'Beware of heard, a dreadful word'

One of my favourite parts of teaching English is pronunciation. I remember finding the poem I take it you already know which I've added to the end of this blog posting and using it in almost all of my classes. It's particularly good for advanced learners who think they've completely mastered the English language!

In the beginning of a lesson based on pronunciation I often used tongue twisters to get learners going. Click here to find some good ones.

Then I'd read the poem out myself so learners could hear it. Alternatively you could get learners to listen and watch someone else reading the poem. Click here to watch a video of the poem being read on Youtube.

To teach learners the correct pronunciation of the difficult words I would extract them from the poem and find words that rhyme or have similar sounds.

For example:

Bough sounds like cow, now, and how

Bird sounds like heard, nerd and third

I would encourage learners to find some of their own comparisons and if they knew the phonetic alphabet ask them to write the correct pronunciations phonetically.

Lastly learners would get into pairs and practice saying the poem over and over. If the class were feeling brave I would get them to say a line each out loud and correct each others pronunciation.

I take it you already know

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough and through.
Well done! And now you wish perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead, it's said like bed, not bead-
for goodness' sake don't call it 'deed'!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(they rhyme with suite and straight and debt).

A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth, or brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's doze and rose and lose-
Just look them up- and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart-
Come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd learned to speak it when I was five!
And yet to write it, the more I sigh,
I'll not learn how 'til the day I die.