Strategies to improve and production of /b/, /v/, /tʃ/ AND /ʃ/ english sounds in the 7th grade students in Santiago, Chile

Abstract

Students in 7th grade from a school in Conchalí were not able to either recognize or produce four ta rget sounds (/b/, /v/, /tʃ/ and /ʃ/), which should have been part of their acquired knowledge according to the Ministry of Education plans. This research aimed to find strategies to improve student’s performance on English oral production. For that reason, a question arised: will articulation activities and exercises help students to recognize and produce the target sounds? Moreover, different techniques were explored to try to improve students’ performance in this area. First, a pretest was designed and a pplied in order to have a baseline from which it was possible to develop further intervention activities to foster the students’ performance. Then, 4 interventions were implemented: two sessions of a Bingo game and two sessions of drilling exercises. Final ly, a posttest was applied to measure tangible changes in students’ performance. The results were collected and analyzed to observe if there was any improvement after the intervention plan. Further research is needed to find and apply the best way for st these English sounds properly. udents in this school to be able to produce.