Color Vowel Chart - Pronunciation

Before I encourage the use of these valuable teaching materials, I must first give credit where credit is due.  Shirley Thompson and Karen Taylor, former professors of mine at American University's TESOL Program, are the developers of the Color Vowel Chart and many of the accompanying materials.  (I have adapted their original version slightly to accomodate my own teaching style and Midwest American dialect.) 

What's included:

1. The Color Vowel Chart, convienetly saved in a PowerPoint presentation document or as a JPEG.
   
   
2. A very small, virus-free program that will install the IPA-SAM phonetic font to your computer (PC or Mac) so the phonetic symbols don't come out as gobblety-gook.  Or you can download it from the UCL Phonetics website.
   
   
3. MS Word document files for the Vowel Sorting Activity (Set of 5 Cards; Set of 3 Cards).
   
   
4. MS Word document files for the Handout / Answer Key (Set of 5 Key; Set of 3 Key).
   
   
5. MS Word document for a Handout of Example Sentences / Confusing Combinations

Introducing the Vowel Chart:

1. First, I let students debate about how many vowel sounds there are in American English (not vowel letters).  They rarely come close and always disagree with each other.  (There are between 14-16, depending on how you count and on your regional dialect.)
   
   
2. Then, I lead the students in the Vowel Sorting Activity.
   
   
3. Following the Vowel Sorting Activity, I hand out the the Answer Key to have students check their answers.  
   
   
4. I lead students to notice that in each set of 5 (or 3), there is a color.  Of course, a little imagination is needed in the case of wood (/U/) and mustard (/V/).  
   
   
5. Finally, I introduce the Vowel Color Chart itself.
   
   
6. I lead students in practicing chorally the various sounds and the differences between the sounds by using the Example Sentences / Confusing Combinations handout.

Subsequent Uses of the Vowel Chart:

1. Matching Exercise:  
   
   To introduce a text for a reading or listening lesson (as a Pre-Reading or Pre-Listening Activity), I often select various key words from the text that correspond to the 16 vowel sounds from the Color Vowel Chart.  Students then must match the 16 words to their corresponding Vowel Colors.  (This can be done on the board or on handouts.)  
   
   After checking their answers and practicing the pronunciation of the words, students move on to the Pre-reading/listening activity:  students try to predict the genre and topic of the reading/listening, based on the assumptions they make from those 16 key words.
   
   
   
2. Pronunciation Prediction / Production Activity:
   
   (Let me first say that 'reading' is primarily a silent activity.  Therefore, reading aloud I do NOT generally encourage, if your goal is to improve students' reading skills, because students tend to focus on pronunciation and not comprehension. However, after students have read silently for comprehension, reading aloud as a pronunciation activity can be useful.)
   
   Before students read a text aloud, I encourage them to 'pay attention' to a specific feature of pronunciation, which in this case would be vowels.  If it is a longer text, I have students -- usually in pairs -- analyze a different paragraph of the text (or section of the dialog).   Students first have to identify all of the stressed syllables.  Then, they must identify the vowel sound (color) for each of these stressed syllables.  
   
   When all are finished, the class reads the text aloud, paying particular attention to the correct pronunciation of the vowels.  
   
   OPTION:  The other students who are listening try to distinguish correctly-pronounced vowel sounds from incorrectly-pronounced ones.  The teacher moderates and confirms what students perceive to be errors (as truly being errors), or the teacher defends the pronunciation as "correct."   
   
   
   
3. The Correction of Pronunciation Errors:
   
   Should we correct our students' pronunciation errors?  If so, how should we correct them?  I'm not really going to get into that debate now, but if you determine that you do want to correct them, here's one technique for correcting vowel errors.  
   
   Keeping a copy of the Color Vowel Chart posted in your classroom gives you an immediate visual way to help identify errors and allow students to self-correct.  For example, suppose a student says, "I live in Miami," but pronounces it as /Ay liv in miami/, or "I leev een Mee-ah-mi."  Assuming the student is already familiar with the Vowel Chart, simply pointing to Silver (/I/) on the chart is usually enough to remind the student to pay attention to the pronunciation of their vowels and produce the 'correct' pronunciation (/ay lIv In may{miy/).