Tongue

Twisters

Improve pronunciation of TH – TH (voiced) – L and R

Three tree toads tied together tried to trot to town.

The crow flew over the river with a lump of raw liver.

Liver – River

The third thriving thirsty thistle festival will be on the thirtieth of this month.

Notice the difference between th and th

Practice short vowel sounds e – u- i

Comparatives and the order of adjectives.

Betty bought a bit of butter, but the bit of butter Betty bought was bitter, so Betty bought a bit of better butter to make her bit of bitter butter better.

Practice SH and S

Sally sells sea shells by the sea shore, but the sea shells Sally sells aren’t really sea shells at all.

Practice W and R

Which wrist watches are Swiss wrist watches?

Tips for incorporating these into your classroom.

Teaching Tips

We all have our own favorite tongue twisters and ways of working with them, but here are a few ways of working with tongue twisters that I’ve found work. I’ve tested them with beginner level – upper intermediate, ages 9 – 50, with great results.

I suggest you use the ones that work best for you.

1. As a behavioral management tool for small groups of ‘special children’. At the beginning and the end of each lesson, students must recite the tongue twister, (choose one per week) before they can enter or leave the classroom. If you travel from one class to another, the students own the classroom, this can be a problem. You can simply reverse this by having all the students go outside and wait. They must then recite the tongue twister to your satisfaction before they are allowed into the classroom. At the end of the lesson, repeat the same activity before you leave. This will only work with small classes; with bigger groups you could make teams.

2. Write this week’s tongue twister on the board. Then have students read it out loud as a group and ensure understanding of vocabulary and meaning, use concept questions. Students can now write the tongue twister in their note books for future reference, Ask students to close their note books and recite the tongue twister repeatedly, using the board as a guide, while you erase a few words after each successful recital until there are no words on the board at all and all your students can recite it by rote.

3. Ask students to draw a picture of the tongue twister, this will help with assessing their understanding and develop triggers for recall, which will assist with long term retention.

4. With more mature or advanced students, you can discuss what is happening and why? Ask students to re-phrase the tongue twister, using synonyms, or explain in more detail. Where did Betty go to get the butter? She walked to the corner store. What did she do with the less bitter butter, which she bought? She mixed it with the bitter butter. So you could say: Betty bought some butter, but when she tasted it at home, it tasted bitter. So she went back to the store and purchased some butter which was sweeter. She took it home and mixed it with the other butter, thus making her bitter butter sweeter.

5. Demonstrate saying the tongue twister 3 times as fast as you can. Have students try to mimic you. Run a competition to see who can say it the fastest and the clearest etc……

6. My favorite is having students say the tongue twister as many times as they can in one breath! Record how many times they said it, and then assign home work as follows: Practice saying the tongue twister for five minutes every day until the next lesson. (Point out that this is “easy home work” because they don’t have to read or write anything and they can do it anywhere any time.) But you will test them during the next lesson and you expect them to be able to say the tongue twister more times then they did in the last class.

If you have any more suggestions or great tongue twisters, please post them as a comment to this blog.

Bill

http://eslpal.com

This document is published under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.