I’ve selected four tongue twisters for this video, and each one has an interesting item that students can focus on. So let’s hop over and see each one one at a time.

Tongue twister ONE: Seven Santas sang silly songs

• Play tongue twister and stop before the next one comes on scene.
• Correct pronunciation of Santa → /ˈsæntə/ (final -a is schwa /ə/, never /æ/). This is mainly because /ə/ doesn’t exist in Spanish, so students tend to stress both syllables.
• Listen and shadow and try to say the tongue twister faster each time. Fun is guaranteed.

Tongue twister TWO: Santa’s sleigh slides on slick snow

• Play the second tongue twister and focus on consonant clusters sl-, sn- without adding es- → slides, slick, snow.
• Write down several words with st-sp-sl-sn combinations on the blackboard and practise. Here are some: snow – snake – snail – special – space – spendid – start – star – snob – sleep – slide – slice – slim
• Notice silent -gh in sleigh. Show two different pronounciations for -gh in final syllabic positions and for some extra fun, there is an Odd-Man-Out quiz under the video.
• Listen and shadow and try to say the tongue twister faster each time.

Tongue twister THREE: Ten tiny tin trains toot ten times

• Compare this initial English /t/ with the Spanish /t/ sound – I usually teach my students this sound pretending to be the late queen drinking a cup of tea. It actually works!
• Listen and shadow and try to say the tongue twister faster each time. (pretending to have a cuppa!)

Tongue twister FOUR: Eight elves eagerly ate everything

• Homophones eight / ate → both /eɪt/. although modern tendency is to pronounce ‘ate’ as /et/
• Teach pronounciation of /v/ in elves (upper teeth on lower lip).
• Irregular plural: elf → elves (f → v + /z/ ending).
• Reduced forms: eagerly /ˈiːɡərli/, everything /ˈevriθɪŋ/.

And that’s about it for now!!! Hope you like the activity. Ho! Ho! Ho!