Activity

1. Stand with good posture and put one hand on your stomach. Breathe in and feel your belly pushing your hand forward.
2. Now breathe out. Start from your belly with the feeling of pushing the air out 3 times, as you say: ‘hoo – hoo – hoo’. Your lips should be rounded, and you should feel the sound coming from the back of your mouth, almost in your throat. Repeat: ‘hoo – hoo – hoo’.
3. Breathe in again and, on the next out breath say: ‘hoh – hoh – hoh’. Once again: ‘hoh – hoh – hoh’.
4. Breathe in again and on the next out breath say: ‘hor – hor – hor’. Feel that your jaw has now dropped, and your lips are less rounded. Repeat: ‘hor – hor – hor’.
5. Breathe in again and on the next out breath say: ‘hah – hah – hah’. Feel the sound moving forward in your mouth, which is now open. Say again: ‘hah – hah – hah’.
6. Breathe in again and on the next out breath say: ‘hi – hi – hi’. Feel the lips starting to spread out towards a smile. Once again: ‘hi – hi – hi’.
7. Breathe in again and on the next out breath say: ‘hey – hey – hey’. Repeat: ‘hey – hey – hey’.
8. Breathe in again and on the next out breath say: ‘hee – hee – hee’. Feel that your lips are now fully stretched in a grin and that the sound has arrived at the front of the mouth. Once again: ‘hee – hee – hee’.

Activity

1. Stand with good posture and put one hand on your stomach. Breathe in and feel your belly pushing your hand forward.
2. As you breathe out, you will say: ‘hoo – hoo – Who are you?’ With each ‘hoo’, make sure you use your abdominal muscles, like this:
        The teacher demonstrates.
3. So you are going to repeat this after me, and then we will continue in the same way with other sounds. Always make sure you use good abdominal breathing:
   hoo – hoo    –    Who are you?
   hoh – hoh    –    Home is where the heart is!
   hor – hor    –    Horse radish is hot.
   ha – ha    –    Half a whole orange.
   hi – hi    –    High heels often hurt.
   hey –hey    –    Hay is what horses eat.
   hee – hee    –    He’s my uncle.

Activity

1. Everybody stands up and spreads out in the room.
2. Each of you picks up a slip of paper from the envelope. On it, you will see a word which you probably don’t recognise. This word is going to be a greeting!
3. Read it to yourself, ‘silently aloud’. You may not be sure of its pronunciation, but don’t worry. Just try to make it sound English! Once you are familiar with your word, put it back in the envelope, without showing it to anyone.
4. Now, with my first signal, start walking around as if you were walking in the street, going to catch the tram.
        The teacher makes the first signal.
5. When you hear my next signal, go to someone and greet them with your word: first, ‘silently aloud’, then aloud. You can say it twice, but no more. When you hear your partner’s greeting, listen carefully because the word that you hear or think you have heard is going to be the word that you greet the next person with.
       The teacher makes the second signal.
6. On my signal, start walking again.
       The teacher makes the first signal again.
7. On my next signal, go to someone else. Don’t go to the person right next to you, but choose somebody who is a bit further away in the room. You will greet this person in the same way you greeted the first person, but with your new word. First ‘silently aloud’ (focusing on its articulation), then aloud. Listen carefully to the greeting of your partner because that will be your next greeting.
       The teacher makes the second signal.
8. Now follow my signals to continue to go to different people with your new greeting. The first signal is just walking. The second signal goes to someone else in the room.
       The teacher continues to make signals.

Activity

1. Stand up in a circle (or around the tables) with good posture.
2. We are going to create two-syllable nonsense words. They must sound English.
3. I will start by saying a syllable.
       The teacher says the syllable fa—either with weak or strong stress—/fə/ or /fɒ/
4. The next person, on my right, says a second syllable. But be careful: you can’t have two syllables with the same stress, so we have to hear a difference in stress! For example, if I say /fə/- weak stress—the next person must say a syllable with strong stress, like grik - /grɪk/—so the word produced is /fə’grɪk/. But if I say my syllable with a strong stress /fɒ/, the next person must say grik with a weak stress. So, the word is /‘fɒgrɪk’/. Let’s try that.
       The teacher says either /fə/ or /fɒ/. The person on the right should then say /grɪk/ with either strong or weak stress, but the opposite of what the teacher has said.
5. Good. Now the next person puts the two together. We should clearly hear the weak and the stressed syllable. So, we might hear /fə’grɪk/. Say that. Or we might hear /‘fɒgrɪk/. Say that. And we will all repeat the word twice.
       Now, the next person, the fourth person, will give a definition of the word they hear. It is an invented word, so the definition is invented. Be imaginative with your definition. For example, a /fə’grɪk/ is a very small knife used for cutting straight lines in wood and a /‘fɒgrɪk/is a verb meaning to throw an object and then to turn around before you see where the object lands!
6. After that, the next person begins a new word with a syllable, and we continue. But remember, it is very important to make your syllable strong or weak. I will begin again, and this time we will continue around the circle.
       The teacher says a syllable, either weak or strong, and turns to the person on the right. The exercise then continues.

Activity

• I am going to ask someone to say the word ‘yes’. Then we are going to go around the circle saying the same word, but I want each one of you to say the word in a different way. But only the word ‘yes’, not ‘yeah’ or any other word.

11The teacher points at the student who begins and then indicates to the others to follow. It will probably be necessary after a few students have said the word using only volume and pitch to draw their attention to varying the length of the word. It is possible with this variation to make the word last four seconds!

12After going round the circle, a discussion can take place on the different meanings attached to the different ways of saying the word. The learners should be able to appreciate that ‘yes’ doesn’t always mean ‘yes’.

Activity

1. Stand up, everyone. You have a slip of paper with a short phrase on it. I want you to read it and then read it silently aloud. It is important that when you come to say it aloud, in a moment, you speak it clearly. Now, when I clap my hands, you begin to walk around the room.
2. When I clap my hands twice, you will stop and go to the person nearest to you and say your phrase aloud. Do not speak at the same time as the other person because you have to listen to what the other person says. Okay, let’s go!
        The teacher claps hands, then, after a short while, claps hands twice. The learners go to someone and say their phrases.
3. Good. Now, the next time you are going to correct what the person has said as if you are a spy chief, and your spy has repeated to you a code phrase they have had to learn, and they have got it wrong. You are a little bit annoyed, and you need to correct what they have said by putting stress on the wrong word, using pitch, volume, or syllable length. It is up to you to decide what word they have got wrong and what word to correct it with. For example, you might hear ‘a pink shirt’. You could decide that the colour is wrong, so you might say ‘a blue shirt’, or you might decide that the clothing is wrong and say ‘a pink tie’. Being annoyed or frustrated will help you to find the stress needed to correct the word.
4. Okay, once again, I will clap my hands for you to start walking and then clap them twice for you to go to someone to correct their “mistake”. After each exchange, I will clap my hands once for you to start walking again and clap them twice for you to go to another person.
       The teacher claps hands and then, after a moment, claps hands twice. After each exchange between learners, the teacher uses the claps to continue.

Activity

1. Stand, or sit, with good posture.
2. Start humming. Drop your jaw while doing so, and make sure your lips and your tongue are relaxed. Feel your lips tickling.
3. Breathe in and continue humming. Now hum up and down as though you were on a roller coaster. Use a hand to follow the climb and descent of your hum.

Activity

1. Stand, or sit, with good posture.
2. Before we start, I want you to think of a short sentence to say.
3. If you can’t think of a sentence, use this one: “I think I saw John with Mandy last night.”
4. Say your sentence aloud.
        The teacher makes sure that each learner has a suitable sentence.
5. Start humming. While humming, make sure your jaw is relaxed and there is a space between your molars. Feel your lips tickling. Don’t forget to stop and breathe in when needed. As you hum, imagine the sound is situated behind your nose.
6. Stop humming and say your sentence aloud at the same pitch level as your humming.
7. Start humming again. Now ‘think’ the hum up, to somewhere behind your eyes.
8. Stop humming and say your sentence aloud at the same pitch level as your humming.
9. Start humming again and ‘think’ the hum up to the top of your head.
10. Stop humming and say your sentence aloud. Focus on the source of the words being in the top of your head.
11. To finish, just say your sentence normally, with your natural pitch. Do you notice a difference in the way you said it before humming?

Activity

1. Walk in a silly way, exaggerating the shift of weight from one side to the other: slightly lift the leg which is not carrying the weight. Accompany this movement with your arms and your upper body in order to feel the swing. The swing should follow a regular beat.
       Demonstrate a walk.
2. Now breathe out noisily through your mouth, indicating the beat on every other step. Let’s do it together for a little while.
3. Demonstrate together with the learners.
4. We are now going to add words to build up a sentence. I will say the words, exaggerating the stress, and you will repeat them several times with me. The stress is always when the weight is on the same leg.
   • HelLO! helLO! helLO!
   • How Are you?… How Are you?… How Are you?
           With the learners continuing to walk, swing, and say the words. Never stop the swing, from one side to the other!
   • I thINk I saw you YEsterday… I thINk I saw you YEsterday…
   • Coming OUt of the POst office… Coming OUt of the POst office
5. Now we put it all together. The stress will not always be on the same foot:
   HelLO!
   How Are you?
   I thINk I saw you YEsterday
   coming OUt of the POst office
6. Repeat the last sequence several times, walking, swinging, and speaking

Activity

1. Please, stand up everybody.
2. I want you to sing this sentence: ‘I looked at the wolf, and the wolf looked at me’
3. Don’t be melodious: sing it in a ‘free-jazz’ style, lengthening words, changing pitch and volume, and putting in pauses wherever you want, like this: ‘…….’
        The teacher demonstrates.
4. And again, with the same sentence, but putting your changes in different places. Do it several times, each time in a different way.
5. Now say the sentence aloud, in normal speech, as you are trying to keep the feeling you had when you were singing it.

Activity

1. Repeat the following sentence after me:
   “I think she’s really very beautiful.”
   /aɪ θɪŋk ʃiːz ˈriːəli ˈveri bjuːtɪfl/
        The student repeats the sentence
2. We are now going to repeat the sentence from the end to the beginning, building up through the addition of syllables. I want you to say /fl/, as if you are running out of energy as you say it. Repeat it again. /fl/
3. Now say /tɪfl/. With a bit more energy on the /tɪ/ than on /fl/ ‘Say it again. /tɪfl/.
4. Now /ˈbjuːtɪfl/. Put lots of energy into the /ˈbjuː/. Repeat it again. /ˈbjuː/
5. I am now going to continue adding sounds which come before the last sound that I have said. Repeat what I say.
   /ri ˈbjuːtɪfl/. Repeat it. /ri ˈbjuːtɪfl/.
   /ˈveri ˈbjuːtɪfl/. Repeat it. /ˈveri ˈbjuːtɪfl/.
   /li ˈveri bjuːtɪfl/ Repeat it. /li ˈveri bjuːtɪfl/
   /ˈriːəli ˈveri bjuːtɪfl/ Repeat it. / riːəli ˈveri bjuːtɪfl/
   /z ˈriːəli ˈveri bjuːtɪfl/ Repeat it. /z ˈriːəli ˈveri bjuːtɪfl/
   /ʃiːzˈriːəli ˈveri bjuːtɪfl/. Repeat it. /ʃiːzˈriːəli ˈveri bjuːtɪfl
   /ɪŋk ʃiːz ˈriːəli ˈveri bjuːtɪfl/ Repeat it. /ɪŋk ʃiːz ˈriːəli ˈveri bjuːtɪfl/
   /θɪŋk ʃiːz ˈriːəli ˈveri bjuːtɪfl/ Repeat it. /θɪŋk ʃiːzˈriːəli ˈveri bjuːtɪfl/
   /aɪ θɪŋk ʃiːzˈriːəli ˈveri bjuːtɪfl/ Repeat it. /aɪ θɪŋk ʃiːzˈriːəli ˈveri bjuːtɪfl/