I've been asked to teach a friends 9 year old daughter and have been doing so for about 4 months now but still cannot get her to tongue the notes. i've tried lots of different ways of explaining how to do it but it didnt work. I think the main problem is getting the 't' sound because when she speaks and says 't' her tongue comes out past the front of her teeth and makes it on the way back in. I've never come across this before and am having real difficulty getting to tongue properly. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on methods i could use to improve this?

Thanks

Can she say. " two times two is four ." Clearly?

Try just haveing her say "two" over an over again.

Then try having her say two but not moving her lips. Then say it with a flute embouchure without the flute. Then have her blow constantly without the flute with the two. Finally put the flute to her lips and say two.

Have you tried this?

i'll have to try that thanks, i've had her saying it and then she cant do it when applying it to the flute but i shall try doing that in slower stages and see if it makes a difference.

She might need the professional help of a speech therapist. I know that some public school districts have them, without charge to students, but otherwise you might have a talk with her parents.

One more thing to try could be, without the flute, have her blow with her embouchure. Then, have her stopper the air with her tongue as she is blowing, even letting it stick out between her lips at this point. Then, have her stop the air with her tongue on her upper lip. Once she has this down, do it with the flute- but start by letting her tongue come out of her mouth to stop the air. It may wreak havoc with tone, and there might not BE any tone at all when you start, but when, after at least several days (ie do NOT rush it) she is able to stop a tone, you can work toward tone-stop-tone. (The tone-stop is really a reversal of tongueing a note. Stop-tone is a tongued note.) When that is really comfortable, (again, give her lots of time) you can ask for stop-tone, without the tone first, and that should be the start of a tongued note.

On a different/similar note, a ton of middle school band directors don't teach tonguing at all. I remember the first few days of high school some upperclassmen had to teach me. It's really a shame, because that's one of the most important skills (IMO). I suck at tonguing now... I do seem to be better at tonguing on the piccolo, does that make sense? Jennifer Cluff probably has something to say about this... try jennifercluff.com

Have you tried a different sound, such as "doo" instead of "too"? "Doo" is articulated further back in the mouth, so perhaps her tongue won't come out as far.

This could work (i'm not a pro, but this is similar how I was taught).
Have her stick out her tongue and go like a "threw sound" off the flute.
Then bring it in closer and go "thew thew thew".
Listen to the others first before me.

thanks for the advice all, tried what tibbiecow suggested and i can see some improvement already so will just keep going.

some advice i got from a friend for tonguing generally just incase anyones interested, is to get them to practise saying tongue twisters with lots of 't's in. it supposedly strengthens the muscle and is a bit of fun for the younger ones as well, one a found which i think is quite a good "too" one as well as being relevent is:

A Tudor who tooted a flute
tried to tutor two tooters to toot.
Said the two to their tutor,
"Is it harder to toot
or to tutor two tooters to toot?"

even if it just gets them used to what it feels like still quite good or to improve if they can already tongue but not amazingly.

An adult female student during my first year of private lessons could not tongue the notes at all.

And she did pretty well with that. Our teacher was not forcing her to tongue, at least during that first year. She could play all the notes, including the low C without tonguing them. I remember we played together a simple duet at the end of that year and it was quite OK.
I do not how she continued, because she left the country the next yar and I had no more news.