Curb...Carve...Curve...And All The
Vowels In Between
Content
Member's Responsibility
Laura - Conducted initial and final interview; translated for the
subject and group members; created instructional materials.
Maggie - created instructional material for teaching sessions.
Tasheka - created instructional materials for teaching
sessions. Every group member assisted with the oral
presentation and written presentation.
Setting and Participants
The initial and final interviews, as well as the teaching
sessions, were all conducted after school a Helena
Elementary in Laura's first grade classroom. We all sat
around the teacher's table to complete the sessions. It was a
very relaxed and inviting atmosphere.
Although our group's information will focus on Melania, we worked with another
participant during the teaching sessions. Melania is Hispanic, and a native Spanish
speaker. She is the mother of two English language learners at the public school
where Laura teaches.
Procedure for initial and final assessment
Laura met with Melania after school to interview her and record her
reading. Melania read from the Dr. Seuss book, One Fish Two Fish, Red Fish
Blue Fish. After the initial interview and reading, we worked with Melania
using different strategies. Laura then met with Melania and recorded her
post-assessment reading and interview. We worked to transcribe her
readings to compare to her initial reading and interview.
To collect the final assessment, Laura met with Melania after school again. They completed an
interview as well as a rereading of the Dr. Seuss book, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. In the
interview Melania stated that she enjoyed these exercises and she felt that it helped her. She also
expressed that what is difficult for her, is that there are “no rules” meaning there are multiple rules for
pronouncing words
Design/Implementation of Lessons
Strategies Implemented: muscle warm-Up, mouth position practice with hand mirrors,
vowel and consonant bingo, minimal pairs, word sort, sentence strips, dialogue
sentences, detecting vibrations by hand placement on head and neck
Presented Outcomes
After listening to the initial interview, we noted that Melania had difficulties
with /y/; /j/; /ᶿ/; /ᶾ/; /ᶺ/; /ᶞ/; /b/; /v/ sounds. We decided to focus our lessons
around strategies that would help her to hear and pronounce these sounds.
Conclusion and Implications
In conducting this project, we found that being able to work one on one with this English Language
was very effective. To some degree, adult language learners are given a disservice in that they don’t
always have the opportunity to work on speaking skills as often as our students are, and
many times even those students are not adequately given the time and skills needed to improve
their language skills.
Instructional Strategies
Minimal Pairs; Consonant and Vowel Bingo;
Practice with mirrors; Picture/Word Sort,
Sentence Strips; Muscle Warm-Up
Analysis of Speech Sample
Initial Recording
Melania’s reading from the book,
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue,
and on page 7 it reads “very, very
bad”, but the sound heard was
“berry, berry bad”. She was also
pronouncing “thin”as “tin”. Melania
often pronounced “your” as “jur”,
both in the interview and reading
and “yellow” as “jello”.
Final Recording
In the interview Melania stated that she enjoyed these exercises and she felt that it helped her. She
also expressed that what is difficult for her, is that there are “no rules” meaning there are multiple
rules for pronouncing words.