Tools of the Trade

Look at the pretty cartoon vowel pronunciation chart I made today! And be glad you are a native English speaker (if you are). English has a wicked number of vowel sounds: it makes your life infinitely easier not having to learn this stuff. And let's not even bring up spelling them....

One of the PCVs in Leon taught us this really cool way to teach vowel sounds to kids: each one of colors on the chart shows off a different vowel sound. So when you're teaching new words, you can use these previous associations to explain pronunciation. As you go from top to bottom on the chart, you open your mouth more to form the sounds. From left to right, the sounds are further back in your mouth.