How do you teach a Japanese person to pronounce “world” properly?
Welcome to the club. Teaching ESL is interesting, isn’t it? You need to be well aware that pronunciation/phonology is not something that you can teach over a short period. You must come back to it time and time again. It is the motor skill that needs practice. It’s not about the cognitive part of language learning. You need to understand that Japanese speakers do pronounce r into /l/ and l into /r/. You may hear a Japanese pilot say: Have a nice ‘fright’ which he means really ‘Have a nice flight.’ You can prepare a list of minimum pair for your students to practise: flight – fright; lice – rice; etc. There are plenty of resources on this issue, some are: 1. Tree or Three by Ann Baker, Cambridge Univ Press 2. Sheep or Ship by Ann Baker, CUP. 3. Pronunciation game by Mark Hancock, CUP 4. Learner English by Michael Swan & Bernard Smith, CUP (this book will make your world a lot brighter…) 5. http://www.btinterne
