(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.) *

There has been a consensus among the many professionals that I have asked that dropping the final consonants on words causes the most communication breakdowns. I’ve had to decipher things like:

“I cou-n do my homewo cu I fe si.” (I couldn’T do my homeworK because I felT sicK.)

“Do you wan ah to chew a new topi?” (Do you wanT uS to chooSE a new topiC?)

If we just respond by asking, “What did you say?”, the speaker will merely repeat what s/he had said, perhaps a bit louder.

I developed a set of exercises that have proven to be effective in developing students’ self-awareness in the cause of some of their communication breakdowns. So now, if we ask “What did you say?”, the speaker will have a sense of the cause of the breakdown and of a way to adjust what they had said.

What you’ll find in the downloadable exercises

• The focus is on:
  -final consonants (-t)  e.g. me/meet
  -final consonants (-s) e.g. go/goes
  -final consonants (-k) e.g. we/week

• Student A / Student B worksheets for each sound.

The process

1st) On their worksheets, students identify which of 10 minimal pairs the teacher says.

2nd) Student A chooses one of each minimal pair and reads it to Student B, who tries to           identify the words that Student A said. Then they reverse roles.

3rd) Individually, they practice reading some sentences.

4th) Student B sees some sentences on a paper with some words blanked out.  Student A reads the sentence to Student B, who tries to fill in the blanks. Then they reverse roles.

Here is the worksheets that you can use with your students: Pronunciation final consonants

Several times I’ve had this type exchange with a student after they had become aware of these sounds through these exercises:

Student: I need to tall to you?
Me: You need to TALL to me?
Student: I mean, I need to TALK to you.

David Kehe

*About the free-download materials. During my 40 years of teaching ESL, I have had many colleagues who were very generous with their time, advice and materials. These downloads are my way of paying it forward.