Teach International

Online TESOL Course – Unit 6

Unit 6 – More fun and games in the TESOL classroom

Pronunciation and Connected Speech

Pronunciation

Pronunciation—the way that sounds are formulated—is a very important area for EFL/ESL teachers to
address. Pronunciation is not to be mistaken with accent. There are many different versions of English spoken
by people from different English-speaking countries who have different accents. For example, a native speaker
can speak with a British, or Australian, or American or Singaporean accent, but still speaks with perfect
pronunciation. Pronunciation is about speaking the words of English, so that you can be understood, no matter
what accent you speak with. Being understood is vital for being an effective communicator—if someone cannot
comprehend what a person is saying, then the interaction is not successful and meaningful communication
has not taken place. This can really affect your students’ confidence in speaking!

Students overseas often find good pronunciation to be a challenge. This is because some of the sounds we
have in English do not exist in other languages. For example, in Japanese, there is no “R” sound like we have
in English, and “R” is often heard and therefore spoken, as “L”. There are many other examples like this in
other languages too. If this is the case for the native language your students speak, your students will not even
hear and recognise those sounds in English, therefore making it difficult for them to pronounce those sounds
correctly. You need to work with your students to help them with these issues—providing them with a good
model of the sound, getting them to listen to it carefully to try and recognise it, and then getting them to copy
it.

Also, students will often find that their native tongue interferes with the way they speak in English. For example,
a German native speaker will want to pronounce ‘W’ like an English speaker would pronounce ‘V’, as this is
how that letter is pronounced in German. This is known as negative language transfer. It is a good idea for you
to know what particular difficulties your students are likely to encounter when speaking English due to this
issue of negative language transfer.

Activity Tasks:
“Please log into the course to complete this activity”
“This activity is part of a paid TESOL certificate program by Teach International. If you aren't enrolled in
the online course and you would like to find out more details, please visit our website to log in or sign up"

More about sounds

As a native speaker, you can really help your students with picking up on and hearing sounds by allowing them
opportunities to hear you speak, using you as a model for how they should then reproduce the same sounds.
There are a number of things which you can do to assist them in hearing clearly:

1. Speak slowly and clearly, and, with those particularly difficult sounds, say it several times and
get your students to repeat it in a pronunciation drill.

2. Always use the sound in the context of a word or sentence. This can help get the meaning
across. For example, by saying the word “river” in a sentence: “There is a boat sailing down the
river” can help your students to identify the difference between the similarly pronounced words of
“liver” and “river” through the context of the sentence (a boat won’t often sail down a liver!)

3. Show them how to make the sound—ensure they can see the way that your mouth moves and
where your tongue is positioned. Some students will benefit from seeing a drawn diagram of the

Teach International version 1.1 © 2018-2028 1

 Teach International
Online TESOL Course – Unit 6

mouth, teeth and tongue, or the use of hand gestures may also assist them. The use of a small
hand mirror can also be useful for allowing them to imitate the way you move your mouth.

4. Sometimes, you may need to contrast similar sounds, exaggerating the difference in the sound.
For example, say the word “sheep” and “ship” together, but really emphasise the long and short
vowel sounds that these two different words make.

5. Use minimal pairs. Minimal pairs are words such as “pit” and “bit” that differ by only one sound.
Contrasting them is a useful tool for helping students distinguish between similar sounds.

It’s important that in achieving these goals, that you still keep things communicative- make it fun and interesting
and memorable along with using the above tools if you want to teach pronunciation successfully.

Activity tasks:

“Please log into the course to complete this activity”

“This activity is part of a paid TESOL certificate program by Teach International. If you aren't enrolled in
the online course and you would like to find out more details, please visit our website to log in or sign
up"

Connected Speech

‘Sounds’ is one area of pronunciation and connected speech is another one. Connected speech is essentially
the way we link our words together without any pause between words. For example, we don’t say “let’s sit
over there” by pronouncing each separate word, but rather as one whole word, as in:
“letssiddoverthere”. Your EFL/ESL students need practice in linking words, so that they don’t sound robotic
when they speak out loud.

As well as the adequate spacing in time between words, some students don’t sound out particular sounds’
lengths for long enough, thus making meaning unclear. For example, you may not understand if a student has
just said the word “sixteen” or “sixty”, so they need to learn that the sound “een” has a longer vowel sound.
You can use a rubber band or elastic to show this, stretching it out for the longer sounds and not stretching it
for the shorter sounds. We will show you some activities later in this unit to help with this.

Teach International version 1.1 © 2018-2028 2

 Teach International
Online TESOL Course – Unit 6

Phonics: Stress and Intonation

Word Stress

Word stress relates to the length of time given to saying every syllable in a word. Some syllables are spoken
loudly and with strength, and others are spoken more softly and quietly. For example, say the words “photo”,
“photograph” and “photographer” and pay attention to which syllables are stressed more. The word “photo”
has two syllables, and the stronger stress is on the first syllable; in the word “photograph”, there are three
syllables and the stress is on the second; and, in the word “photographer”, the second syllable is stressed.
Some students from certain language backgrounds may not be aware of the importance of stress, due to not
putting any emphasis on syllables in their own language. Students from such backgrounds may put the stress
on the wrong syllables and as such, change the meaning of a word they are saying.

You can clap out the syllables, using the word “dum” for stressed syllables and “di” for weaker syllables to
physically illustrate the stress patterns in words with more than one syllable. Get your students to repeat after
you. For example, you can say the word “everywhere”, then clap out the three syllables, and then clap and say
“dum-di-di”.
You can also visually represent the syllabic stress to students having difficulty using the board:

There are many complex rules which surround word stress, with two of the most important ones to teach your
students being that:

1. Each word has just only one stressed syllable, and

2. Stress is always on a vowel or vowel sound (that is, either ‘a’, ‘e’ ,’i’, ‘o’, or ‘u’ or a letter that makes this
sound such as the ‘ee’ sound that the ‘y’ in “happy” makes).

Luckily, many of the other more complex rules of stress don’t necessarily have to be taught. Many students
will use your speaking as a model, and they will automatically pick up on the same stress patterns which you
use when you present words to them. If you or your students are ever unclear about the correct word stress,
you can consult a good dictionary, or even one online such as www.dictionary.com, where every word listed
has the stress pattern marked in a similar way as above.

Activity Tasks:
“Please log into the course to complete this activity”
“This activity is part of a paid TESOL certificate program by Teach International. If you aren't enrolled in
the online course and you would like to find out more details, please visit our website to log in or sign up"

Sentence Stress

In the same way that we stress certain syllables in words, we also stress certain words within a sentence.
Showing your students sentence stress can help them to keep the natural rhythm or beat in which English is
spoken. Sentence stress is also used to emphasise certain words which are said within a sentence to get
across meaning.

Intonation

Intonation refers to the way our voice rises and falls within different parts of a sentence. For example, when
you ask someone a closed question, you will end the sentence with a rising tone. When you finish a sentence,
you will usually end with a falling inflection. When you are surprised, you will have a rising tone, and if you are

Teach International version 1.1 © 2018-2028 3

 Teach International
Online TESOL Course – Unit 6

angry, you will use a falling tone. In this way, you can send signals to others. Stress is concerned with
emphasising and implying meaning. Intonation is concerned with signalling the listener. Intonation signals.

It is through being a good model of intonation patterns that your students will learn the intonation patterns they
should use to get across different meanings. One way of doing this is to add gesture training into conversation
practice and role plays help to create realistic expression. You can also show the rising and falling intonation
using gestures when you drill sentences with your students, and visually on the board like this:

Falling Intonation

Falling intonation signals certainty or finality. You are telling a fact and/or you believe you are right. It also
signals that you have finished speaking.

Intonation will fall when a speaker has finished. So, in the sentence, "I like ice cream", there will be a falling
intonation on the word "cream". However, if the sentence is, "I like Ice cream very much", the falling intonation
will be on the word "much". Falling intonation signals that the speaker has stopped talking.

Both 'cream' and 'much' are one syllable words, so the intonation drops smoothly in one go. If the end of a
complete thought has more than one syllable, as in, "I like chocolate", you will notice that the intonation goes
up and down over the word chocolate, but the same rule applies, that it falls at the end.

There is certainly variation of intonation over a sentence according to word stress and syllables, but the main
aspect of intonation is how it signals at the end.

Tip: You may notice that intonation goes down a little before it rises and up a bit before it falls.

Negative emotions use falling intonation. Negative emotions take you 'down'.

Questions are tricky. Less emotive open questions, that elicit information (not a yes/no answers) which start
with 'what' 'who' 'why' 'when' 'where' 'how' etc end with falling intonation.
Rising Intonation

With rising intonation, you are usually signalling that you want some kind of quick response to positive emotion
or if you are unsure of something.

All closed questions, which elicit a yes/no response, end with rising intonation. In this case you are usually not
just asking for information, but are expressing uncertainty and want a quick response.

Intonation also rises if you are unsure of the truth. So, with the question, "What do you think?" you are signalling
that you want an opinion - not just information. If you say something like, "Isn't it great?", you are signalling
that you want the person to agree with you - and quickly.

So, if a listener hears rising intonation, they should pay close attention to whatever signal is being sent.

Teach International version 1.1 © 2018-2028 4

 Teach International
Online TESOL Course – Unit 6

It can also be used to signal that you are continuing to talk. Remember our first sentence, "I like Ice cream very
much". Because the speaker could stop talking after "cream", but does not want to, they put a rising intonation
on "cream", to signal to the listener that they are still talking - and not to interrupt. Another example of this
continuation signalling is if you are thinking of what to add to what you are saying (e.g. "I am thinking") with
rising intonation on the word "thinking" means you will be adding to it - something like, "I am thinking of getting
a video". If though, there is a falling intonation on "thinking", it means your thought is complete. This would be
true in:
A: "what video do you want?"
B: “I don't know. I am thinking."

Similarly, if you are running through a list, you put rising intonation on the end of each listed point - to signal to
the listener that you have not finished.

Positive emotions use rising intonation. Positive emotions take you 'up'.

Activity Tasks:
“Please log into the course to complete this activity”
“This activity is part of a paid TESOL certificate program by Teach International. If you aren't enrolled in
the online course and you would like to find out more details, please visit our website to log in or sign up"

Phonology
Phonology is the study of the sound systems in a language, and phonetics is the way that the sound system
is represented in written form, using symbols. In English, we have 44 spoken sounds, known as phonemes.
There are 20 vowel sounds and 24 consonant sounds and these 44 sounds are represented through symbols.
These symbols will look a little confusing at first, and those that may be familiar to you are not to be confused
with the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet which are regularly used for spelling English words. For example,
the word “bat” has the three phonemes /b/ /ae/ /t/ and the word will look like this when it is written phonetically:
/baet/

The phonetic script is used in most good dictionaries to show the correct pronunciation of a word, and while
not all your students will find it useful, many will! It shows your students in a very clear way the sounds within
a word, and takes away issues that students have with knowing the difference in pronunciation between words
like “how”, “show” and “bow” which all have the “ow” ending but which are pronounced differently. When written
phonetically, your students would be able to easily and clearly identify the differences in pronunciation, as the
spellings (which don’t always match the sound in English) are not an issue when using phonetics.

If your students have learnt this script, they may ask you for the phonetic spelling of words they can’t hear or
say properly. This script is often referred to in the course books you may use at your school. Therefore,
familiarising yourself with the script will be beneficial, and it is a good idea to integrate any work you do on
phonetics into your teaching of vocabulary and grammar, so that your students can grasp the correct
pronunciation easily from the very beginning.

Look at the English Phonetic Alphabet (EPA) chart which follows. It shows the phonetic sounds symbol for the
underlined letters. For example, /a/ makes the same "a" sound as that in the word "car". The word "car" written
phonetically will appear like this: /kar/.

You will notice that the chart shows the vowel sounds and diphthongs (two sounds blended together to form
one, for example, ‘ea’, ‘ou’) and consonant sounds separately. Also notice that it uses the “/” either side of the
sound. “/” are also used either side of phonetic words.

It might seem to you like this is a whole different language, and not English at all! It takes time and patience to
become an expert in using the chart, but remember that if you are ever confused when reading these symbols,
consult any good dictionary to check the way a word should be written in this script!

Teach International version 1.1 © 2018-2028 5

 Teach International
Online TESOL Course – Unit 6

Activity Tasks:

Translate the following phonetic sentences:

13.

14.

15.

Teach International version 1.1 © 2018-2028 6

 Teach International
Online TESOL Course – Unit 6

Activities for Teaching Pronunciation, Stress and Intonation

Just like the other areas of teaching English covered so far in this course, the best way for your students to
become competent is through practice—and pronunciation is no different! Memorable and fun games and
activities which focus on these different areas of pronunciation are important to include in your lesson plans.
However, never spend an entire lesson focusing on pronunciation! Usually, pronunciation happens throughout
your lessons inadvertently, and if you decide to run a pronunciation activity (perhaps as a warm- up or review)
limit it to 10-15 minutes maximum. Just like all muscles that get sore after too much work, this is the same with
your students’ mouths—your mouth and tongue are muscles after all!

Following are some ideas for games and activities you may like to do with your students to assist them in the
areas of pronunciation we have just looked at.

1. Specific Sounds

There are a number of really fun ways of getting your students to practise specific sounds, with Tongue
Twisters being one method that is easy to prepare. Find tongue twisters online that focus on specific letters,
and write it/them on the board. For example, if your students have trouble with producing /f/, then you may
choose a tongue twister such as: “Frisky Freddie feeds on fresh fried fish”. Say it first for your students to hear,
and then get them to repeat it, getting them to say it faster and faster with each turn. You could even get your
students to write their own tongue twisters that focus on using particular sounds. Make sure that any tongue
twisters you use don’t have too many difficult words, but don’t worry too much if the tongue twister itself is quite
nonsensical—it is the sound of the words that are the focus in this activity, not the grammar and vocabulary.

There are also many free websites that you may find useful, such as Sounds of English
http://www.soundsofenglish.org/pronunciation/sounds.htm which goes through how we make all the sounds of
English with our mouths.

2. Minimal Pairs

Make a list of words that contain a common sound that can be contrasted. For example, if you want to focus
on the sounds /l/ and /r/, you may make a list like this:

rice lice
ray lay
rug lug
room loom

You will then read the words out in the minimal pairs and your students have to put up their hand when they
hear a word that starts with /l/. If they get it right, they will get a point for their half of the class. The half of the
class with the most points at the end wins!

Additionally, you should write this list on the board. Get your students to work in pairs. One person in the pair
can read one of the words at random, and their partner has to write down the word they think they hear. They
can check their answers as they go to see how well they heard the word. They can also do it by clapping once
or twice when they hear the word, i.e. if they hear an ‘R’ sound, clap once, and if they hear and ‘L’ sound clap
twice.

3. Word Stress

Think of 20 words your students will know, and then decide what the stress pattern is for those words. Write
just the stress pattern, using dots, on the board. For example, if you chose the word dinosaur, the stress pattern
for that word is:

Get your students to copy down ten stress patterns into their books. Then say aloud the actual word. They
have to decide what stress pattern that word has, and then cross that pattern off their list. The student who
crosses all the stress patterns off first is the winner.

Teach International version 1.1 © 2018-2028 7

 Teach International
Online TESOL Course – Unit 6

4. Sentence Stress

An activity known as shadowing can be useful for many aspects of pronunciation, but is particularly useful for
getting your students to get used to the natural rhythm of English. Shadowing involves playing a tape recording,
and getting your students to repeat the recording simultaneously as it is played. They have to speak at the
same pace as the recording to keep up with the speed and rhythm of what is being said. If you don’t have a
tape recorder available, you could also do this activity by reading aloud a passage and getting the students in
the class to follow you. It is nice to try and provide opportunities for your students to hear different native
speakers talking, so a tape recording is ideal.

5. Connected Speech

Chants, rhymes and songs are wonderful for providing practice to your students in connected speech. Can you
remember any of the rhymes you may have said as a child while skipping rope or clapping hands with a friend?
These are great to use if you’re teaching children!

These rhymes are examples of clapping games and skipping rope games that children would find fun to chant:

Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack

All dressed in black, black, black
With silver buttons, buttons, buttons
All down her back, back, back
She asked her mother, mother, mother
For fifty cents, cents, cents
To see the elephant, elephant, elephant
Jump the fence, fence, fence
They jumped so high, high, high
They touched the sky, sky, sky
And didn't come back, back, back

A sailor went to sea, sea, sea.

To see what he could see, see, see.
But all that he could see, see, see.
Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea.

For adult students, jazz chants would be more appropriate. These were originally created by a jazz musician
Carolyn Graham. She has published numerous activity books on jazz chants which are good resources for
ESL teachers. While helping your students’ pronunciation, they will also help to improve listening
comprehension skills and can reinforce grammar and vocabulary taught in class.

The best way to present jazz chants is getting your class to stand in two rows facing each other. Make sure
your students can read the chant on the board. Read the chant line by line, drilling it with the whole class. Then
get one side of the class to say the first line of the chant, and then the second side will do the next line, chanting
backward and forwards. While chanting, also get your students to keep a 4/4 beat by hitting their hands against
their legs, or by snapping their fingers, or stamping their feet.

Watch the video (online) for an example of running a jazz chant activity with your students. It is adapted from
the ‘Personal Questions Jazz Chant’ written by Carolyn Graham [Graham, C., (1978), Jazz Chants, Oxford
University Press.] It offers students practice in information questions such as ‘Where, how, how much, why
aren’t you, why don’t you’ as well as practicing contractions.

Personal Questions Jazz Chant:

Where were you born?
I’d rather not say. Where
are you from?
I’d rather not say.
How tall are you?
How much do you weigh?
I’d rather not say.

Teach International version 1.1 © 2018-2028 8

 Teach International
Online TESOL Course – Unit 6

How much rent do you pay?

I’d rather not say.
How much do you make? I’d
rather not say.
Why aren’t you married?
I’d rather not say.
Why don’t you have children?
I’d rather not say.
Where were you last night?
Why weren’t you home?
Did you stay out late?
Did you come home alone?
Did you have a good time?
Did you see a good play?
Did you go to a concert?
I’d rather not say.

You may also decide to write your own jazz chant with your class. It could be based upon some grammar you
have just taught, or make up a chant that includes the students in your class!

6. Intonation

Start off by telling your students some information that they will find surprising, interesting or unbelievable, and
get them to respond with the appropriate answer and with the correct intonation. For example:

T: “I eat ice-cream for breakfast every morning”

St: “Really?” (with rising intonation)

T: “I went on holidays overseas 7 times last year.”

St: “Did you?” (with rising intonation)

T: “Did you know that the smallest bird in the world is the hummingbird?” St:
“No, I didn’t.” (with falling intonation)

Once your students get the idea of the activity, give out cards to each student with other surprising statements.
They then have to move around the class taking turns saying the statement, and responding to other
classmate’s statements, thinking carefully about the correct intonation to use. You could also get your students
to make up their own surprising statements for others to respond to.

7. Phonemes

A fun way of practising phonemes and the phonetic chart is to turn the chart into a game. Distribute the
phonemic chart symbols to the students and then call out a sound. Your students have to cross off the
phonemes they hear, and the student who crosses them all off first, is the winner. If teaching children, an
adaptation of this game is to write the EPA chart symbols on the board. Get your students to stand in 3-4 lines
facing the board. You could call out a sound, and the student at the front of the line has to run to the board and
touch the correct phoneme first. They then get a point for their team. The team with most points at the end of
the game wins!

You could also get your students to work in pairs to transcribe sentences written normally, into the phonetic
script.

Teach International version 1.1 © 2018-2028 9

 Teach International
Online TESOL Course – Unit 6

Music in the ESL Classroom

Using music in the classroom has many benefits! It is fun, motivating, memorable and a great way of practising
new language. It can also be used for reinforcing new grammar structures, it helps your students improve their
pronunciation, can be used for listening comprehension, introduces new topics and also helps to expand your
students’ cultural knowledge! There are many benefits to using music and is something that should definitely
be used—even if you are not the most musical person or the best singer in the world! Adults and children alike
will always love lessons that include music!

However, you can’t just choose any old song and decide to play it in class. You need to think carefully about
each song you select and you also need to make that song into a game or an activity.

Once you have chosen a song which you feel is appropriate, you will need to find the song’s lyrics and also
make a copy of the song. You may have the song on CD, or may decide to purchase an MP3 of the song using
the Internet. It is advised you download music legally, using sites such as www.itunes.com or www.mp3.com
and then burn the song to disc. To get the lyrics, you can use Internet sites such as www.thesonglyrics.com
or do a Google search of the song’s title and artist. It’s a good idea to check that the song lyrics are correct
and do match the song you have downloaded, so always listen to the song and read the lyrics before you go
to class!

There are many ways that you can bring music into the classroom. Many of these would be most appropriate
to use with adults or teens:

1. Cloze Exercises

This is a very common method that is easy to prepare. Also known as a gap-fill, you make a worksheet that
has some of the lyrics blanked out. Your students listen to the song, and complete the blanks. You may be
getting them to focus on particular words, for example, by blanking out all the nouns or verbs, or a particular
grammar structure. This shows your students how those words can be used in a real-life context. You will need
to play the song several times to allow your students opportunity to hear all the words. You may also need to
pre-teach difficult vocabulary, and always check that they have got the correct words after you have played it.
It’s also a nice idea to allow your students to sing the song after you have checked it, as this provides
pronunciation and stress practice.

For example:

If you have just taught the First Conditional in your target language section of the lesson, you could use the
song Moon Shadow by Cat Stevens to reinforce this grammar form. If you decided to do a Cloze Exercise, the
worksheet might look like this:

Moon Shadow
Cat Stevens

I'm being followed by a moon shadow moon

shadow-moon shadow
leaping and hopping on a moon shadow
moon shadow-moon shadow and
if I ever lose my plough, lose my
land oh, if I ever
oh, if...
I
and if I ever
If my
yes, if I ever oh if …
I .
yes, I'm being followed by a moon shadow
moon shadow - moon shadow
leaping and hopping on a moon shadow
moon shadow - moon shadow

Teach International version 1.1 © 2018-2028 10

 Teach International
Online TESOL Course – Unit 6

and if I ever
I won't moan and I won't beg
of (oh) if I ever
oh if...
I
And if I ever _
all my teeth, north and south
yes, if I ever
oh if...
I won't have to talk...

After your students listen and fill in the blanks, get them to check their answers with each other. You could then
have a group discussion about these things and try and get your students’ own opinions on what they might
do if any of these things happen to them (encouraging them to use the First Conditional!).

2. Scrambled Songs

You could get the song lyrics to a relevant song, and cut up each line or verse of the song. Put these cut-up
lyrics into an envelope, and then your students must listen to the song and try and put the lyrics into the correct
order.

3. Spot the mistake

Some songs don’t follow the best grammar. With higher level students, you could get them to listen to a song
and see if they hear the incorrect grammar. Then give them the lyrics to mark on the worksheet what the
mistakes are. You could also change the lyrics of a song you think they would like, and they must listen to the
song while reading the lyrics and see if they spot the differences. You may put extra words in, or take words
out, or even put the wrong spelling—for example, you could write the word “so” like “sew” and see if they can
figure out the inaccuracy.

4. Class discussion

Some songs will really strike a chord, or will contain a controversial or thought-provoking idea. Your students
could discuss the song in a group, after listening to it, or they could make up a story about the characters in
the song.

If you are teaching children, it is likely music will be a part of every lesson you teach. Kids love singing and
dancing and will respond very excitedly whenever you introduce a new song and actions to go with it! Think
about all the nursery rhymes you may have learnt as a child, and turn these into lessons your children will ask
for over and over again!

Your students don’t need to understand every word to get benefit from the songs you use, but do be sure that
the language is not too complicated for their language level. The key to your kids learning new songs is
repetition, you may find it tedious singing the same songs every lesson, but your children will love it as they
will quickly learn all the words and will sing them all the time! It might also be useful to use picture flashcards
of the key vocabulary while they are singing, so that the important words are being learnt and remembered.

Some ideas for using music with children:

1. Dance and Movement

Think of actions and gestures which can be taught in conjunction with the words of a nursery rhyme, chant or
song. A song like “I’m a little teapot” is an easy one to think actions for to accompany the song, and your
children will love getting out of their seats and moving around to songs like this!

2. Start of Class/ End of Class

Children love routine, and starting each lesson with a “Good Morning/Afternoon” song and ending your class
with a “Goodbye” song is a nice idea for helping your children to focus. Also play children’s English songs in

Teach International version 1.1 © 2018-2028 11

 Teach International
Online TESOL Course – Unit 6

the background while they are doing a quiet activity, and they will subconsciously hear the music and learn the
lyrics.

3. Finger Plays and Action Songs

Remember the finger play song This Little Pig…?

This little pig went to the market This

little pig stayed home
This little pig ate roast beef
This little pig had none
This little pig went wee wee wee!
All the way home!

Using their hand and fingers, you could make this rhyme really come to life with your students. They could
make little finger puppets to put onto their fingers and then say the rhyme—and would also be learning the
past tense!

There is also plenty of potential in rhymes such as this one:

Five little monkeys jumping on

the bed
One fell off and bumped his
head
Mama called the doctor
and the doctor Said, " No
more monkeys jumping on
the bed!"

Four little monkeys jumping

on the bed, three little monkeys jumping on the bed, (and so on).

Your children will love acting it out and you could change the actions from jumping on the bed, to other actions
they may be learning. Of course, this is great numbers practice too!

Have fun with using music in the children’s ESL classroom—leave your dignity at the door—and get creative
with adapting songs, rhymes and chants you already know! Also think about using a musical instrument if you
can play one—adult and children students alike will really appreciate your skill and this will also add variety to
your lesson.

Teach International version 1.1 © 2018-2028 12