This is a familiar exercise, widely used as a warmer and a 'get to know you' exercise, but the pronunciation version is a bit different and focuses the learners on this particular aspect of the language.

Procedure

  • Prepare a series of 10 to 12 questions on a worksheet. These can be based on both sounds and word stress and should enable the students to find out some information about each other. Example questions might be: 'Find someone whose first name contains the sound /e/', 'Find someone who has more than two syllables in their family name', 'Find someone who was born in a city containing the phoneme /i:/' and so on.
  • Get the students to write a name for each question. Class feedback after the activity can focus on particular sounds and how particular words and names are stressed.

Tip: It might also be interesting to follow this warmer up by looking at the way different names are pronounced in the students’ mother tongue and in English, e.g. Madrid, Paris, Jean, Miguel, Tokyo.

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