Stry of higher and secondary specialized education of the republic of uzbekistan state university of world languages

Level: Beginning, intermediate, and advanced level English language learners
Age: Elementary to Adult ESL classes
Purpose: Practice pronouncing vowels and consonants
Skill area: Oral intelligibility/ segmental/ vowels & consonants
Type: Group/Pair Activity
Pre-requisite: Students should have the knowledge of present tense alternative questions.
This activity helps students to distinguish between two similar sounds. Minimal pairs in sentences are used in this activity.
Activity procedures:
1. The teacher begins the activity with a review of alternative questions. E.g. "Do you like a sheep or a ship?"
2. The students should be randomly grouped to work with a partner.
3. Each two-student group will get a stack of cards. Generally, each card has two different pictures, one on the front and one on the back side respectively. Generally, the words that these two pictures represent have similar vowel or consonant sounds. For instance, a picture of a sheep on the front side and a picture of a ship on the back side of the card. The same handout for activity 2 can be used here.
4. When one of the two students holds a card with a picture of a sheep and a picture of a ship, that student should ask the other one a question like this: “Do you want a sheep or a ship?”
5. The other student answers in this way: “I want a sheep.” Then, according to this answer, the first student should give the second student the card with the picture of a sheep facing to the second student.
6. Both of the students should monitor each other’s pronunciations of /iy/ and /i/. If one of the students mispronounces or uses the wrong side of the card to face the other one, then the other student gets the card. The students who accumulates the most cards can be given a prize of some sort.
Activity 5: Keep Records!
Level: Beginning, intermediate, and advanced level English language learners