Teaching Weak Forms - Perfect Pronunciation

Level

B1 / B2 (Intermediate / Upper-intermediate)

Age

Teenagers and adults

Aims

• To raise awareness of weak forms and contractions in natural spoken English.
• To practise listening by focusing on weak forms.

Time

40-60 mins

This lesson is flexible, and the length will depend on the level of your learners. If your students are stronger, you may want to drop the language focus.

Materials

• Worksheet: Weak forms
• Premier Skills English Podcast: Perfect Pronunciation - Weak forms

Preparation

Read this plan, and familiarise yourself with the topic.

Make copies of the worksheets.

Download the podcast to play on a phone/tablet or listen to it online on the podcast page (see the downloads section on the right).

Procedure

1. Activity 1

Tell your students that they are going to listen to the Premier Skills English website but first they have a speaking activity to do.

The first activity on the worksheet (you can downlaod this on the right) is a ‘find someone who ...’.

Show your students the worksheet. Explain that there are four sentences with missing subjects. Ask your students to think of questions they could ask everyone in the class so they can complete the sentences.

Give your students a few minutes to plan their questions. Tell them that they will have one minute to interview to interview each other. After a minute, shout change and your students will have to find a new partner. When they are ready, ask them to stand up and find a partner. Shout change to repeat the interview four or five times.

2. Listening

Play the podcast from 00.00 > 2.35.

Here is the Premier Skills English Podcast: Perfect Pronunciation - Weak Forms

3. Activity 2 - Find the schwa

Draw a schwa on the board. Ask your students if they know what it is. Write the word player on the board.

Ask the class: How many syllables? What are the vowels? Which syllable is stressed? Which vowel is a schwa? Ask your students to complete activity two in the worksheet (see downloads on the side of this page). Give them a few minutes to complete the activity.

Check answers in pairs then check with the whole class.

4. Listen

Play the next part of the podcast - 02:35 > 07:45.

In this section, Rich and Jack talk about weak forms. When you stop the podcast, ask the class what sort of words are usually weak forms?
Grammar words: auxiliary and modal verbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles and indefinite adjectives

Write the following on the board: Where do you live?

Ask the class which words are most important for the meaning of the question. Ask students to underline them. Ask if there are any grammar words in the sentence. Ask students to draw a dot over them.

Elicit the correct pronunciation: /weə.də.jə.lɪv/

5. Activity 3 - Mark the stress and weak forms

Ask your students to work in pairs. Tell them that they need to go through the sentences on the worksheet and underline the words that are important for meaning and put dots over the grammar words.

6. Listen

Play the next part of the podcast - 07:45 >10:30. In this section, Rich and Jack look at some famous quotes from films that have weak forms. They then set up Activity 4. Stop the podcast at 10:30 and draw your students’ attention to Activity 4.

7. Activity 4 - Write the complete sentences

Ask your students to look at the sentences in Activity 4. There are words missing. Your students need to listen to the next part of the podcast and try to complete the sentences. Play the podcast from 10:30 till the activity is finished. You could let the podcast play
until the end. After the podcast, ask your students to check the answers in groups.

8. Activity 5 - Find someone else who ...

Ask your students to look at the questions they prepared for activity 1. Tell them to practise saying the questions using weak forms. Finally, rerun the activity but this time, ask them to find different names for the sentences.

9. Discussion

Ask your students if they felt the lesson was useful. Ask them why they think weak forms are important.

10. Homework

Ask your students to find a famous song lyric or film quote and to mark the weak forms.  Alternatively, they could write their responses as a comment on the Premier Skills English Podcast page: Perfect Pronunciation - weak forms.