Clap the Halls with Katakana
Outline: Students clap through various Christmas words in katakana-English versus real English to show help show the differences in pronunciation.
Procedure:
- Show students pictures of shared Christmas words: Christmas tree, Santa Claus, Christmas present, snowball, Christmas card, snowman, etc. Have them clap out the pronunciations in katakana-English, counting them on their fingers as they say them. Then, show them how many syllables the same words have in English. In case you're a little hazy on your syllable counting, a syllable can easily be counted every time you open your mouth.
- Students will very quickly see the difference. The more movement used to reinforce the point, the better.