Practicing Pronunciation through Proverbs

In teaching pronunciation, especially in an EFL setting, a teacher occasionally stumbles upon students making incorrect pronunciation of certain sounds. The mistakes are due to several factors, like the student may have a speech organ defect, she or he comes from a particular place whose accent influences her or his pronunciation and the like. The problems, those related to pronunciation, can sometimes be reduced or even overcome. One of the ways is by training students to focus on certain sounds and they have to pronounce them correctly and flawlessly. In doing so, a teacher plays an important role, that is as the model for the students.

A teacher should give modeling of these pronunciations of the sounds. The students have to focus on how each sound is produced. The follow-up activities will employ parroting or repeating after the teacher. At the end of the activity, it is hoped that the students begin to feel how to pronounce these sounds. Have a try on this exercise.

Vowels

• A friend in need is a friend indeed.
• Every bullet has its billet.
• A good wife and health is a man’s best wealth. / East and west, home is best.
• A drowning man will catch at a straw.
• He laughs best who laughs last.
• He who has an art has everywhere a part.
• A little pot is soon hot. / A spot is most seen on the finest cloth.
• New lords, new laws. / Walls have ears.
• One man beats the bush, another man catches the bird.
• Well begun is half done.
• Finders keepers, losers weepers.
• Kind words are the music of the world. / The early bird catches the worm.
• Haste makes waste.
• Little strokes fell great oaks. / As you sow you shall mow.
• Good advice is beyond price. / Might makes right.
• An ounce of discretion is worth a pound of learning.
• No joy without annoy.
• Constant dripping wears away a stone.

Consonants

• Penny wise, pound foolish./ Practice makes perfect.
• There is nothing which has been bitter before being ripe.
• Time and tide wait for no man.
• A bird in hand is worth two in the wood. / Every dog has his day.
• Care killed the cat.
• A good name is better than a golden girdle.
• Fair feathers make fair fowls. / Birds of a feather flock together.
• Even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.
• Something is better than nothing. / Birds of a feather flock together.
• Least said, soonest mended. / More haste, less speed.
• A lazy youth, a lousy age.
• No sunshine but hath some shadow. / Better be sure than sorry.
• Labor is often the father of leisure.
• Work has bitter root but sweet fruit.
• There is no royal road to learning.
• It is hard to be high and humble. / Do on the hills as you would do in the hall.
• Everybody has his merits and faults.
• No garden without its weeds.
• Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.
• Every Jack has his Jill.
• Try before you trust.
• Better be drunk than drowned.
• A miss is as good as a mile. / Many a little makes a mickle.
• A stitch in time saves nine.
• Seeing is believing. / Everything must have a beginning.
• Look before you leap. / A cracked bell can never sound well.
• Willful waste makes woeful want. / Where there is a will, there is a way.