The thin tin man

Today I had my class of foreign students. There are only five; four Chinese and one Vietnamese. They are all women, and all lovely. They are beginner English language learners, although their Japanese is very good.

The Vietnamese woman probably has more English than the others, but her pronunciation is the worst. She is determined to improve it, though, and today she decided to work on her th sound. She just couldn't get it right. She always pronounces it as a t.

I decided to show her the difference. I showed her how to use her tongue was used for the th sound. She watched my mouth carefully. She stuck her tongue out, pulled it back in quickly, and said tin. She could not say thin.

After some more of this, with me trying to explain and show the difference, and my student not getting it, we were both becoming frustrated at the lack of progress. Finally I wrote tin, thin, and sin on the board, numbered them 1, 2 and 3, and asked her to tell me which one I was saying. I discovered that she couldn't actually HEAR the difference between t and th. She could hear sin, but the other two were the same for her. When I said, "The thin tin man," she thought I was repeating myself.

I realised that she was not going to be able to pronounce th until she could hear it, and wondered how I could help her to hear it. We had tried listening and looking, and they weren't working. I wondered if she would be able to feel the difference. I gazed at her and thought about this. I didn't want to ask her to touch my tongue, and anyway, I wouldn't be able to say anything if she had her fingers in my mouth.

Then I remembered something I'd read a long time ago for teaching the difference between voiced and unvoiced plosives, and wondered if it worked for the difference between t and th as well. I put my hand in front of my mouth, close but not touching, and made a t sound. Then I made a th sound. I could feel the difference.

I told her to hold her hand up in front of my mouth, and did it again. First I did the th sound. I drew it out. "Thhhhhhhhin," I said.

Then I did a short, sharp, "Tin!"

The look on her face was priceless when the little explosion of air hit her hand. She was SO surprised. I did them both again. Then one of the other students asked me a question, and I went to answer it.

When I turned back, my Vietnamese student had her hand in front of her mouth and an intensely concentrated expression on her face, so I left her to it and carried on with the other students.

About twenty minutes later her hand shot into the air, and she shouted, "I CAN DO IT!"

We all turned to her. She was wearing a huge triumphant smile, and had to wipe it off twice before she could demonstrate her new mastery.

"Tin!" she said, and took a deep breath. Then she yelled, "THIN!"

Well, she ALMOST yelled thin. It was very, very close, but not QUITE thin. It wasn't quite tin, either. I hadn't known before that there was a sound between th and t, but there is, and my student has found it.

We all applauded, and she grinned tiredly. She told us that she would practice some more and next week would be perfect.

But I think I'm doing something wrong, or at least I'm missing something right. I still think she needs to hear it, and I'm not really sure if this is the best way.

Do any language teachers out there who are familiar with this problem know of anything else I should try? With my usual Japanese students the problem isn't so much how to make the th sound but when to use it, and I haven't had to teach the pronunciation from scratch before. Minimal pairs? Intensive listening? What works?