Focusing on the english pronunciation of the vowel sounds /æ/, /ɑ:/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, and /i:/ in 9th grade of a public school in Cali

Abstract

Taking into account the context and background of 9th grade students at I.E.T.I. Donald Rodrigo Tafur public school, this is a project to emphasize the pronunciation of the vowel sounds /æ/, /ɑ:/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, and /i:/ to include it in the English program of the school. The students do not have enough hours a week to emphasize English pronunciation, and as a consequence, they are afraid to speak or say words in English. To encourage students to develop this skill and dare to pronounce words in English spontaneously to overcome their fear and strengthen their self-confidence, the teacher proposed the students create a rap song. To accomplish this aim, the teacher first explained to the students the differences between the Spanish and English vowel sound pronunciation and the phonetic symbols that represent these sounds. To continue with the plan to create verses for a rap song, there were some activities for the students to immerse in the dynamic to rhyme words. Consequently, the way for the students to know how to rhyme words was by investigating and learning about “minimal pairs” having some songs as examples. Hence, the students made verses with minimal pairs or words that had the same vowel sound stressed in the same syllable. The verses of each group were joined to form a song and this was recorded with their voices singing excitingly, showing that despite their context, they are able to do great things. Through this exercise, students were able to lessen their fear of speaking English words and made improvements in their pronunciation of the target sounds.