Pronunciation chart activities - Pronunciation © BBC | British Council 2006

Pronunciation chart activities

Catherine Morley, British Council, Mexico

All of these activities are designed for use with the teaching English interactive
phonemic chart:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/download/pron_chart/pron_chart.shtml

There is also a downloadable version, which you can download and copy for
students to use at home if they have access to a computer:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/download/pron_chart/pron_chart.shtml#free

Vocabulary recycling and revision of phonemic symbols

If you have an IWB, or a computer with a projector, the chart can be used in class to
recycle and reinforce recently learned vocabulary, at the same time as revising the
phonemic symbols. All these activities assume that learners have had at least some
initial introduction to the phonemic alphabet.

• Give the students a list of recently learned words with a specific sound
underlined, e.g. one of the vowel sounds. The learners then categorise the
words into the different vowel sounds. To make the activity easier, you could
restrict the number of vowel sounds used, and give learners the options they
have to choose from. They can come and click on these sounds on the board
or computer to check. When checking with the whole class, one student can
stand at the board or sit at the computer, clicking on the ‘correct’ sound for
each word, which the teacher confirms or rejects.

• Give the students a list of recently learned words in phonemic script. In

groups, they have to work out what the words are. They can send a group
member to the board or the computer to click on sounds to help them check.
They then have to write the words in alphabetic script. This can be made
more learner-centred if, after some work in class on the phonemic alphabet,
learners choose 5 recently learned words and write them in phonemic script
for homework. In the next class they exchange books and use the chart to
help them work out the words.

• Individual learners prepare a recently learned word in phonemic script. They

come to the board or computer and spell it out. Other learners have to identify
the word, and any mistakes in the phonemic transcription, then give its
alphabetic spelling.

• A variation on both the above activities is for you or the learners to prepare
phonemic transcriptions of vocabulary with a deliberate mistake. Learners in
groups identify the mistake and replace it with the correct phoneme.

• Learners work in two teams. One team member stands at the board or sits at
the computer, and the other team calls out a word (you could specify a subject
area, recently learned vocabulary, or leave the choice of words open). The
team member has to spell out the word on the chart, and receives a point for
a correct answer. The class is the judge, with the teacher having the final say.

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• The teacher gives one learner a word, written alphabetically. The learner has
to tap out the word in phonemic script, while other learners identify it. As a
variation, the teacher gives one learner a word in phonemic script. He taps it
out on the board, and the other team gets a point for giving the correct
spelling.

• Write the name of your favourite famous person in phonemic script on the
board. The class as a whole has to work out who it is using their existing
knowledge of the phonemic chart. They then write the name of a favourite
famous person in phonemic script on a piece of paper (an English name, e.g.
Tom Cruise, not Enrique Iglesias). The teacher collects these and
redistributes them. Learners have to work out who this person is – they can
take turns in clicking on the sounds on the board or the computer to check
individual sounds. Once they’ve worked out the name, they can find the
person who wrote it and ask some more questions, e.g. why they like this
person, what films they’ve been in etc.

Voiced and unvoiced consonants

Certain pairs of consonants can be problematic for some learners. In some cases,
the main difference between the pair is whether the consonant is voiced or unvoiced,
that is, whether or not the vocal chords vibrate when making this sound.

This discovery activity can be used to help learners notice the difference between
voiced and unvoiced consonants. Begin by asking learners what noise a bee makes.
As they make a buzzing noise, do the same and put your fingers on your throat,
indicating that they should do likewise. This will allow them to feel the vibrations of
the vocal chords that occur with voiced consonant sounds. Ask them if they can feel
the vibrations.

Then focus on a voiced / unvoiced pair such as s and z. Make the sounds with your
fingers on your throat, indicating that the learners should do the same. You can help
learners with this by getting them to make the ‘bee’ sounds for z, and the sound a
snake is supposed to make for s. Ask them when they feel the vocal chords vibrate –
with s or z? (The answer should be z). Tell them that this is the main difference
between the two sounds, and that z is voiced while s is unvoiced. You could then
give them a list of words and ask them to categorise the underlined consonant sound
into these two categories. With /s/ and /z/, you might choose to include some third
person singular verb and plural endings. In this list the sound being focused on is the
final sound in each case.
/s/ /z/
cups pens
speaks reads
gets goes
puts lives
tents cars
plants sees
bags hears
looks learns
stops rise
rice rose
place plays

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Learners then use the chart to decide which of the other consonant sounds are
voiced and which are unvoiced. In a computer lab, learners could do this in pairs.
They listen to a sound and repeat it, with their fingers on their throat to check if it is
voiced or unvoiced. In class with the IWB, or a computer and a projector, the teacher
or a learner could click on sounds while the rest of the class repeat them and
categorise them into voiced or unvoiced.

As a follow up, you could do a minimal pairs activity using some voiced / unvoiced
pairs, focusing on initial consonant sounds. Display this list or something similar on
the board and say a word from each pair. After each word learners have to say
voiced or unvoiced, depending on which of the pair they hear. They can then test
each other in pairs.

voiced unvoiced
Ben pen
do to
gone con
van fan
gin chin
zoo Sue

This activity has the advantage of establishing the voiced / unvoiced distinction, and
a shared gesture that learners and the teacher can use in class to indicate that a
sound is voiced or unvoiced, i.e. the fingers on the throat. It also helps learners to
become conscious of the muscle movements involved in voicing a consonant. All of
this will be useful in future classes if problem arise in the discrimination or production
of voiced / unvoiced consonant pairs.

Sound and spelling correspondence

The chart can also be used to highlight both patterns and variations in sound /
spelling correspondence.

For example, as a discovery activity to help learners notice the effect of adding an ‘e’
to the end of a word, you could give the learners some of the words from the
following list:
cap cape
mat mate
pin pine
not note
pet Pete
kit kite
sit site
win wine
hat hate
cut cute

Learners use the chart to help them write the phonemic transcription for each word,
checking with a dictionary if necessary. The teacher then asks them to formulate a
general ‘rule’ for the effect of adding an ‘e’ to the end of a word. (It makes the vowel
sound ‘say its name’, i.e. the ‘a’ in ‘cape’ sounds like the letter A as it is said in the
alphabet.)

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It is not advisable to over-emphasise the irregularity of English spelling, given that

80% of English words do fit into regular patterns. However, speakers of languages
such as Spanish, Italian or Japanese where there is a very high correspondence
between sound and spelling may need to have their attention drawn to the different
possibilities for pronunciation in English.

One way of doing this is to give them a list of known words where the same letter or
combination of letters, normally a vowel or vowels, represent different sounds.
Learners will have at least some idea of how these words are pronounced, and can
categorise the words according to the sound represented, using the chart to help
them, before holding a final class check. For example, you could give learners the
following list of words including the letter a, which they categorise according to how
the as are pronounced. Where the word contains more than one a with different
sounds, underline which a you want them to use to make their categorisations.

Spanish, capital, make, art, car, understand, average, banana, take, practice,

To make the activity easier, give the students the phonemic symbols for the different
possible pronunciations of e. (In this case /æ/, /ə/, /eI/, /a:/, /I/)

Using the chart for autonomous learning

If learners have access to a computer outside class, they can use the chart together
with a dictionary to check the pronunciation of new words they meet in their own
reading. This is particularly useful for learners who are not yet fully familiar with all
the sounds on the chart. Encourage your learners to record the pronunciation of new
words they meet, both in and out of class, in their vocabulary notebooks.

You can also set homework related to pronunciation, which learners can check using
the online chart before bringing to class. As mentioned above, you could ask them to
write 5 new words from the class in phonemic script for homework, to be used to test
their classmates. Similarly, if you want to focus on a sound which is problematic for
your learners, ask them to find 5 words including that sound and write them in
phonemic script. With a little training, your learners could prepare their own ‘minimal
pairs’, for example with the sounds /i:/ and /I/. Depending on their level, they might
come up with something like this:

/I/ /i:/
Sit seat
hit heat
will wheel
mill meal
bin been
ship sheep

They can use these to test their classmates’ ability to discriminate between these
sounds, as well as their own pronunciation, in the next class. They simply show the
two lists of words to a partner, and say one of the words. The partner responds ‘left’
or ‘right’. For example, in the list above, if student A says ‘seat’, student B will
(hopefully) respond ‘right’.

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