9. In The Classroom

 At work, teaching the English language to immigrants Community High School, Orange warms up the students for pronunciation exercises. They move their mouths and voices to shape sounds they need to practice to have more understandable speech.

And then, she writes on the board:

Soap. Soup. 

I wash my hands with ______.

I eat ______ for supper.

Soon, the students are laughing. "I wash my hands with soup" is what they'll say if they don't hear the distinction.  Or, "I eat soap for supper." It gets funny.

Next, she has them practicing their -ch sound.

There's a chicken in the kitchen

There's a kitchen in the chicken.

Orange loves her students. Some of them are smart cookies, and others attend school to be part of the classroom and have something to go to. Many students have already learned English very well by the time the year is up, and others may never quite learn, but they will understand. 


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