The Two Types of "Th"

Today I was asked by my counterpart to teach 3rd graders the "2 different pronunciations" of the the-sound. If she had brought this idea to me before class, I would have said that just mastering one th-sound is difficult enough for 3rd graders and that furthermore, the subtle differences between the various "pronunciations" of the th-sound are so inconsequential to our understanding of spoken English, and vary so much between regional accents anyway that they aren't worth teaching to students.

But, I didn't have the chance to make these points. The request for this mini-lesson happened right in the middle of a class about 'open' and 'closed' vowels (what I learned as 'long' and 'short' vowel sounds). I briefly glazed over the idea that the th-sound can be voiced differently when the "th" occurs at the beginning, middle, and end of the word in question and plowed on to what I thought were the more important points: in order to correctly make the th-sound, the tip of your tongue must protrude a little bit beyond your front teeth (something that women in particular seem to be hesitant to do here- fortunately, the 3rd grade girls were young enough not to be bound by this social nicety), and that the th-sound is not the same as the f-sound or the v-sound, both of which are common mistakes made by Armenian speakers who are learning English.

The lesson quickly moved back to examining the differences between an "aspirated th" and a "nonaspirated th" once I sat down. It was a little bit discouraging, but really motivates me to push for real, substantial lesson planning together if my counterpart would like to co-teach. This way, the next time a situation like this happens, we can agree before hand what we'll teach in the classroom.