Of course they meant to say ‘rice’ but it’s difficult and most end up pronouncing ‘lice’. A teacher’s job is to fix this, but in order to do so, we need to know why it’s happening and how to help.
First, we should know that Thai language has a rough equivalent of /r/ but that it’s often converted into /l/. This phenomenon is not unique to Thai and relates to something called connected speech. It also means that many Thais will hear /r/ in English and assume they can turn it into /l/, as they do in Thai. Help learners realise we don’t do this by making absurd comparisons (rice to lice, ramps to lamps) or use helpful sentences such as, “Take a right at the light.”
Second, and what many teachers forget about is ensuring that students can hear the difference between the sounds. Pair words like lock/rock, or rake/lake (these are called minimal pairs) and conduct listening practice. Say one of the words and get students to indicate which word you said.
Use a physical response for pairs like ‘frying’ and ‘flying’, getting students to mime the word they hear.
Once students confirm they can hear the difference, we can ask students to produce the sounds. Here, knowing where the sounds come from, a sound’s place of articulation, is critical. In order to articulate /l/, we connect the tip of our tongue to the back of our teeth or the front of the roof of our mouth (the alveolar ridge). In order to make most /r/ sounds, you can’t allow this to happen.
Rather than explaining this important difference, we need to model it.
Most schools don’t have mouth diagrammes, so use your hand to indicate the position of the tongue. Hold your hand in a lateral position and face the palm of your hand up towards the ceiling. Keep the fingers straight for a word like ‘lime’ and curl your fingers back to mimic the position of the tongue for ‘rhyme’.
Once students are ready, mix listening and speaking. Use images and ask questions that require students to show off their reception skills as well as their production skills.
A simple image might be of a lion named Ryan. Ask the lion’s name and then ask what Ryan is. Build up in difficulty with created images such as rocket-shaped lamps and lockets on ramps. Ask what the lamps look like and where the lockets are. There are hundreds of combinations — the more absurd the images, the better.
Graduate up to tongue twisters and eventually create stories for students that include loads of problematic sounds. Over time, we can move from isolating sounds to encouraging fluent speech at a natural pace. This is highly desirable for our Thai students.
A teacher trainer at TEFL Campus and Phuket resident since 2004, Eric welcomes all questions regarding teaching English in Phuket at: info@teflcampus.com