Interactive phonemic chart
How to make it
Learners often mix it up with
Say the example words uses your device's computer voice (British English if it has one). It reads whole words: it cannot say a sound on its own. You modelling the sound is still the best way.
How this chart is organised
Single vowels are placed roughly where the tongue is in the mouth: front to back from left to right, and from a closed mouth at the top to an open mouth at the bottom. Diphthongs are grouped by the sound they glide towards. Consonants come in voiceless and voiced partners, ordered from the lips to the back of the mouth, with nasals, approximants and /h/ on the last row.
Try it in class: switch to Point, tap the sounds of a word one at a time and let the class shout out the word. Then give a student the board pen and let them spell a word in sounds for everyone else.
Decode it
Try it in class: teams write the word on a mini whiteboard and hold it up on the count of three. On the harder level, give a bonus point for saying it with the stress in the right place. The ˈ mark comes just before the stressed syllable.
Odd sound out
Try it in class: students say all four words quietly to a partner before voting. The spelling is the trap here, so ask them to trust their ears, not their eyes.
Which sound?
Try it in class: a student from each team comes to the board and points to the sound. If they disagree, both say the word aloud and the class decides before you reveal.
Sound hunt
1:00
Try it in class: one team at a time calls out words while the other team listens and challenges any word that doesn't have the sound. Add one point per word that survives.