Happy Summer people. I’m procrastinating massively despite a massive marking pile and a dissertation to finish. This was something that came up as a bit of Focus on Form (reactive, explicit language work).
In Japanese /æ/ and /ʌ/ are basically allophonic. They are the same sound to my learners. They hear no difference. I’m too far from the original mistake through overused /æ/ but I had problems getting my students to see the difference between the two phonemes. Having the luxury of a phone, a computer and a projector…
/ʌ/
/æ/
A gormless face is optional. This could also work for /ɪ/ and /iː/, and /ʊ/ and /uː/.
Anyway, just an idea.
Using Photos of Yourself to Teach Vowel Quality
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