Tricky Plural Nouns
Our teaching theme on Sprout English this week is all about the pronunciation of plural nouns. As Tanya pointed out in her recent post, plural endings are tricky. My own son, who is a seven-year-old native English speaker, has difficulty with plural endings. He often ends up tongue-tied when trying to pluralize words that end in “th” (/θ/), such as “months”, or “st” as in “nest”. His tendency is to change the /θ/ to /f/, which is easier to say, or to give the word an /Iz/ ending (nestIZ) rather than the trickier /s/ ending. Helping him work on his pronunciation when the problem comes up (without making a big deal out of it) is my current approach as a parent.
As a teacher, it can be difficult to find time to work one-on-one with kids who are having pronunciation problems. Finding games that the whole class can play is a great way to help individuals without making them feel uncomfortable. One game that can be adapted in a variety of ways is the traditional memory game “In My Suitcase”. In this game, students sit in a circle and take turns adding items (orally) to an invisible suitcase.
I am going on a holiday. In my suitcase I will bring…an alligator.
The second person repeats the first item and adds a second item with the next letter in the alphabet: (more…)
