The flyswatter game
This is about the only pronunciation game I know, and it was given to me by another teacher here in Korea . I've had a lot of success with this game... the students think it's hilarious and they get some practice speaking and listening too! You need: 2 flyswatters (preferably unused!), 4 X 6 cards or sheets of A4 paper, whiteboard/blackboard. Choose the sound you want to target/differentiate, for example the R/L first position sound. Write one word of a R/L pair on each card, totalling however many pairs you want. This is my word list for R/L: River/Liver, Rice/Lice, Road/Load, Rare/Lair, Rap/Lap, Rug/Lug, Red/Led. So that's a total of 12 cards with one word written on each card in large enough letters to be seen by the class when held up. Randomly write all these words on the board. Go over the words on the board, having the students listen and repeat, noticing the difference between the 'R' and 'L' sound. Do not erase the words on the board. Divide the class into two teams. One student from each team comes and stands in front of the board. They each hold one flyswatter. The teacher stands with their back to these students (so the students at the board CANNOT see the word card) and holds up one of the cards for both teams to see. All of the seated students must yell out the word clearly enough for their teammate at the board to recognize the word and slap (with the flyswatter) the correct word on the board. (For example, I hold up the card with the word "Rice" on it, and the class screams "Rice". If they say it correctly, then their teammate at the board should slap "Rice". If they say "Lice", then their teammate slaps the wrong word). The first person at the board to hit the correct word that the students are saying gets the point for their team. Usually I let the people at the board have two tries at listening, then they pass the flyswatter on to another teammate. I go through all the words at least once or twice and it gets louder and more competitive as the game goes on. This is not as easy as it sounds... I participated in the game myself last week and totally LOST against my Level 1 student!! - C.R. in Korea (Source: Dave’s ESL Cafe)