To make an /æ/ sound, open your mouth quite wide. Push the front of your tongue forward and down. The middle and back of the tongue are slightly rounded.
To make /æ/ open your mouth wide and keep the front part of your tongue low. Let’s look at some examples. First of all, before a voiceless consonant: bat cap path batch gas laugh pass And before a voiced consonant: handsome lad had bad jazz van badge Just to be clear about this, if I write here another word, listen to how long I say the sound. So I’m going to start by saying this word bad And now I’m going to say this word bat bad bat It’s how long the vowel is that is actually the biggest clue as to what the last letter is. Let’s look at some example sentences: The handsome lad had a bad bat. Did you hear the difference there? If you didn’t, listen again. Sam had a jazz cap in his van. If you’d like’d some more practice, look below the video.