Helping students to identify and pronounce the sounds / i: / and / i /

THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT 
THACH THANH I HIGH SCHOOL
EXPERIENTIAL INITIATIVE 
helping students to identify and pronounce the sounds /i:/ and /i/ 
Author: Vũ Thị Xuân
Occupation: Teacher
Experiential initiative on: English
THANH HOA YEAR 2019
TABLE OF CONTENTS 	 Page 
1. INTRODUCTION. 	2 
1.1. Reasons for the study	 	2
1.2. Aims of the study	2
1.3. Scope and object of the study	2
1.4. Study method	 2	
2. STUDY CONTENT 	2
2.1. Theoretical rationale of the study	2	
2.2. Status of the study problem	3
2.3. Solutions 	3
2.3.1. The sound /i:/	3
2.3.2. The sound /I/	7
2.3.3. Practice activities for both sounds /i:/ and /I/	10
2.3.4. Some useful tips	13	
2.4. Study effects	13
3. CONCLUSION, PROPOSALS 	 	14
3.1. Conclusion	 	14
3.2. Propossals	 	14	
REFERENCES 	16
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. REASONS FOR THE STUDY
	Seeing students do tasks randomly and discouragingly, I decided to choose this subject as my research. Many of my students confessed that they couldn’t recognize if /I/ sound in the word they were given to was long /i:/ sound or short /I/ sound. Although I am their teacher of English, my teaching remedies didn’t help them much. This made me make questions to myself such as “ How must I do to help the students recognize the two vowels correctly?”and “ how should the practice activities be to get their high attention to them?”
It can’t be denied that recognizing long vowel “/i:/” and short vowel “/I/” is not easy at all. They themselves are fairly different in differrent cases. In addition the rules of generalisation of them not fixed. Thus they make us confused. 
Little understanding, no practice led into the fact that many students couldn’t find out the two vowel sound correctly and read the word wrongly, which cause them to make mistakes in speaking and pronunciation exercises.	
The repeated mistake long “/i:/” for short “/I/” or short “/I/” for long “/i:/” forced us to ask ourselves once again:
+ Why can't they recognize the two vowels correctly?
+ How do we teach them ?
+ What practice activities should we use for students to practice?
+ How do we test ?
1.2. AIMS OF THE STUDY
- To help students recognize and pronounce the two vowels correctly . 
1.3. SCOPE AND OBJECT OF THE STUDY
- Scope : Researching in the process of teaching English at Thach Thanh 1 High school.
- Object: This subject is concerned with ways of practice activities in the class. 
1.4. STUDY METHOD 
- Study method: Reading reference books, discussing with other teachers of english, applying in teaching, observing and drawing out experiences.
2. STUDY CONTENT:
2.1. Theoretical rationale of the study.
	“In order for the learning of English pronunciation to be effective, it is necessary to regularly listen and practice pronunciation in the standard spoken language of native speakers and teachers in the classroom.” “In addition, learners need to be equipped with some Basic knowledge of how to sing English sounds ”. But English pronunciation rules are not simple. And "English is also not one of those languages ​​that people can rely on the syllables in words to decide to accentuate." “Many English authors have said that English accent is difficult to predict to the best that it is considered to be stressed as a unique feature of each word and when learning each word, one must learn how to accentuate accents of that words”. "This is a valid view and nothing is exaggerated." (Excerpts from the guideline for reviewing the High School Graduation exam for the 2010-2011 school year). Therefore, it is very useful for students to summarize and give clear pronunciation rules.
2.2 Status of the study problem 
	Most of our students at Thach Thanh I High School are rural students. From the beginning, when they started learning English, they also had few parents or siblings ... tutored and encouraged to learn English. This also negatively affects their perceptions of importance not only for pronunciation but also for English in general. Even the majority of children are lacking knowledge - the basic knowledge of English subjects is lacking. Growing up before going to high school, they were forced to learn about pronunciation and have tests, evaluations and scores, so they were scared! They begin to deal with pronunciation learning. These facilities have made me focus on the topic of English pronunciation.
2.3. SOLUTIONS 
	At the beginning of 10th grade, students have dificulty in pronunciation learning. Through the reality of the classes I teach, it is very difficult for them to identify short and long vowels. Especially the vowel / i: / and / I /. Others do with their understanding and the number of correct sentences is very few.
 	With the results of such a very low phonetic test, I always give students a test of pronouncing pronunciation in pronunciation lessons and always ask students to read each word and explain the choice. choose your own, then fix and practice together so that the whole class can read back with the wrong words. The "Post" section of the remaining lessons is about Reading, Speaking, Lisening, Writing I always give pronunciation lessons so that they have many opportunities to practice and practice. Besides, I also explore and teach them The rules for pronouncing from basic rules that are very helpful to you but almost nothing you know about these rules to the complex rules can help you complete the exercises in the chapter. but textbooks or teacher books do not provide a standard or rule. I want to introduce English pronunciation rules of vowel sounds / i: / and / I /
2.3.1. THE SOUND /i:/
In this unit we will study the various letters which represent or include the sound / i: / for example /i:/ in sea, tea, we and be
a) Teaching /i:/ sound
. 
-Describe the way of pronouncing /i:/ 
/iː/ is a long vowel sound. 
Make your mouth wide, like a smile /iː/
Your tongue touches the sides of your teeth /iː/
It's pronounced /iː/.../iː/ 
- Write some words that includes /i:/ on the board and read them out.
seat, dream, heat, agree, free, cheese, scene, complete, oversee, secret
 Ask students to compare the words.They recognize that the letters pronounced /i:/ are different. After that we teach them how to identify the vowels pronounced /i:/.
WRITE ON THE BOARD:
 +) “ea”, “ee”, “e-e” are pronounced as /i:/ as in bee, agree, committee, free, oversee, cheese, sea, tea, dream, seat, heat, complete, vietnamese, cede.
Except for “ea” followed by “k, th, d” as in breath, head, dead.
+) “ei and ie” are pronounced as /i:/ as in receive, ceiling, seize, receipt, deceive, believe, relieve, chief, grief. 
Except for friend, science, friendship.
+) “i” is pronounced as /i:/ in some words borrowed in French words such as machine, routine, magazine, chemise, regime.
+) “e” is also pronounced /i:/ when “e” followed by a consonant as in she, we, be, secret, scene...
b) Practice activities:
- For beginners: 
+ Reoder: 
- Students can reoder the letters given to make a fully worked-out word.
- Teacher writes some jumble letters on the board or hang on a sub-board or deliver worksheets to students for them to reoder the letters.
For example:
1. a e s .
2. e b e .
3. a t e .
4. d e a r m .
5. a e h t .
6. e s e n c .
7. e w .
8. a m h c n i e .
9. e z i e s .
10. e s h .
The answer:
1. sea 	6. scene
2. bee	 	 	7. we
3.tea 	 	8. machine
4. dream	9. seize
5. heat	10. she
+) Fill in the missing word.
Students can be given partially written words and then fill in the missing letters. To make it easier, pictures are included.
 1.b...... 2........th
 3. s.......
 4.ch......se 5.ce.......ng 
 6. ....a 
The answer:
1. bee	
2. teeth	
3. sea	
4. cheese
5. ceiling
6. tea
+) Fruit Salad
 Original play: The teacher puts students in a circle with a middle student. Students sitting in the middle say one color and students who are wearing the same color must swap places. The person sitting in the middle will also get a seat, so at the end of the turn there will be a person who has no place.
Pronunciation version: instead of clothes color, teachers put the two students into a pair of similar syllable words. For example, the teacher gives student A from Bee, student B from Pea, when the middle one reads one of the two words, students A and B must switch places quickly.
-For intermidiate:
Limit time for students to write as many words including long vowel /i:/ relating to a certain category as possible. They can work individually, in pairs or in groups.
The categories can be
Sports
Foods
Verbs
personality
Tools
For advanced:
Ask students to work in groups of 5. Each group is given one of these tasks following:
Write as many words as you can that contain “ee”.
Write as many words as you can that contain “ea”, “e-e”.
Write as many words as you can that contain “ei”.
Write as many words as you can that contain “ie”.
Write as many words as you can that contain “e”.
Allow students to use dictionary during the activity. When the time is over, students hang their posters on the board. All groups can check and add more words for eachother with teacher’s controlling. 
* Suggested answers:
- “ee”: bee, agree, committee, free, cheese, oversee, see, sheep, heel, peel, cheek, leek, three, fleece, ........
- “ea, e-e”, sea, tea, dream, saet, heat, scene, complete, compete, obsolete, chinese, vietnamese..
- ‘ei’: receive, ceiling, seize, receipt, deceive
- ‘ie’: believe, relieve, chief, grief
- ‘e’: we, she, be, secret 
2.3.2. THE SOUND /I/
In this lesson we see the letters pronounced /I/.
a)Teaching / I / sound
-Describe the way of pronouncing / I / 
/I/ is a short vowel sound. 
Make your mouth a bit less wide than for /i:/.
Your tongue is a bit further back in your mouth than for /i:/.
It's pronounced /I/.../I/
- Write some words that includes /I/ on the board and read them out.
bin, betray, fish, him, gym, six, become, decide, remind, embarrass, village, cottage,  
Ask students to compare the words. They recognize that the letters pronounced /I/ are different. After that we teach them how to identify the vowels pronounced /I/.
WRITE ON THE BOARD:
+) "i" is pronounced /I/ in one – syllable and ending words with one or two consonants such as sit, bit, sing, twin, grin, ship, miss, kiss, win.......
+) "e" is pronounced /I/ in the prefix of “be-, de-, re-, pre-, em-, en-, ex-” as in betray, become, begin, review, remind, prefer, embody, endanger, expensive,......
+) "a" " is pronounced /I/ when nouns with two syllables, ending with “age”. Such as village, cottage, voyage, carriage, passage, shortage, damage, .....
+) “ui” is pronounced /I/ as in build, guitar, equivalent, colloquial,.....
+) “y” is pronounced /I/ in the suffixes “ –cy, -dy,- ty, - ly,- ry, - hy, - my, - gy” such as intimacy, difficulty, study, lovely, economy, energy,.........
b) Practice activities:
For beginners:
 +) Vowel /I/ game: Finding words.
Students can do it individually, in pairs or in groups to find out the given words in the table.
W
D
E
P
A
R
T
R
R
E
D
O
H
T
B
X
D
B
H
B
E
N
M
O
M
N
Q
E
J
E
C
E
H
A
I
V
D
T
M
G
I
Z
E
M
N
L
P
R
N
I
D
Y
E
N
E
P
D
A
E
N
E
R
H
O
T
O
O
Y
O
S
N
I
L
T
W
I
N
U
O
I
O
O
U
D
H
J
L
K
I
N
G
R
I
N
H
X
W
U
E
G
+) Limited time writing:
Divide the class into groups. Give them 5 minutes to write as many words as 
possible that containing short vowel /I/. The team whose more and most correct words are the winners. 
For intermidiate: 
* Groupwork: Ask students to work in groups of 5. All groups do the same task at the same time
First, Write as many words as you can that contain “be-”.
Second, Write as many words as you can that contain “de-”.
Third, Write as many words as you can that contain “em-”.
Last,Write as many words as you can that contain “-ty”.
Limit the time. Allow students to use dictionary during the activity.When the time is over, students hang their posters on the board. All groups can check and add more words for each other with teacher’s controlling. 
* Suggested answers:
be-: betray, become, begin, before....
de-: decide, departure, depress, degree .
em-: embody, empower, embrrass,......
-age: village, cottage, voyage, carriage, 
For advanced: puzzle. Teacher prepares many questions for words containing short vowel /I/. Students try to guess the word to fill in the table. After the correct answer are filled, they have a special word. For example:
1.
R
I
N
G
2.
P
R
E
D
I
C
T
3.
V
I
L
L
A
G
E
S
I
T
.4
B
E
G
I
N
.5
6.
W
I
L
L
1. The present tense of “rang”
2. The same meaning with “guess”.
3. where the villagers live.	
4. Opposite word of “stand”
5. The same meaing with “start”.
6. A modal verb shows a guess in the future.
2.3.3. Practice activities for both / i:/ and / I /
a. Find word:
 Students are given a list of words containing long vowel /i:/ or short vowel /I/. They have to decide which words belong to long vowel /i:/ group or short vowel /I/ one.
 / i:/
 / I /
1. bit 	
2. east 	
3. build 
4. become 	
5. copy 	
6. decide 
7. creature 	
8. return	
9. she 	
10. evil	
11. secret 	 
12. routine
13. machine	
14. agree	
15.village	
16.sing
b. Chinese Whispers
The teacher writes a syllable word to the students on a piece of paper and divides the team and ranks the students in rows. Students will whisper into each other's ears that the teacher writes to the last person. Any team that reaches the last person to correctly record the word will receive points
c. Dictation
The teacher reads pairs of words that have similar sounds so students can listen and copy them into paper. You can diversify your activities as follows:
Reading - Copying - Running: Students pair up to participate in this activity. A student ran out of a position and read aloud from one piece to another student to write on paper.
Reading - Fast Copy: The teacher reads a series of continuous words and students record any words they hear.
Reading - Copying pictures: Students view teacher pictures and mark pictures that belong to self-made pairs of sounds (eg, sheep and ship pictures, students) connect these two pictures)
d. Find / i:/ or / I / way
 Start 
bee
cheese
sit
begin
oversee
return
sea
dream
easy
heat
bit
magazine
be
tea
secret
him
twin
betray
chief
we
e. Run and Grab
The teacher writes or pastes two pairs of words with similar sounds on the board, reading one of the words and the student quickly runs up to the board to touch the correct word. If selected correctly, this student will continue reading the next word.
g. Odd One Out
	Put two words with the same pronunciation and one word that sounds similar to one row. Examples include: Meat, seat, sit (vowels); Plays, pace, space (consonant). This activity can help students listen to the teacher's pronunciation, or volunteer to read so that their classmates can choose another word. Teachers can organize games in groups, in pairs or individually so that every student has the opportunity to participate. This activity can be combined with checkerboard games - when a word with a different sound is found, the player is entitled to a move.
h. Basket Ball 
	Teachers give words like in Odd one Out, the class is divided into 2 teams. Every time a student finds a word with another pronunciation of the other words, the student has the opportunity to throw a ball (or other item) into a sponge or basket to score for his team.
2.3.4. Some useful tips:
Here are some helpful tips I got after the lessons.
+ Teach one lesson every week.
+ Model each sound after explaining the way of pronounciation and ask students to do it the same.
+ My students are ethnic minority students so I do not teach all the irregular cases.
+ Check if students remember the rules and if they can write long or short vowel I by oral test, five minute test or fifteen minute test after teaching.
+ Give them homework for example, practice reading sentences, write 5 or more words containing / I/ sound 
+ Teach words listed as " common exceptions" only if they are fairly important words that your students are likely to need and try to use pictures, images and games to reduce difficulty and tension .
+ Encourage students by good marks if they do well.
2.4. STUDY EFFECTS
+ Students became more attentive and conscientious in lessons.
I was really happy when I saw my students look at the board and listened to my teaching concentratively. They asked me questions during the lessons to catch on the knowledge instead of sitting and listening quietly. When they practiced, they discussed altogether in groups and good learners help the weak ones. These positive changes shown that my trying was helpful and useful.
+ Students became more enthusiastic
I used to be so depressed and angry when looking at their uncompleted homework exercises. After applying the research in teaching I was satisfied with my students’ homework. Most of them finished their homework except for three particular boys who had intention of not going to school anymore. Of course, there were still some wrong answers, but that they did their whole homework regularly could be regarded a great achievement.
+ Students recognize two vowel sounds and they can explain the answer.
My students told me that they could recognize two vowel sounds after lessons. Here is one of four groups’ correct answer for a practice activity within 3 minutes photograped in our lesson with the students in 10 C3 who are not good at English at all. They did it without looking at their notebook .We were proud to see the following perfect answer. 
+ Students like this way of teaching
Clear sound model, rules and interesting practice activities interested students much. They were also eager to take their homework notebook back to see my feedback after I had checked their answer. 
3. CONCLUSION AND PROPOSALS
3.1. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I found my teaching effective. My students made much progresss in learning. In terms of their behaviors, they studied seriously. 
I have learnt that a sucessful lesson includes many factors: teacher, students, environment, so to make classroom teaching more effective and useful for students, teachers have to try to make each lesson purposeful and interesting and students have careful prepararion before class hours. Teachers should also try to make the classroom environment relaxing in order that students do not feel tense while learning. 
One more important thing is that when you test your students, notice to their different abilities to give them suitable tasks.
3.2. PROPOSALS
	In order to succeed in helping students identify and pronounce the pairs of vowels, it is impossible to lack the enthusiasm, love and professional qualifications of teachers. In addition, support, encouragement and timely guidance from the school and leaders are needed.
    Above is all I have done through my teaching experience. However, the study may not be able to avoid restrictions that need to be added.
     I am so thankful to receive more contributive ideas to make it more improvable. 
XÁC NHẬN CỦA 
THỦ TRƯỞNG ĐƠN VỊ
Thanh Hóa, ngày 20 tháng 05 năm 2019
I assure that this is my own work.
Vũ Thị Xuân
 REFERENCES
1. “Trinh phục ngữ âm tiếng anh từ con số 0”, NXB Đại học quốc gia Hà Nội
2. “Chuẩn kiến thức kỹ năng môn Tiếng Anh 10, 11, 12” – (Tái bản lần thứ nhất) - NXB Giáo dục Việt Nam 2010.
3. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (7th edition)
4. Thiết kế hoạt động dạy và học Tiếng Anh 10, tập II, NXB Giáo dục Hà Nội.
5. 
6. 
DANH MỤC
SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM ĐÃ ĐƯỢC HỘI ĐỒNG SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM NGÀNH GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO HUYỆN, TỈNH VÀ CÁC CẤP CAO HƠN XẾP LOẠI TỪ C TRỞ LÊN
Họ và tên tác giả: Vũ Thị Xuân 
Chức vụ: Giáo Viên
Đơn vị công tác: Trường THPT Thạch Thành I .
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