Minimal Pairs

“Swat the Word”

As a 5-minute warm-up activity, write three to five sets of words scattered across the board.  Call students to the board two at a time.  Give each student a fly swatter.  Call out a word and have students take turns swatting the correct word.  If the student chooses the incorrect word, the other student can attempt to swat the correct word.  As the students progress, the number of words that are written on the board can be increased.  For an extension activity, students can be asked to use the word that they swat in a sentence. Some examples of the minimal pairs that may be used are as follows:

fit / feet

they/day

ship / sheep

tree / three

rid/lid

run/one

write/white

path/pass

block/black

rain/ran

made/mad

bake/back

Application Questions

Freeman& Freeman

Application Questions 5 & 6

5. The following are the allophones for the phoneme /l/:

   

     Clear/light “l” as in leaf (líf )

    Voiceless “l” as in clay (klé)

    Velarized/dark “l” as in cool (kúl )

     Silent “l” as in calf (kǽf)

English language learners tend to apply the same sound to the phoneme as they are not aware of the allophones. This leads to the mispronunciation of words.  When an ELL is listening to a native English speaker, they focus on the allophones and often become overwhelmed trying to decipher the differences (Freeman & Freeman, 2004).   

6.  Some of the common differences I have heard recently:

Aren’t                                      Ain’t

I do not have any                    I don’t got none

We are going                           We gonna go

That is for me                          That’s fir me

He doesn’t want to go            He don’t want to go

I feel that people do associate different dialects with greater/less intelligence.  For example, when people tend to use a lot of slang words (“dawg”) or improper grammar (“ain’t”) they can sound less intelligent. 

I think that if a regional dialect greatly affects a person’s career, then they should consider the dialect reduction course.  For instance, if the dialect is hindering effective communication with students/clients, it may be necessary to learn a more standard dialect. 

Freeman, D. and Freeman Y. (2004). Essential linguistics: What you need to know to

teach reading, ESL, spelling, phonics, and grammar. Portsmouth, NH:

Heinemann.