Oral Motor Exercises For CSL Learners to Master Productions of Retroflex And Non-Retroflex Consonants

Retroflex and non-retroflex consonants in Mandarin (z[ts], c[ts'], s[s], zh[tş]; ch [tş'], sh[ş]) are difficult to produce for many Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners with different mother tongues. Aiming at developing an efficient way to help them to master the sounds, this study adopts the idea of Oral Motor Exercise (OME) to devise a speech production training method. The method consists of two steps: the first is non-speech OME, in which muscle groups of jaw, lips and tongue, essential to the production of target consonants, are intentionally exercised; the second is speech OME, in which monosyllables with target consonants are practiced. 30 participants took part in the experiment. The results showed that both non-speech and speech OMEs could effectively reduce subjects' consonant errors in a short time. When the two steps were accomplished, the trainee achieved the best performances. These indicated the effectiveness of the proposal.