"Make a Jail With Your Teeth!"

I'm just gonna throw it out there: I was a Speech Kid.

From Kindergarten through 3rd grade, I was pulled out of my normal class and sent down to Mrs. Bubb's room, where I would be taught time and again how to form my mouth and make the noise that came out sound something like my formidable consonant: the ever-troublesome "S." Still to this day, I remember Mrs. Bubb telling me during that weekly hour to put my front teeth together, my tongue right behind them, and try to whistle a noise out. "Make a jail with your teeth! You can do it! It'll be easier with this sentence right here!" I grew to hate those "S" tongue-twisters more than anything else.

Three years later, Mrs. Bubb decided I was capable enough to make that stupid sound on my own. I'll never forget the time I was sitting on my knees on the floor of our living room, while my dad played the piano, and it happened. I was practicing my "S," just like Mrs. Bubb told us to, and in the middle of my dad playing "Honesty" by Billy Joel, I heard a whistle. It was slight, but I knew it was there. 

...and then I couldn't do it a minute later. Traumatic, I know. Such was my relationship with Speech for the second half of my 8-year-old life.

You may be wondering why I'm even bothering to bring this up, when I'm supposed to be talking about the marvelous time I'm having in Spain. Well, we were studying "The Manner and Place of Articulations" in our Phonology segment today in class, and I was having flashbacks to my Speech days. But not happy, nostalgic flashbacks; these were more of the PTSD variety. In determining where my tongue was supposed to go for each phoneme, every so often I'd revert back to my 8-year-old self and want to exclaim "but it is at the roof of my mouth! I don't know where it's supposed to go! Does it really matter? It's close enough!" 

This is also when I realized that I'm still not making the "sh" sound properly, even 15 years later. Because no matter what, the sides of your tongue are not supposed to be the only part touching the roof of your mouth. Discovering this was almost as upsetting as not being able to properly "make a jail with my teeth" for my dad after I had done so for myself less than a minute before. I've also learned that I'm [somehow] subconsciously hyper-aware of my speech tendencies and how I pronounce certain sounds. However, a useful tool for a potential choir director, or just for someone who plans on talking a lot in life.

The fun story in all of this?  I need to take and pass a phonology exam in order to get my certificate from TEFL. Thank goodness Mrs. Bubb told me how to incarcerate my tongue, or this whole trip might have been for naught! Well, not for naught (/nɑ:t fɔ:r nɒt/), but it'd be a sad ending nonetheless.