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- Hello TEFL students, in this video,
I'm gonna show you how to run a multiple pair activity,
in three simple steps.
So let's get started.
Step number one, is to select your minimal pair list.
If you're teaching abroad,
consider the first language of your students,
and perhaps you could do a quick internet search,
to find minimal pair activities,
that match with their particular language.
I give an example up in the corner,
and this case,
I have minimal pairs that contrast by vowels.
We have contrasting vowels here,
as an example of a minimal pair list.
So step one,
you've found a list that will work well with your students.
Now it's time to move on to step two.
In step two, this is an important step.
You need to make sure that your students
can distinguish the sound differences,
between those two sounds.
You can't have them going on to produce,
without first having their ability to hear the difference.
So in very simple listening at practice idea,
would be to divide the words up in these two lists,
and have the students select either they point to them,
or they circle them,
which word they hear.
Tail,
fade,
red,
age,
"fed,
fade,
fade"
"tell,
tell,
tail"
"raid,
red,
"raid"."
After they're able to distinguish the sounds,
you can move on to step three,
which is practice producing those sounds.
I've printed off two of similar activities,
I want to share with you.
Activity number one is,
fun and quite simple to do.
I've taken those same words.
And in this case I've added some pictures to them,
and I'm going to divide the students up into pairs,
and I'm going to give everybody one piece of paper,
and they lay the paper down between student and student B.
When they go through and they say,
tail,
student A will say tail and student B will try to hear,
and circle what they hear the student produced.
So it's a practice in the production of the student,
and in the listening of the other students.
And they work it out together
to practice both the pronunciation,
and hearing of those words.
Make sure that both students A and B rotate,
and do the list a couple times.
That's a simple paired middle minimal pair activity.
Another one that you could do,
that would be a small group activity,
would be to take those same words,
and cut them up,
and have the students sort them,
so that they go underneath the sound
that they correspond to.
If your students know the International Phonetic Alphabet,
or if you've taught the IPA,
we call it the IPA chart.
You could put symbols around the room,
and the students could go,
and put those words underneath the correct symbol.
Or you could simply do it at your desk,
where students write out the sound,
and they sort the words to go underneath the correct sound.
So here are two simple activities,
one where you do in pairs,
and one that they do in small groups.
And as always you want to go over,
the answers with your students when you're done.
So, those are just some ideas,
and one way to run a minimal pair activity,
and three simple steps.
Thank you.
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