I love these road signs that you see all over England:
I have been using these images to bring to my students’ attention the two different pronunciations of ‘ow’ (slow and down, know and now, crow and crowd, own and town, etc).
Try getting them to make tongue twisters with the following items:
The ‘hit your thumb with a hammer’ sound (ow!)
- A brown cow
- Flower power
- Down town
- Allow
- Crowded house
- Crown
- Have a row
- Take a bow
- Drown
- Now
- How
- A owl
- Shower
- Vowel sounds
- Tower
The ’surprise’ sound (oh!)
- Throw
- Blow
- Grow
- Know
- A crow
- An own goal
- Row your boat
- A bow and arrow
- A crow
- Low
- A show
- Snow
- Slow
- Go with the flow
[See comments below for students’ work]
5 responses so far ↓
1 Maria Grazia // Jul 4, 2008 at 8:33 pm
I saw a rainbow.
A cow have a shower in the tower.
I saw the snow from the window.
2 Agata // Jul 7, 2008 at 9:26 pm
A BROWN COW
CAME DOWN
FROM THE TOWN
TOOK A BOW
AND PUT IT ON A TOWER
THEH HAD A ROW
WITH THE CROWDED OWL
AND BROKE HIS CROWN
3 admin // Jul 16, 2008 at 12:03 am
Thank you very much for those. By the way, is it David ‘Brown Cow’ Bowie or David ‘Bow & Arrow’ Bowie? All my life I have heard the two different pronunciations. Perhaps this could be one of a series of survey questions that learners could carry out on native speakers to look at linguistic variation.
4 admin // Jul 19, 2008 at 11:46 am
From Marta:
THROW A PILLOW
THROUGH THE WINDOW
IN A MEADOW.
GO DOWN, NO MORE GOWN,
NO TOWN, NO MORE CROWD.
NO SORROW, NO MORE ROW.
BLOW A FLOWER
GROW YOUR POWER. WOW!
5 Concetta // Aug 8, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Fantastic Rhymes are the simbol of forceful teaching.
Congratulations!!!
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