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 A, as in Cake
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?
“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.”
— Winston S. Churchill
Part 2: The Sound of A, as in Cake
The teacher will read the description of how the letter A (as in cake) is formed and have students mimic her movements. The teacher will then read out just the A sound and have the students repeat it until everyone feels confident that they can adequately produce it.
Description: To produce the vowel sound A (as in cake), place the sides of your tongue against your upper teeth. Raise the back of your tongue slightly toward the roof of your mouth. Open your lips a little and pull them back like you are smiling. Then breathe out while making a gentle sound (murmur) with your voice, moving your tongue slightly closer to the roof of your mouth as you do.
Practice the A sound with students by repeating the following, making only the sound:
A, A, A
A, A, A
A, A, A
A, A, A
Part 3: A Words
Once your students feel confident they can produce the A sound, the teacher will read out the A words slowly, emphasizing the A sound and reviewing any particularly difficult words. Students will repeat after each word is pronounced. The teacher will repeat this exercise twice.
Able, acorn, ace, age, ale
Asia, aid, aim, ape, ate
Blaze, brake, cake, game, lame
Grape, tape, plate, flame, shake
Hesitate, amaze, vibrate, escape
Station, famous, radio, paper, page
Part 4: Practice complete sentences emphasizing the A 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) Mazie hesitated before drinking the Asian ale.
2) The blazing sun melted the icing off the cake, but they ate it anyway.
3) Jake migrated to the lake so he could bake in the sun.
4) The radio vibrated and began shaking because of the blaring music.
5) Lane was amazed by the daring escape.
6) Hayden faced her famous opponent and then aimed.
7) The ape threw the acorn at the baby and then ran away.
8) The success of his music tape dazed Wayne.
9) The crane stayed at a safe distance in the bay.
10)Last May, the rains caused the drain to flood repeatedly.Jennifer’s jacket had both jelly and jam on it.
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, students will be placed in pair groups and take turns reading out loud the A words and the sentences to each other, emphasizing the A sound.
Part 6: Informal student test
Once the above exercise is finished, the teacher will randomly choose a A word or a complete sentence and pick a student to read it out loud, correcting any target pronunciation errors as they are made.
Part 7: Tell an A Story
Below you will find a list of names, nouns, verbs, and adjectives with the letter A. Place students in small groups or pairs and give them about 10 minutes to create a A story that they will recite to the class. Make sure that as they create their story with their classmates, they correctly pronounce the A sound. Circulate around the class, correcting target pronunciation as needed. They may use words outside the list, but whichever group can use the most J words (logically!) and tell the best story wins. This is great for laughs!
Amy - Rake - Baby - Fake - Bake
Train - Haley - Make - Erase - Asia
Acorn - Make - Blake - Face - Ache
Maple - Tomato - Way - Drake - Hay
Fame - May - Paper - Lake - Waste
Cake - Ache - Lake - Alien - Ace
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