TEFLees in Spain

It’s taken me about a month of teaching, but I’ve finally realized one thing: my students have to improve their pronunciation. This is not at simple as it may appear. Okay, so maybe I’ll just say a word loud and slow, emphasizing the key sounds. Have the students repeat until they get it. Sounds easy, yes?

As I’ve discovered, this is not always the case. The more advanced classes get it with no problem. Those students have been studying English their whole lives and are toeing the ever elusive fluency line. Most of my students on the other hand, are entering into their third or fourth year of English, and still have a real struggle with some of our sounds. We take it for granted, of course. How can this really be difficult? We don’t have to roll our tongues with the Spanish “r” sounds or make the throaty French “r”. Those are tough. But try and teach an intermediate student to pronounce “judged”, and you’ll be thinking differently. I recently spent a solid half hour on this one word alone.

Me: “Okay Pilar. Try it: j-udge-d.”
Pilar: “J-udge-ed.”
Me: “There’s only one syllable, Pilar. Try it again: j-udge-d.”
Pilar: “J-udge-ed”

As you can image, this went on for some time before I humbly accepted defeat. That little “d” sound at the end is such a pain! At least she had a good sense of humor about it, and we were both able to laugh through the ordeal.

Thankfully practice has made perfect, though. It may have taken two straight weeks of trying, but she’s finally gotten it. One word down, a million to go. Thank you, repetition technique!