Dear Deer

Recently I introduced the idea of homophones to my upper-intermediate and advanced students.

It was part of my endeavour to make my students love English even more and enjoy playing with the language :), see the progress they have made and to motivate them to study hard(er) even though they can now somehow get by in most situations they encounter.

We have read and (re)told jokes and collected them on a Padlet wall; we were filling in cartoon speech bubbles or solving riddles in English; we read blurbs of novels to spot interesting adjectives and some even managed to finish their first novels in English; we practised spelling frequently misspellt words such as accommodation, tomorrow or colleague and dilemma … and I think focusing on homophones was an invitable step to take :)

To warm them up and show them what homophones are we used a homophone fairy tale. 

They were surprised how many words they already know are pronounced in the same way but spellt differently. Many fossilized mistakes in pronunciation were uncovered … Does flour really rhyme with flower? Are knight and night pronounced the same way? Cereal and serial have the some pronunciation? Won and one homophones, are you pulling our leg? 

Then I asked them to write their own sentences substituting homophone pairs. Each chose a fairy tale character (Czech characters invited ! ) or a famous personality.

Here are our examples:

Cinderella prepared a tomato source for her too stepsisters. 

Fifinka sent Bobík to buy sum flower and baked him a cake. Bobík eight ate peaces of cake at won go.

Miloš Zeman eight too pairs and was week for a weak.  

After that, I divided students into pairs. I dictated a homophone, they took turns each adding one word/one spelling to their poster. First, As started. Then in the middle of the activity, I swapped the order and Bs started.

E.g. I said /sam/, A wrote some, B had to add sum. I dictated /nait/, B wrote night, A had to come up with the word knight.

For sample list of homophones to choose from, see the link here. 

This was a challenging activity for them and they enjoyed the collaborative part. Alternatively, you can divide students into two groups. They stand in two lines, facing the board. Say one homophone, two people, one from each team, rush to the board and write down the two words.

I knew it is vital to make the homophones memorable. We tried to come up with sentences where pairs of homophones are used together in a funny way. Then they read the sentences to the class saying “banana“ or “beep“ instead of the words. The rest of the class were guessing which pair of homophones it is. Challenging, indeed, and real fun.

Would you like to solve our homophone puzzle sentences?

My banana students stared at the banana.

There is a banana sitting on your banana.

There is banana banana among us.

I banana banana cookies yesterday.

On this tropical banana banana walk down the banana with my bride.

I don´t know banana the banana will be nice or not. Let´s stay at home.

The wind banana my banana shirt into the river.  

We also drew some posters to illustrate some of our homophone sentences.

To steel steal

None nun

Knight at night

weak for a week

bare bear

hare on your hair 

Some time ago I have found the following riddles that combine the two expressions on the Internet. Can you guess the homophones using the clues here? The first was done for you.

1. Two of a fruit  => pair and pear
2. A room in prison to exchange for money
3. not strong for seven days
4. to look at the ocean
5. a type of animal that grows on your head
6. Not there to listen
7. A baking ingredient in the garden
8. After dark in shining armour
9. To encounter the beef
10. A painful tool
11. A beloved forest creature
12.  To cry for a sea creature
13. A boy the planets revolve around
14. Swallowed the number
15. To find how heavy the path is

Well, how good are you at answering the questions?

In the class, I passed posters around with two riddles on each. Each riddle was numbered. Students worked in pairs noting down answers to the riddles. Then we checked the answers in pairs. 

Here are more “advanced” riddles. My students would not manage to answer most of these. 

For lovely homophone poems, see this link. 

To introduce the idea of homophones in one of my classes, I dictated “homophone” prompts to them. 

Their task was to write down three associations that came to their minds once they heard the word. They were not supposed to write down the original word. Then they compared the lists in pairs/small groups and discussed their lists. Of course, often their chains of associations were based on different original words (i.e. Homophone pairs, such as eye – I, read – red, break – brake, peace x piece, knight – night, pair – pear, bare – bear, flower  - flour).

If I dictated /flaur/ - Student A noted down rose, garden, smell x student B wrote down white, bake, cake.

This helped us to brainstorm the list of homophone pairs and to focus on the meaning of both words. As a follow-up activity, they prepared their own prompts for another group.

To recycle the words in a learner-centred way, I gave each pair a blank sheet of paper divided into 16 squares. Their task was to prepare a homophone memory game/Pelmanism for another pair. In one class, they were asked to prepare pictures which illustrate the homophone pairs. In another class, they just provided couples of words. Their task was to choose homophones they find difficult themselves. When playing the memory game, the task was to use the word in a sentence any time they turn the card. Sentences cannot be repeated.

What are your suggestions for practising homophones? Which activity would you like to try out in your class? Have you spotted another useful resource material? Do you find teaching homophones interesting or useless in your classes?