1. Home
  2. Teaching adults
  3. Activities
  4. Pre-intermediate A2

Sound discrimination

This is an activity to help students differentiate and produce the short / I / sound as in 'milk' and the longer / i: / sound as in 'beef', although it can be adapted to any pair of sounds which your students have differentiation problems with.

A learner and teacher looking at the phonemic chart on a tablet
Author
Kevin Thomson

My students often claim that they can't hear the difference.

Procedure

  • To help students hear the difference I explain that I am going to say a word with the / I / sound several times then change to a word with the / i: / sound. The students should raise their hands when they hear the word change. I then say "ship, ship, ship, ship, ship, sheep, sheep,…". This procedure can be repeated with other words ("hit"/"heat", "it"/"eat" etc.)
  • To help students differentiate these sounds in the context of longer utterances, I then do the same with a sentence: "I saw a big ship, I saw a big ship, I saw a big ship, I saw a big ship, I saw a big sheep, I saw a big sheep…" until the students can hear the change.
  • I then write, in phonemic script, the words 'Steve' and 'Jill' on the board above a picture of a man and woman. I ask the students "Who is this?" When it has been established that the two characters are Steve and Jill I ask "Who is Jill's partner?" (and point to the / I / sound). An acceptable answer would be 'Chris', 'Phil', 'Kim', 'Tim', 'Jim' or any other name containing the / I / sound. If you want to make it easier, you could ask "Who's her partner, Chris or Pete?" Students should understand the idea of this game quite quickly.
  • I then ask "What's Jill's favourite food / drink?" Answers could be 'milk', 'fish', 'chips', 'gin' etc. I write this information on the board and continue asking questions about Jill and Steve until there are two columns with information about Jill and Steve's lives (where they live, favourite colours, animals etc.)
  • I then drill sentences such as "Jill likes fish and chips", "Jill likes Brad Pitt" or "Steve lives with Pete Reid".
  • In subsequent lessons, when a student makes a / I /or / i: / pronunciation error such as saying 'deeficult' instead of 'difficult', I write the word 'difficult' on the board and ask "Is this a Steve word or a Jill word?". Students can answer then be asked to pronounce the word correctly.
Language Level
Pre-intermediate: A2
Bookmark this

Comments

Submitted by Aliaa Soliman on Sat, 08/12/2023 - 07:41

It's a good way to help student to differentiate sounds

Submitted by Rubina_Karim on Thu, 08/10/2023 - 20:04

I like the way of sound discrimination by repeating the word with sound / I / and / ee /to differentiate between both. It helps to understand slow and quick utterance of words while listening and speaking. GREAT IDEA!

Submitted by amini on Thu, 08/10/2023 - 18:18

I think ,this method makes learning pronunciation interesting for students

Submitted by maramhd on Thu, 08/10/2023 - 13:09

I imagined myself giving my pronunciation lesson in this way. I love it!

Submitted by Эдельвейс77 on Tue, 08/08/2023 - 19:47

As sounds form meaningful units and often become the only sense distinctive instrument it is quite important to teach students to hear this difference and be able to pronounce words correctly.

Submitted by Nylri on Thu, 10/27/2022 - 02:56

Thank you for sharing. this is really abig of help for Japanese students.

Hi Magdalena,

Thanks for your comment. Here are some other ideas for integrating pronunciation activities in your classes: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/integrating-pronunciation-classroom-activities. Under the section "vowel sounds" you'll see some activities with "ea" spellings. 

Philippa

TeachingEnglish team 

Submitted by Biswadeep Auddy on Sat, 08/27/2022 - 20:22

Great suggestion.

Submitted by Beatriz Adrian… on Tue, 05/31/2022 - 12:13

it's a good information

Submitted by MarìaInes on Sat, 04/16/2022 - 00:42

I love this idea!!! I`m going to apply in my classes.

Submitted by Fredyuni on Tue, 08/08/2023 - 02:36

I will too.

Submitted by Haideé Gómez on Wed, 03/30/2022 - 15:26

This is a Good way to introduce students to the sound discrimination and phonetic symbol recognize. They´ll be able to get used their ear as well as their tonged position in different sounds.

Submitted by DEISY on Wed, 03/30/2022 - 02:49

Its important identify the sounds in the words.

Submitted by Lazor1970 on Tue, 04/19/2022 - 06:42

agree

Submitted by StephanieBrennan on Wed, 03/09/2022 - 12:06

I like  the great ideas here! Auditory discrimination is always my first step when working on pronunciation. It is good to get students thinking, and talking about talk. This way, they can give feedback to their conversation partners too (" I heard Jeel") and this gives the partner a chance to self correct. I feel this is especially important in the use of English as a lingua franca where communication and comprehension is the key.

Research and insight

Browse fascinating case studies, research papers, publications and books by researchers and ELT experts from around the world.

See our publications, research and insight