I have found the resources on your site to be SO useful for my students with mental retardation and those with hearing impairment! I am a speech pathologist and many of my students have deficits in vocabulary, syntax, grammar, phonics, written language... Anyway, I use your flashcards and worksheets all the time and they have been a huge help to me. Thanks for all you do! I visit a few ESL sites and yours is the best.

Is there anyone else out there that uses this site for non-ESL students???

Welcome to the forums!

I get emails every now and then from speech pathologist and special needs teachers. There are a couple special needs sites that link to here as well.

On the forums there are only a handful of active non-esl teachers, I believe. But let see if some come out of the shadows...

Birdie 256, I know yo asked for replies from NON-ESL teachers (thats not me!) but I have a question that you may be able to help with.

One of my 4 year old students never pronunces the "hard c" sound or the soft "ch" sound. For example "car" sounds like "are" and "chips" comes out like "yips".

He is able to say the softer "g" and "j" sounds pretty well though.

Do you know any things I can do with him to help him recognise and pronounce these sound? (bearing in mind that he hardly speaks any English and can't read yet.)

Any help would be really appreciated (as I have no clues at all!)

Dan

Dan,
That is tough! You could demonstrate the difference between the voiced "g" and the voiceless "c" by placing his fingers on his or your throat to feel the difference. (The vocal chords vibrate on the voiced sounds and you can feel it). The sounds are the same except for the voice being "turned off" for "c". You can also put a tissue or paper in front of your mouth to demonstrate an exaggerated burst of air with the voiceless "c" and "ch".
I hope this helps!

Jen

Jen, thank you for the advice!

We tried holding the tissue in front of the mouth while saying the hard "c" sound today and it worked pretty well. He wasn't able to say it properly but he did seem to notice that there was a difference between his "c" and mine. Also he started making a soft "h" sound which I guess is better than nothing. (we only practiced for about 5 mins as we have to learn other English as well.)

We'll keep practicing a little every week and hopefully there will be a big change soon!

Thanks again! I really appreciate your help!

Dan