ESL Level: Intermediate+
Language Focus: Pronunciation of 's' sounds (plurals)
Class Time: 40 minutes (or one hour if you watch the video)
Materials: A worksheet for each student, a tongue twister for each student
Lesson Plan Download: This lesson is now on TPT
Lesson Plan Description
Firstly, you'll have to teach your students to recognize which plural verbs and nouns end with a /s/, /z/, or /iz/ sound. There's a great video on plural sounds online by Elemental English. Instead of teaching it yourself, you can just show your students the video.
Next, review the rules quickly for each plural sound.
Part 1: Grouping Plural Verbs
Then give your students the hand-out below (download the file above). For the first part, as per the instructions, the students can (individually or with a partner) put the plural word into the correct column according to the sound of its ending.
[See TPT for worksheet preview]
When finished, they can read the story to each other. You, the teacher, should take up the answers as well.
Part 2: Tongue Twisters
Beforehand, you should cut up one tongue twister (from below) for each student. There are only 4 tongue twisters; it's okay that multiple students have the same one. The tongue twisters also test the pronunciation of other sounds, but there are some plural nouns as well.
Give a tongue twister to each student. Have them practice it for a minute. Then, get them to stand up and mix around. Have them say their tongue twisters to each other. When they hear a tongue twister, they should write it down at the bottom of their worksheet (on page 1). Remind them to
- actually say the tongue twister (instead of just showing the paper to their partner)
- ask questions for repetition ("Can you say that again?") or spelling ("How do you spell 'chopstick'?")
Once the students have heard and written down the other three tongue twisters, the pronunciation lesson is complete.
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Free Worksheet Answer Key - /s/ /z/ /iz/
[See TPT for answer key]
In my experience, students always enjoy tongue twisters. Give it a shot and have fun in your ESL class.
- Matthew Barton / Creator of Englishcurrent.com
Thanks a lot for this work.It’s very helpful
I am confused the word “ring” when it is put in /s/ column, I thought that it is /z/. Can you explain it?
There was a mistake. Thanks for pointing it out!
thanks a lot! it’s really great.
Great ideas to practice pronunciation of plural s. Thanks!
Excellent job! Thank you. So useful and well explained by the speaker and graphics.
Great job, however, they are not plural nouns rather words that end in s, some verbs and some plural nouns
Don’t you have the answers?
Hello. The worksheet is designed for teachers. However, if you want to see if you have the answers, please type them below and I’ll give you some feedback.
What answers
Hello. I’ve added the answers.
Present simple pronunciation s z iz
Rules for3 pereson singular he she it pronunciation of s
it’s so good
Excelente información que nospermite aprender más
Hola Muy bueno es aprender esto por que nos ayuda a identificar los verbos en plural y los sustantivos..
Excellent job! Thank you. So useful and well explained by the speaker and graphics.
Extremely helpful, thank you! I’m new to teaching ELA and I was stumped by this question, even after teaching English to native English speakers for 20 years!
Great. If you just downloaded the product on TPT, please leave a review if you have time! They help my store a lot. Cheers.
I took extra time for understood this rule. Thanks
Hello,
I have a problem with pronoucing the first s of the word “houses” with /s/ sound.
All the phonological and morphological rules agree that the root of the word houses can not be affected.
Great job! Very important. The text-to-speech on Google Translate currently gets this very wrong, e.g. “radio-ss” instead of “radio-z”. It’s one of the first things I pick up on with people whose first language isn’t English but who otherwise have very good accents.
A correction: In your video, it should say “vocal cords”. You can sing the notes of a “chord” using your vocal cords.
Thanks. It’s not my video, but interesting note re: chords vs cords. I didn’t know the correct spelling myself!