s/: it is produced as the fortis voiceless alveolar fricative in English – the blade

of the tongue articulates with the alveolar ridge and the air escapes through a narrow

passage along the centre of the tongue. For instance, “casa”. It is worth mentioning that in

complex clusters such as in the word “transporte” – very first syllable of this word – this

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sound is simplified or ‘aspirated’ and, therefore, pronounced as an English glottal fricative

/h/ (Salcedo, 2010).

- Palato-alveolar /ʃ/: this sound, as stated before, is the result of the fusion of /ɟʝ/ (as in

“conllevar” which is produced as a lenis voiced palato-alveolar affricate) and /ʎ/ (as in

“caballo” which should be pronounced as “million” in English). Its production involves

placing the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge and raising the front of the tongue

towards the hard palate. The word “ayer'' contains this sound.

- Velar /x/: in this case, the back part of the tongue articulates with the soft palate. It is a

central voiceless sound which means that there is no vocal cord vibration and that the air

escapes along the centre of the tongue rather than to the sides. Interestingly, this sound

appears in some dialects of English, as in Scottish English, in words such as “loch”. It can

also be found in words such as “ajo” in Spanish.

- Dental /ð/: when this sound appears in an intervocalic position or when it follows a

consonant other than /l/ or /n/, the sound is relaxed and similar to the English lenis voiced dental

fricative /ð/. For instance, “diferenciado”. It is worth mentioning that, in casual speech, this

sound is further relaxed and it even disappears in the “-ado” ending.

- Bilabial /β/: this sound is unknown in English and it is an allophonic variation of the Spanish

voiced bilabial plosive sound. It entails the articulation of both lips in order to produce a

fricative sound. There is a certain approximation between the upper and the lower lip. An

example is the word “bebé”.

- Velar /ɣ/: this is an allophonic variation of the Spanish obstruent sound /g/ and it is produced

by articulating the back part of the tongue with the soft palate. The air escapes along the

centre of the tongue rather than the side rims. An example of a word containing this sound

is “amigo”.

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As described by Fontanella (1987: 144–150), there used to be a variety of Buenos Aires Spanish

in which /ʒ/ and /ʃ/ were different phonemes, the former being used for most words written

with ‘y’ or ‘ll’ (such as lluvia ['ʒuBja] ‘rain’ or yuyo ['ʒuʒo] ‘weed’), and the latter being used

in borrowed foreign words (such as shampoo [ʃam'pu]). That distinction has almost disappeared

for the current generations of speakers, who either use [ʃ] or [ʒ] in all cases (Rohena-Madrazo

2013).

Affricate sounds are the combination of a plosive and a fricative sound. This means that these

sounds are articulated by producing a full obstruction to the flow of air by means of a complete

closure (closing stage); then the air is compressed behind this obstruction (compression stage)

and, finally, the air is released by slowly separating the articulators (release stage). This final

movement results in a narrow gap through which the air passes producing friction. The first

two stages correspond to the production of a plosive sound while the last one to a fricative

sound. The affricate set in British English is composed of two elements. These sounds are

opposing each other in terms of voicing and the degree of force implied in their production.

Affricate sounds in English are:

- Palato-alveolar /tʃ/: when producing this fortis voiceless sound, the blade of the tongue

articulates with the alveolar ridge and the front of the tongue with the hard palate. Words

containing this sound are “chop,” “achieve” and “patch.”

- Palato-alveolar /dʒ/: when producing this lenis voiced sound, the blade of the tongue

articulates with the alveolar ridge and the front of the tongue with the hard palate. Words

containing this sound are “jeans,” “agenda” and “hedge.”

The affricate set in Argentine Spanish is composed of two sounds. The first one can be

described – just like in Received Pronunciation English – as a fortis voiceless palato-alveolar

sound (/tʃ/ or /cˆ/). Examples of words containing this sound are “chapa” (metal sheet) and

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“agacharse” (to crouch down). On the other hand, we have to highlight that, due to regional

variations, the process of allophonic variation derives in the production of another affricate

sound /dʒ/. This is a lenis voiced palato-alveolar sound which can also be found in English as

a phoneme. Let us see some examples: in the Northeastern region of Argentina, many people

use the lateral palatal sound [ʎ] as an additional phoneme. This is also seen in speakers of

Paraguayan Spanish (Real Academia Española 2011: 226–227). Those people typically

pronounce the phoneme /ʃ/ as a voiced postalveolar affricate /dʒ/. This results in the distinction

between words such as haya ['adʒa] ‘there is’ and halla ['aʎa] ‘he finds’.

Phonological differences: RP English versus Argentine Spanish fricative and affricate

sounds

This section is aimed at identifying the areas of conflict between the fricative and affricate sets

in both languages. Turning the spotlight on these differences is fundamental as phonemes are

defined as the smallest distinctive segments of sound – they bring about a change in meaning.

For instance, it is not the same to say “search” /sɜːtʃ/ or “surge” / sɜːdʒ/. It is understood that

phoneme awareness is the most difficult level in the teaching process because students – no

matter how old they are – have to deal with the more abstract concepts of the language.

In order to see whether fricative and affricate sounds in English are similar or different to the

ones in Spanish, the following chart has been designed:

RP English Argentine Spanish Condition

Fast /f/ Farol (Street light) /f/ Same sound

Video /v/ Vista (Sight) /β/ Different sound

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Theory /θ/ - (Non-existent as a Different sound

phoneme)

That /ð/ Dedo (Finger) /ð/ Same sound

Sing /s/ Cena (Dinner) /s/ Same sound

Zoo /z/ Asno (Donkey) /z/ Different sound

It exists as an allophone
between voiced sounds.

Ship /ʃ/ Yacaré (Caiman) /ʃ/ Same sound

Pleasure /ʒ/ - (Non-existent as Different sound

a phoneme. It exists as
an allophone)

Hurt /h/ - (Non-existent as a Different sound

phoneme)

Chop /tʃ/ Chico (Boy) /cˆ/ or /tʃ/ Same sound

Ginger /dʒ/ - (Non-existent as Different sound

a phoneme. It exists as
an allophone.)

Having presented this information in a visual and clear way, let us focus on those sounds that

are different. Understanding and spotting where the difference in these sounds resides is going

to give us an insight into those techniques we could apply to help Argentine Spanish speakers

produce RP English fricatives and affricates in an both an appropriate and accurate way:

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The English phoneme /v/ as in “very” is the lenis voiced labiodental fricative sound. It is also

one of the cases in which we have an instance of spelling-to-sound correspondence: the “v” in

ordinary spelling matches this sound i.e. every time a student encounters a word containing this

grapheme, they will produce it a lenis voiced labiodental fricative sound. However, this

distinction has been ‘neutralised’ in Spanish: both “b” and “v” in ordinary spelling are

pronounced as a lenis voiced bilabial fricative /β/. Most of Argentine Spanish speakers, when

speaking in and/or learning English, tend to keep the same point of articulation as in their

mother tongue. This is known as "transfer mistake."

A word such as “think” is pronounced with a fortis voiceless dental sound. There is no

correspondent phoneme in Spanish – not, at least, in the River Plate variety. Nevertheless, if

we pay close attention to the Castilian variety spoken in Spain, we can identify the same sound

in words such as “zapato” (shoe). It is worth mentioning a phenomenon known as “seseo”

/seseo/ which is a lack of distinction between fortis voiceless alveolar fricative sounds /s/ and

fortis voiceless dental sounds /θ/. In this way, both sounds are simplified into a fortis voiceless

alveolar fricative sound. For instance, the words “casa” (house) and “caza” (hunt) would be

pronounced exactly the same way: with a fortis voiceless alveolar sound. Even though this

might cause ambiguity, it can be interpreted due to the context. This phonological phenomenon

occurs in nearly all speakers in Hispanic America: it is considered standard in all varieties of

Latin American Spanish. In a few words, due to this phenomenon, this lenis voiced dental

fricative sound is non-existent in our Argentine Spanish variety. However, we can find it in

word-final position as in “pared” (wall) and “piedad” (pity).

The lenis voiced alveolar fricative sound /z/ as in “busy” is non-existent in Argentine Spanish

as a phoneme itself. In contrast, it is an allophone of its voiceless counterpart – as in “sister”.

It occurs before voiced consonants as in “Comunismo” (Communist). However, this sound

may be “debuccalised” or “aspirated”. This means that, especially in our country, syllable-final

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/s/ and its allophonic variation /z/ is either pronounced as a fortis voiceless glottal fricative /h/.

Or, it is not pronounced at all.

When it comes to the English sound lenis voiced palato-alveolar fricative /ʒ/ as in “treasure”,

we can say that it does not exist en Argentine Spanish. According to Claudia S. Salcedo (2010),

one distinctive aspect of speakers of the River Plate area is the use of a sibilant sound for the

lenis voiced palatal fricative /y/ - normally manifested as a voiced palato-alveolar fricative as

well - in general American Spanish. The allophonic variation produced by River Plate speakers

is similar to the English lenis voiced palato-alveolar fricative in English. This articulation is

known as “rehilamiento” in Spanish, which is simply adding vocal cord vibration to the

articulation of a sound. This distinctive feature is known as “yeismo”. There is no audible

distinction between the “y” and “ll” – both written forms of the /y/ phoneme – but there is a

distinction with words spelled with the phonetic representation “hi + e”, for instance, “Mayo”

(May) becomes /maʒo/, “llama” becomes /ʒama/, but “hiedra” (ivy) becomes either /iedra/ or

/yedra/. However, in Buenos Aires, this lenis voiced palato-alveolar fricative sound has

recently been devoiced to /ʃ/ among younger speakers (Salcedo, 2010).

The fortis voiceless glottal fricative does not exist as a phoneme in the Argentine dialect but it

occurs as an allophone of /s/ and /z/ when they are aspirated.

Methodology: Teaching fricative and affricate sounds to Argentine Spanish speakers

When teaching fricative and affricate sounds to River Plate Spanish speakers, it is fundamental

to take into consideration the previously mentioned phonological differences in order to

understand the challenges they might face when producing these sounds. At this point, it goes

without saying that aided and guided self-perception of the articulation for each sound is vital.

Not to mention, according to my own experience, the need to link the target sound to a

particular familiar situation when these phonemes or articulations are produced in L1. The

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following section presents a series of activities and/or tips ESL teachers can put into practice

and apply when teaching fricative and affricate sounds to Argentine Spanish speakers:

· When it comes to the lenis voiced labiodental fricative sound /v/, our aim as ESL

teachers is to get our students articulate the upper teeth with the lower lip. The fortis

voiceless counterpart /f/ – which exists in both languages – can be taken as a starting

point. We can guide our students to produce this sound by imitating the gesture we

make when showing disapproval of someone we do not tolerate: biting our lower

lip. It has to be highlighted that this is a mere familiar representation of this point

of articulation - biting the lower lip that hard is not the intended aim. Once students

are acquainted with it, it is time to add voicing to the sound: while they are

articulating both upper teeth and lower lip, we can ask them to produce the

necessary effort to make their vocal folds vibrate and produce a voiced sound. As

this is a continuant sound, students can be asked to produce it until they feel the

vibration in their lower lip making it tickle. At the beginning, exaggerating the

sound can be useful to stress the difference between the lenis voiced and the fortis

voiceless alveolar fricatives. Using minimal pairs is another way to highlight the

difference between both sounds.

· Even though the fortis voiceless fricative sound /θ/ does not exist in Argentine

Spanish as a phoneme, we can establish a similarity with the pronunciation of the

grapheme “z” in countries such as Spain. The word that can be taken as a reference

is “zapato” (shoe) as pronounced with a Spanish accent. In order to teach this sound,

we can ask students to imitate the gesture we do when shushing someone – the index

finger is pressed against the lips. While keeping the same position, students need to

touch their finger with the tip of their tongues. It is important to stress that, when

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doing so, they need to feel their tongues are trapped between both upper and lower

teeth. They should not apply any pressure on their tongues as the following step

consists of exhaling, allowing the air to escape between the upper teeth and the

upper part of the tongue. This is a voiced sound so vocal cord vibration is not needed

at all.

So as to make the teaching-learning process of this sound more effective, engaging

and entertaining, students can be shown some extracts from the film “Puss in boots”

in which the main character is played by Antonio Banderas. Being a Spanish actor,

his pronunciation of this sound in words such as “thanks” and “death” makes the

point of articulation evident. We can get students to imitate him and/or read some

lines from the film.

· The lenis voiced alveolar sound in English /z/ only exists in Argentine Spanish

as an allophonic variation of its fortis voiceless counterpart between voiced sounds.

This sound can be taught by simply asking our students to picture themselves in that

uncomfortable situation in which one wants to get to sleep, however, the sickening

sound of a mosquito flying near to our ears prevents us from doing so. They have

to imitate this buzzing audible sound. In this way – establishing a connection

between a traumatic experience such as this one, irony intended, and this sound –

the articulation of this sound will be more memorable for learners.

· The lenis voiced palatal sound in English /ʒ/ is a problematic one, as it does not

exist as a phoneme itself in Argentine Spanish. However, it can be simply taught by

asking our students to imitate the shushing sound we produce when we want

someone to be or remain silent. As this is a continuant sound, we can get our

students to produce it and, when doing so, we can ask them to imagine that they are

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turning on an engine. Imitating this entails vocal cord vibration so, when adding

this, they will eventually produce the intended sound. We can play with students by

asking them to imitate the revving sound of an engine and change its intensity. In

this way, they will get familiar with the articulation of this sound.

· When Argentine Spanish speakers pronounce words in English, they might produce the

fortis voiceless glottal fricative sound /h/ as a voiceless velar fricative one /x/. In order to

polish the articulation of this sound, we can ask our students to picture themselves in front

of a window or a mirror. They want to leave a message or make a drawing – let us say a

heart – on it. To do this, learners need to mist or fog the surface. This action resembles the

very same articulation of the target sound. If the voiceless velar fricative point of

articulation is applied when doing this, then the intended effect will not be achieved. An

actual mirror can be used to show this. In this way, we can get our students to produce the

sound as they should.

· The production of a clear and precise lenis voiced palato-alveolar affricate sound is at the

core of self-perception, for Argentine Spanish speakers. We can ask our students to bring

their articulating organs together in order to produce a fortis voiceless palato-alveolar

affricate sound without releasing it. Learners can be asked to cover their ears with the palm

of their hands and, keeping the point of articulation mentioned above, produce a lenis

voiced alveolar nasal sound /n/. It is important that they produce this sound while

articulating it as a palato-alveolar one. In this way, they will not only hear but also feel the

voicing our target sound requires. Once they are familiar with this, we can ask them to

repeat the process and release the sound as if they were rubbing their tongues against their

palates, moving the former forwards. This series of steps can culminate in the production

of a Spanish “o” sound – students can be encouraged to pronounce the first person singular

personal pronoun “I” (“yo” in Spanish) as in most countries in Central America.

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It goes without saying that the activities mentioned above have to be coupled with the practice of

minimal pairs to reinforce these problematic points of articulation. As we might already know,

repetition is of uttermost importance when learning the pronunciation of certain sounds in RP

English. Moreover, teachers may use pictures, gestures and even other instances of visual material

to aid their teaching process.

Methodology: proposed activities

Learners can develop articulatory control over the sounds of a language by means of repetition and

drilling, according to Thornbury (2005). In this way, we can ensure our students learn the correct

pronunciation of new items. Moreover, no longer will students hesitate when pronouncing those

words they have already practised when speaking spontaneously – therefore, drilling can also be

considered a fluency-enhancing technique. Therefore, learners will speak not only in a more natural

but also more confident manner.

Having considered this, I have decided to propose a series of activities to make the acquisition of

some English sounds easier and more meaningful for students when learning English as a second

language. These activities are focused on some of those problematic English sounds for Spanish

speakers. It is expected that, by incorporating such activities in class, perception as well as

production will be honed. Let us begin with the fricative set:

• So that students can practice the pronunciation of the lenis voiced palatal fricative in a controlled

and gradual way, I propose using the following set of sentences containing both sounds. When

reading them aloud, I strongly believe, students will determine the difference in their production as

these consonants are show in opposition. Choral drilling is also advisable in this exercise:

“She showed me the trash in the garage.”

“We shared leisure time in Asia.”

“Confusion was caused by the invasion trying to establish the position of the treasure.”

“On that occasion she couldn’t measure the unusual fish.”

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The following activities revolve around the English affricate set:

• So as to work with the fortis voiceless palato-alveolar affricative, I suggest what I have called a

“Spanish-English words ping pong”. The teacher divides the board in halves – one containing

English words and the other Spanish ones. The former may contain: Chinese –Chat – Ranch – Much

– Chimp - Chewing gum – Cheat – Check – Chest; the latter: Chino – Charla – Rancho – Mucho –

Chimpancé – Chicle – Chantajear – Chequear – Pecho. These words have to be scrambled as

students have to find, within a certain time limit, the Spanish translation for those in the first column.

It is by no chance that both words in both languages contain the very same sound – the fortis

voiceless palato-alveolar fricative. Once this first stage is completed, students are encouraged to

read the pair of words aloud. It is advisable to begin with the Spanish one so that they can see that

it is the same sound and, therefore, when producing the English words, anchor this sound to a term

they are familiar with in their mother tongue.

• In order to work with both the fortis voiceless and the lenis voiced palato-alveolar affricate sounds,

I suggest a game called “The minimal pear”. Students are given a photocopy containing different

ingredients fruits and vegetables that can be found in this grocery store. They need to classify them

according to their sound. The list may include: cherries – cheese – ginger – orange juice – cabbage

– artichoke – chili – chickpea – spinach – peach – jackfruit. Once students have sorted them

according to their sounds, they are encouraged to read them aloud, paying attention to the sound

featured in each group.

Conclusion

All things considered, it goes without saying that both the fricative and affricate sets in Received

Pronunciation English pose a real, considerable challenge to Spanish-speakers learners of English.

Should teachers not devote enough time and effort into practising each problematic sound not only

in isolation but also in terms of minimal pairs, these phonemes will always represent a source of

unintelligibility. As the aim of learning a language has to do with communicating one’s message in

the clearest possible way, working on these sounds will definitely contribute to this objective.

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Although some of these sounds may be non-existent in Spanish, we can get our students to produce

them by means of encouraging self-perception. To put it simply, learners need to be fully aware of

what is taking place in their mouths when producing sounds in the target language. In order to

enhance these self-perception skills, some playful activities have been proposed in this paper. If

these activities are applied in class, students will no longer struggle to produce a clear fricative or

affricate sound and, most importantly, will have the possibility of getting their message across

clearly and effectively.

Magic Achievement – Alejandro Hoet

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Magic Achievement – Alejandro Hoet