Pronunciation games 3

Make a Word
players in groups of 2-5

You'll need: 2 sets of cards (colour-coded) per group.

1. The aim of the game is to pick two cards, one from each stack or set, and make one word according to what both of the cards say. For example, one set of cards specifies the number of syllables, from one to four, while the other set specifies which sounds you need to use. Let's say a student has picked two cards:

Card 1 "Your word contains two syllables" and Card 2 "Your word begins with a /p/". The student says party and gets a point. 

2. Another option is to test just one category of sounds or features: particular vowels, consonants, weak and strong forms, words that rhyme etc. Use lexical sets or rhymes if your students don't know phonetic symbols. You can also have a set which specifies what speech part the word is. It is important, however, to keep the stacks or sets separate and make sure the cards don't contradict each other, so that no student picks for instance "Your word begins with a consonant" and "Your word begins with a vowel". Likewise, avoid requirements that would make the possible range of answers too narrow or even impossible, such as "Your word begins with /ʒ/" and "Your word contains /h/". For the same reason, avoid making three sets of cards, as they would make things too difficult.

You can add wildcards, such as any vowel or consonant, any number of syllables, any part of speech.

3. As always, if students disagree, they can ask you for help or use dictionaries on smartphones. Make sure they don't cheat by simply going to a word-searching website (or asking Siri).

4. When there's some time left and a group has used all the cards, the students can reshuffle them and continue.

5. You can also print out and distribute lists of all the tasks and simply give students cards with numbers and letters or dice. This is perhaps less exciting as a brief look at the list will reveal all the possible options. 

As a warm-up or a follow-up you can do an example in reverse, that is write a word on the board and ask the students to make rules that could be used on cards. For instance, if you write the word consider, the students will say things like "It has three syllables", "It begins with /k/" or "It contains /d/".