“She sells sea shells by the seashore!” “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers!” And the ever-famous, “Toy boat! Toy boat! Toy boat!” Ahh, tongue twisters - we all know ‘em, and we either love ‘em or hate ‘em. But for your ESL students, tongue twisters can provide a break from the repetition of board work - and give them an introduction to some of the silly ways we native speakers play with our language.
Tongue twisters certainly aren’t an essential part of English - and many textbooks just ignore them altogether. So why bring them into your classroom at all? Because they’re fun, of course! They’re a breath of fresh air in pronunciation and grammar practice - and they can even help students distinguish between similar sounds, so their diction becomes clearer and more precise. Plus, they’re great for students to share with their friends.
Whether your class consists of level-one ESL beginners or advanced level-five students, BusyTeacher.org’s 34 tongue twister worksheets are sure to please. From simple exercises with similar-sounding words all the way to English puns and poems, these worksheets will have your students trying their tongue-twisters, cracking up as they stumble, and challenging each other to do better. And that laugh factor makes these worksheets great for warmers and ice-breakers, too.
Some of BusyTeacher.org’s 34 tongue twister worksheets even focus on specific themes, like holidays or certain English letters - which is handy if you’re working through a theme unit. But no matter when in your class you choose to introduce these exercises, they’ll loosen students up, and show them that ESL learning isn’t just all about rigid rules. When you try out some of these tongue twisters yourself, in front of your class, they’ll see that even native speakers can get tangled up in English sometimes.
How, you might ask, did BusyTeacher.org pull together 34 worksheets on tongue twisters for ESL students? It’s all thanks to our worldwide community of ESL teachers, who’ve generously shared their work for free. And by “free” we really do mean “free” - you’re welcome to download, modify, and reproduce every worksheet here as you see fit. All we ask is that if you’ve ever got a worksheet of your own to share, you upload it by clicking the “Submit a worksheet” button at the bottom of this page.
If you’re looking for a place to dive in, you can check out our top ten most popular tongue twister worksheets - or you can use the search function to find some that match your keywords. Or, if you’re feeling adventurous, you can browse our entire collection in thumbnail view - with the help of our special “Quick View” feature, which lets you pop out and preview the first page of every worksheet before you download it. What a time saver!
Where you start is all up to you - so take a look through BusyTeacher.org’s collection of 34 tongue twister worksheets, and see what looks interesting. We guarantee you’ll find something you like - and we guarantee that your ESL students will love it, too!
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A tongue-twister is a phrase that is designed to be difficult to articulate properly, and can be used as a type of spoken (or sung) word game. Some tongue-twisters produce results which are humorous (or humorously vulgar) when they are mispronounced, while others simply rely on the confusion and mistakes of the speaker for their amusement value. Tongue-twisters may rely on rapid alternation between similar but distinct phonemes (e.g., s [s] and sh [ʃ]), unfamiliar constructs in loanwords, or other features of a spoken language in order to be difficult to articulate. For example, the following sentence was claimed as "the most difficult of common English-language tongue-twisters" by William Poundstone The seething sea ceaseth and thus the seething sea sufficeth us. This type of tongue-twister was incorporated into a popular song in 1908, with words by British songwriter Terry Sullivan and music by Harry Gifford. It was said to be inspired by the life and work of Mary Anning.
You can use this list to practice the /ɔ/ pronunciation sounds, or as a list of words to be careful when pronouncing. There is a list of word phrases that vary only by one having th ...
This lesson is designed for students who are ACTFL Intermediate Low to High level whose L1 is Spanish. The lesson addresses the differences between the soft and hard /th/ sounds in Engli ...
I have taught several students whose first language is Spanish, and this worksheet is one I have designed to help them practise some of the sounds in English that they seem to find most challengin ...
Tongue twisters easy enough for second grade ESL students to read, with pictorial support! I read Fox in Socks to my class, then we practiced these tongue twisters. They worked with a partner, a ...
Organizer that helps younger students write their own tongue twisters-- I made it for my second grade ESL students. It would be best used after teaching tongue twisters for practice enunciating w ...
You can work this poem with children and teens as a tongue twister. I have worked this activity with my group of students and they really have enjoyed it, in act it´s a nice activity to do i ...
This worksheet is used for pronunciation warm-up, for revising minimal pairs, pronunciation drills of the sounds [v] and [w],practicing of tongue-twisters. This activity is done by the students i ...
This worksheet makes use of the Betty Botter Tongue Twister to help students with pronunciation. It includes a brief minimal pair practice in which students must match the words to their phonetic ...
Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870-1946), who wrote under the pseudonym of Charivarius, was a Dutch writer, traveler and teacher. In 1922 he wrote The Chaos (also often known by its opening line, D ...
An Easter lesson for upper-primary students at roughly elementary or pre-intermediate level on the topic of Easter eggs. Includes a vocabulary input exercise and some reading, ending in a pronunci ...
Here's the set of cards going with my lesson plan. There are 48 cards in total. A suitable cover has been included as well. Print the cards once and the cover six times. Cut out, stick together an ...
A Lesson plan introducing ways to work with the tongue twister cards in your lessons. The aim is to improve pronunciation, rhythm and stress, to take away the fear of making mistakes while speakin ...
If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you would be speaking English better than the most native speakers in the world. After trying the verses, a French man said he'd prefer six ...
Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870-1946), who wrote under the pseudonym of Charivarius, was a Dutch writer, traveler and teacher. In 1922 he wrote The Chaos (also often known by its opening line, D ...
These are funny tongue twister activity for English classes. You can use it to help your English classes relax. There are a lot of differnt sounds. From my observation I can say that it's hard to ...
While many pupils struggle to read practising tongue twisters can help them to learn to speak confidently and overcome nervousness whenever they open their mouth. Try out this tongue twister today ...
Students will listen to the story Fox in Socks by Doctor Seuss. They will then practice tongue twisters and match them to the picture . At the end they will create their own silly tongue twister ( ...
Greg Granger gave Gretta green grapes. Sometimes the 'gr' sound is hard for people to pronounce. After describing how to position your mouth and tongue, and then modeling the sound, this 'gr' pr ...
A warm-up activity. Choose this easy-to-print page for your private tutorship or group work. Let the students join one-by-one and read the tongue twisters for a couple of minutes every class. It m ...
This is a very funny tongue twister activity for English classes. You can use it to help your English classes relax. Moreover, with this activity, you and your students can also practise English i ...
Over 100 tongue twisters. These are very useful for EFL learners and are an meaningful reward on a Friday afternoon. There are difficult tongue twisters and also easier versions. Particularly use ...
A one-page compilation of sentences and tongue twisters aimed at practising the pronunciation of the W-consonant. The resource is acknowledged, some sentences are added by me. The teachers should ...
Tongue twisters for B1. It is a funny activity for your classroom. We can use them whenever it is necessary, if our kids get bored and we can make a group activity. We can put Ss into a few groups ...
This is a collection of various tongue-twisters of various diffculties, and that focus on many different sounds. There are some classics as well as unique nonsense sentences. It's only a list, b ...
A list of tongue-twisters for everybody! A tongue-twister is a sequence of words that is difficult to pronounce quickly and correctly. Even native English speakers find the tongue-twisters on thi ...
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!['Gr' Pronunciation Practice [Tongue Twisters]](https://busyteacher.org/uploads/posts/2013-01/1358395919_greg-granger-gave-gretta-green-grapes.png)
![Pronunciation Practice Worksheet [Consonant W]](https://busyteacher.org/uploads/posts/2012-05/1337702283_pp.jpg)
