Miss Elise
Pronunciation Coach
Transform Your Students’ Pronunciation in One Hour
Comprehensive lesson plans designed for in-depth, engaging classes.
Elevate your ESL teaching with structured, one-hour pronunciation lessons. These detailed plans provide everything you need to guide your students toward confident, clear American English. Perfect for teachers looking to create impactful learning experiences with practical techniques and proven methods.
Or, dive deeper to discover essential habits and techniques for mastering American English pronunciation with confidence.
The Sound of E, Part 2
Part 1: Lead in, 5 min warm up.
Choose one student to read the quote to the class, and then ask your students what they think of the passage. Do they agree or disagree? Why?
“Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.”
— Will Rogers
Part 2: The Sound of E, as in Bet
The teacher will read the description of how the letter E is formed and have students mimic her movements. The teacher will then read out just the E sound and have the students repeat it until everyone feels confident that they can adequately produce it.
Description: To produce the vowel sound E (as in bet), place the tip of your tongue behind your lower front teeth and then slightly arch the middle of your tongue towards the middle of the roof of the mouth and with the sides of the tongue pressed against your upper teeth expel your breath making a murmuring sound.
Practice the E sound with students by repeating the following, making only the sound:
E, E, E
E, E, E
E, E, E
E, E, E
Part 3: E Words
Once your students feel confident they can produce the E sound, the teacher will read out the E words slowly, emphasizing the E sound and reviewing any particularly difficult words. Students will repeat after each word is pronounced. The teacher will repeat this exercise twice.
Edit, elbow, else, Eli, energy
Enjoy, ebb, edge, egg, epic
Elf, ember, enjoy, exact, exam
Betty, cell, federal, get, chess
Gel, prep, shed, guess, poem
Opera, steak, ashen, cadet, egress
Part 4: Practice complete sentences emphasizing the E sound.
The teacher will read out one sentence at a time and have students repeat reviewing any challenging words. The teacher will repeat this exercise twice.
1) Elena excelled at writing exams.
2) She explained herself so elegantly that no one noticed when she made her escape.
3) Everyone enjoyed watching the elephants playing on the field.
4) He read the poem to the elated crown.
5) Lennie ate the steak, and then the federal agents took him away.
6) Edgar desperately needed a triple espresso after learning of the escape.
7) Thankfully leaflet explained what the opera was about.
8) The emerald had quite an effect on the excited young ladies.
9) Methusa entered the premises hesitantly before heading to the restroom.
10)The employer sent out a set of rules that annoyed all of the employees.
Part 5: Student Practice
When Part 4 is finished, the teacher will ask students if they have any questions or need help with the words and sentences they just practiced. If all is well, then students will be placed in pair groups and will take turns reading out loud the E words and the sentences to each other, emphasizing the E sound.
Part 6: Informal student test
Once the above exercise is finished, the teacher will randomly choose a E word or a sentence and pick a student to read it out loud, correcting any target pronunciation errors as they are made.
Part 7: Tell a E Story
Below you will find a list of names, nouns, verbs, and adjectives with the letter E. Place students in small groups or pairs and give them about 10 minutes to create a E story that they will recite to the class. Make sure that they correctly pronounce the E sound as they develop their story with their classmates. Circulate around the class, correcting target pronunciation as needed. They may use words outside the list, but whichever group can use the most E words (logically!) and tell the best story wins. This is great for laughs!
Elena - Excellent - Egg Rolls - Eminent - Empty
Star Trek - Ezra - Effect - Enjoy - Employee
Eggs - Wreck - Eva - Eggplant - Elegant
Espresso - Escape - Effect - Edward - Explain
Escargot - Erase - Epic - Rent - Elisha
Emerald - Enter - Exceptional - Elated - Went
Part 8: Game Time!
If you have time, there is no better way to wrap up a class than with a short game. Just like starting a class with a warmup quote to get students in the learning zone, ending a class on a happy, fun note is a wonderful way to get them excited about returning to your next class. There are numerous pronunciation games, including bingo, rhyming activities, and sound chains. I have attached a few links to get you started.
You can also choose to wrap up your class with something completely different, like placing students in pairs and tackling a few questions from the Conversation Topics or playing a game of hangman or sinking ship.
https://www.tefl.net/elt/ideas/pronunciation/top-fun-pronunciation-games/
https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/pronunciation-games-esl/
https://blog.youragora.com/adult-english-learning-esl-games-for-adults