Lesson
| level | Skill | Age | Time | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ele+ | Pron: Minimal Pairs | Adults / YL | 20 |  |
The lesson includes an improved template for Pronounciation Journey from Pronounciation Games.
Click on the links above to get straight to the lesson, what follows is my thought process in putting the lesson together
Why I designed this class
Minimal pairs
A really popular book wherever I’ve worked is Pronunciation Games. Pronounciation Journey is a really simple idea to teach minimal pairs. It’s used to practice discrimination between two similar phonemes, for example long ‘e’ and short ‘e’ vowel sounds. The worksheet is a map that leads to various destinations. Which path the students take depends on the sound that they hear. So, if you say a word with a long ‘e’ they turn right and if you say a word with a short ‘e’ they turn left. Finally, after four rounds of this you check that students have arrived at the correct destination. Usually they haven’t but then that’s kind of the point.
The template here is slight improvement on the original. I’ve not included the final destination place names at the top of the pdf. So you’ll need to write in 16 destinations that students are familiar with. This makes the activity easier as students are not blocked by being unable to pronounce the names of the destinations. Also, I think the curved lines make the routes easier to follow.
If you are looking for a really good resource for minimal pairs then the best list I’ve found is this one by John Higgins. As a counterpoint, I’ve included an interesting article in the further reading that argues we shouldn’t get too hung up on teaching minimal pairs at all but should be looking at suprasegmental features of pronunciation.
Further reading
| Author | Title | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adam Brown | Minimal Pairs: Minimal Importance? | |