by Joan Inong

Created on: November 04, 2009

Consonants are part of the building blocks of all languages. As such, primary school teachers will need to teach the importance of consonants. To do so, you may decide to use one of the most underused and underrated classroom tools: the bulletin board. You may think that a bulletin board is only for posting up advertisements, rules and regulations, or newsletters and news in general. But, a bulletin board's general purpose is to spread information. Why not use this particular characteristic to your advantage?

To create a consonant-themed bulletin board, you will need to decorate the bulletin board with a border as well as a working title.

After you have sufficiently decorated the bulletin board, you can then begin to divide the board into its appropriate sections. For a subject like "consonants," you do not have to include the whole history of consonants. Instead, show your students how important consonants are to a language. Show them an example by using the language they are most likely familiar with, English. To do this, you will need to type a few sentences in large font. Print out these sentences and thumbtack them to one side of the bulletin board. Ask your students what kind of consonants are being used. How often are they used, and what would happen if the consonants were removed?

Your students will mostly likely answer: "Spelling is changed and the words are not formed." That is because consonants work together with the vowels to create words, and to represent sounds and ideas, that people use. The discussion will get more complicated and confusing if you allow it to continue beyond this overly simplified explanation, so it would be best for you to move on.

Next, you may want to include some languages which have different consonants compared to English. For example, many Asian languages do not necessarily have consonants. You can find images and examples of these online (or by photocopying a book). Print and cut these examples out, then attach them to the bulletin board. Ask your students how these differ from the English consonants. What other languages can they think of that use similar English consonants?

Whenever you complete a bulletin board, it is always a good idea to go over the information with your students. Ask them if they can think of any more information that may be added to the board. During the course of the week, ask your students what kind of thoughts were inspired by the bulletin board.

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