T-Maze

Levels: 
B1 upwards
Teaching point: 
Accents with flapped T
Theme: 
Maze
Activity: 
Finding a route through a maze
T-Maze - hancockmcdonald.com/materials/t-maze-1

Instructions:
All the words in this maze contain the letter T. Go from WRITER to BETTER crossing only words where the letter T sounds the same as in ‘writer’ IN YOUR ACCENT. You can see that 5 stones in the maze are shaded. Try not to step on one of these – but you can if there is no other way.
Example: In some accents, ‘writer’ sounds like ‘rider’ because the T is pronounced like a D (this is called ‘flapped T’). If your accent is like this, then your first move is from ‘writer’ to ‘eating’, because you probably also have a flapped T in ‘eating’. On the other hand, if your T in ‘writer’ is NOT like a D, then go from ‘writer’ to ‘hotel’, because this also has a hard T, and you do not need to step on a shaded word.
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Learning point:
Accents of English often differ in the pronunciation of the T. If the T comes between vowels, it often becomes a ‘flapped T’, which sounds like a D (although this does not happen if the vowel after the T is in a stressed syllable, as in ‘hotel’).  You also find a flapped T after an N or an R, and before a vowel or L, for example ‘forty’, ‘winter’. Some speakers flap the T between a vowel and L too, for example, ‘little’. The flapped T is typical in American accents, for example.
Other speakers use the flapped T much less commonly, using a hard T in all the examples above. The hard T is typical in British accents, for example – although speakers may use a flapped T sometimes, specially in fast speech. Many speakers in Britain pronounce the T between vowels as a glottal stop, alternatively.
What about your accent – do you ever use the ‘flapped T’? How about the glottal stop?
Possible paths:
1. WRITER – eating – forty – waiter – dirty – atom – pretty – metal – thirty – butter – water – photo – Peter – little – city – sweater (winter – often) – hotter – eighty – BETTER
2. WRITER – hotel – (twenty) – water – butter – thirty – fifty - waiter – dirty – atom – pretty – easter – (mister) - fifteen – poster – sweater – (often) – hotter – eighty - BETTER

 

Resources: 
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