The Jawbreaker and the Sound Ticklers

An examination of the system of English consonants shows important facts in spoken language. I will address to the affricate voiceless consonant /dʒ/ in the story called

English makes use of 26 consonant oppositions. Languages like Spanish only seventeen or nineteen according to the variety spoken. Therefore, if teachers are aiming at intelligibility, there are some more consonant sounds for the EFL learner to be learned.

The thing is we cannot use meta-language to teach new sounds because it makes teaching pronunciation more difficult. Anyway, we should find a motivating way for our EFL classes to acquire the English voiced affricate found in English words with >j< and >g<. Spelling helps to make relations between the sound and the letter.

Teachers need to create a magical learning environment, with perfect scaffolds to introduce the sounds that may help to acquire new articulatory habits (Palavecino, 2021).

‘The Jawbreaker and the Sound Ticklers’ is an illustrative story that provides the right scaffolding to acquire the articulation of the new sound in a fantasy world. Children will discover the organs of speech, in order to produce the sound in Jack and Ginny, by tickling the Jawbreaker. The conflict of the story is based on a Jawbreaker that got into Ginny’s mouth accidentally. It is comfortably sleeping in the sofa that is in Ginny`s mouth- a fantasy metaphor to refer to the alveolar ridge- . The writer uses language that is familiar to children. Along the same lines, a sofa is used to represent the alveolar ridge, and the tip of a feather the tip of a tongue. By tickling, the Jawbreaker, with the tip of the feather/ tongue , children discover the right place of articulation for G or J , and the sound is revealed when the sweet is released from the sofa/ alveolar ridge. Sound ticklers are the sound produced when children push against the alveolar ridge to get rid of the Jawbreaker. Let`s read the story: