Level B2

I have made 50 of these Pair Squares (minimal pairs, squared) for different phoneme contrasts in English (download the PDFs in two files below!). One person says one of the phrases, the others have to identify which one they think they heard.

The English phoneme /w/ presents difficulties for learners from a wide range of language backgrounds, but not always for the same reason. Some pronounce the /w/ like a /v/ so that west becomes vest. Others interpret it as a vowel sound, so that woman becomes ooman.

This chant is made up of five rhyming couplets, and it has an unusual density of TH-sounds (the hard TH in 'earth' and the soft TH in 'brother'. The hard TH is called ‘theta’, and for convenience, I’ll use that name to refer to both sounds.

This is a board game for use in teacher training. Players can use a dice and counter. They take turns to throw the dice and move. They should explain the pronunciation error in the sentence they land on, and match it with one of the causes in 1-5 at the top of the board.

The image above is the answer key to a surprisingly tricky puzzle which requires learners to keep a clear distinction in mind between the spelling of words and the way they are pronounced.

This is a free sample activity from PronPack.