Slap the Sound

Purpose: To help students practice listening for, identifying, and producing final consonant sounds in order to develop their English intelligibility.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Materials Needed: A list of vocabulary words that end in consonant sounds and/or consonant clusters (e.g. math, question, health, teacher, art, student, assignment, homework, lunch, board) and sets of cards with final consonants and/or consonant blends from the vocabulary words written on them (e.g. n,  r, rt, nt, rk, rd, ch, th).

Procedure:

1. Write the vocabulary words on the board. Review them with the class, emphasizing the final consonant sounds. (The students may need to practice producing the final consonant sounds in isolation as well as on the end of the words.)
2. Put the class into partners. Give each pair a set of final consonant cards.
3. Say a random word from the vocabulary list on the board. The students should hold up the consonant card that corresponds with the final sound of the word. For example, if you say the word math, the students should hold up the card that has th written on it. Go through all of the words in random order.
4. Select one partner in each of the pairs to be the speaker, with the other partner acting as the listener.
5. The speaker says a random word from the vocabulary list. The listener slaps their hand down on the final consonant card that corresponds to the sound that they hear. If the listener doesn’t hear the final consonant or consonant blend, they ask the speaker to repeat the word until the speaker clearly produces the final consonant sound.
6. After the speaker has gone through all of the vocabulary words, the partners switch roles and repeat the activity.

Modification: You can adapt this activity to be a high-energy game. Put the students in to groups of 3-4, and the student who slaps the consonant card first gets a point. The student with the most points at the end of the game is the winner.