System and process for teaching speech utilizing visual phonemes as physical, representations or surrogates of spoken sounds. Such demonstration teaching tools or implements may be tangible or viewed on a computer, and are provided. These are distinguished by recognizable shapes and colors. They are modeled upon a number of sources including: characters of the International Phonetic Alphabet; shapes of a speaker's mouth configurations; certain English alphabet letters associated with spoken sounds. Visual phonemes representing spoken vowel sounds have warm colors; those representing consonants, cool colors. Combinations of vowel sounds, diphthongs, are represented by visual phonemes displaying blends of warm colors representing each spoken vowel sound in the diphthong combination. The implements may be rigid or flexible, or displayed in electronic form. They may be fabricated to facilitate mounting on a display surface. The disclosed system and process may be advantageously presented in the form of a portable kit.