The Rat in the Jet, Reflection on a Pronunciation Activity

In this activity my goal was for students to improve their pronunciation of short vowels 'a' and 'e', by noticing the subtle difference between the similar sounds .  This review activity was inspired by Harmer's chapter 15 activity 'Ship and chip' and Kelly's 'Minimal pairs and related activities'.  To guide students, I made a short simple poem using 7 three-letter words that the students had encountered in previous lessons.  Four of the words had the short vowel 'a' sound and the other 3 had the short vowel 'e' sound: bat, cat, rat, hat, jet, vet and bed.  

Before writing the poem on the board, I showed the class flash cards of each word and had them pronounce and spell the words.  I exaggerated my mouth to that students could see the difference in the wider mouth opening of short vowel 'a' as compared to the slight opening of short vowel 'e'.  After showing the flash cards.  I wrote two sentences on the board using two short vowel 'a' words and two short vowel 'e' words.  I used red to write the words of the sentences, except for the short 'e' words.  For these, I used a blue marker.  One of my students asked, why I had used two colors.  I was not expecting the question, although I should have been.  I'd like to say that I rarely use any marker color other than black, but the truth is that I can't remember ever using colored markers in this class.  Before I could finish explaining why I was using red and blue markers, the student and his classmates figured it out on their own; different colors were used for different vowels sounds.  I think that I should have held off on my explanation and asked the students why they thought two colors were used.  This would have been a great opportunity to incite more student-talk.

The activity was received well by the students, one of which added his own suggestion on how to make the reading more fun.  As suggested, I lead the students through slow and fast readings of the poem.  I was impressed when students were able to speak both quickly and fluently, but for the purpose of the lesson I kept most of the practice at a normal pace.  I used my hand to guide students through the reading, at several points asking them to identify sounds, by pointing from 'a' to 'e'.  I added two more sentences to the poem, making a four-line poem.

During this activity, all of the interaction was between the student(s) and myself.  This was necessary for modeling correct vowel sounds.  A few student initiated responses/ comments did make the activity a little more communicative. 

 
In my opinion this was a successful pronunciation activity.  Only half of the class was present, but it did not make much difference regarding my instruction.  This group, big or small, is pretty attentive and motivated when studying English.  I will incorporate similar activities in later lessons so that all students have the opportunity to notice their pronunciations.

To end the activity, I told students that there was one more short 'e' word and in blue ink I wrote a big capital E over the poem.  Once I added the second letter, all of the students shouted, "Excellent!"  I think we were all in agreement.  This activity was excellent.