Beaches and Sheets

Think they have nothing in common? Think again. Now think grammatically. The long e sound right? Even though Spanish has a similar sound, native Spanish speakers sometimes have a little trouble producing the long e sound in English words usually sounding more like a short i. So today in my lesson on Halloween, when we got to the part about what people who dress up as ghosts wear, it was clearly time to clear up this little mispronunciation. Imagine a classroom full of 13 and 14 year old girls enthusiastically repeating back to you in unison; Shits! “No, sheeeeets” I reply to stress the sound a bit. “Shiiiiits” I hear. So the English teacher for that period asked me to explain the difference. Next, I took a comparative listening approach. Pointing to each word on the board I carefully annunciate, “Sheet, shit, sheet, shit.” They soon join. “Sheeiit, shit, sheeiit, shit.” I decided that was good enough progress for today.