postvocalic /l/

[Charles Doyle]

A former student of mine, who belongs to Teach for American and teaches second grade in a Mississippi Delta public school (she is a white Southerner; all of her students are African Americans) reported an interesting incident.

A "vocabulary building" sentence in the textbook reads, "The bears got in a big BRAWL." Reviewing the exercise with the class, the teacher read the sentence aloud. A student, who obviously had neglected to read the assignment, heard the sentence as "The bears got in a big BRA"--but she was puzzled trying to visualize the situation!

--Charlie

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