6 pronunciation activities for ESL students

Pronunciation is one of those skills that requires regular practice and various approaches. Repetition with recordings, working with transcription, and articulation exercises — all of this is important. However, to help students reinforce correct sounds, it’s essential to diversify the activities in lessons.

In this article, you’ll find a selection of effective pronunciation activities that can be incorporated into any English lesson.

Pronunciation has a direct impact on intelligibility — and for many learners, that’s the biggest obstacle to effective communication. Even with strong grammar and vocabulary, unclear intonation or confusion between similar sounds can make speech difficult to understand. That’s why activities for pronunciation are essential.

For teachers, pronunciation work brings movement, variety, and energy to lessons. It suits all levels, from basic sound drills at A1 to connected speech and sentence stress at B2 and beyond. Most importantly, it works when used regularly and in context.

This activity works because students often don’t notice how frequently a particular sound appears in regular speech. It helps to "tune the ear" to specific sounds and consciously control pronunciation during reading or speaking.

First, choose a sound to practice.

Next, prepare a short text.
This could be an excerpt from a textbook, a part of a song, a dialogue, or monologue, or even a mini-story written by you with frequent use of the target sound. 

Then, students take turns reading aloud, paying attention to the correct pronunciation of the highlighted words. For example, if the activity is done in pairs, one student reads aloud, and the other listens and counts how many times they hear the target sound.

Tongue twisters are a great classroom activity because they activate muscles that are not used in students' native languages, help train the coordination of speech organs, and focus on correct articulation. Additionally, they are fun and create a relaxed, easy-going atmosphere.

• For example: /θ/ and /s/, /ʃ/ and /s/.

Students should read the tongue twister aloud as a group, slowly and clearly. Make sure to focus on the problematic sounds. You can repeat the tongue twister several times, gradually increasing the speed. Next, students take turns reading the tongue twister.

• Create a challenge: Who can say the tongue twister 3 times quickly without mistakes?

​​You can also let students create their own tongue twisters using the target sounds — this not only reinforces pronunciation but also boosts creativity. Another option is to record students and let them self-assess or peer-assess their clarity and fluency — it adds a reflective element and helps them track progress.

This activity helps students pronounce phrases more naturally, with the correct stress, rhythm, and connected speech. Choose a short phrase or sentence (ideally 5–7 words). 

For example: She should have told him earlier. Explain to the students that you will now learn how to pronounce the phrase from the end, gradually adding one word at a time. This approach helps to feel the intonation and rhythm, rather than pronouncing the words one by one.

Start the step-by-step work with the phrase: She should have told him earlier.

Each stage — slow repetition as a group, then individually.

You might also highlight how contractions change the sound (e.g. should’ve, told him — /ˈtʃʊd.əv/, /ˈtoʊldəm/), helping students hear and imitate real-life speech patterns more naturally.

Shadowing is a technique where the learner listens to authentic language (usually audio or video) and simultaneously repeats after the speaker, with minimal pauses. It’s like “following the shadow” of the speech. Choose a short audio clip.

It could be an excerpt from a podcast, interview, TV show, or even a YouTube video. The key is clear sound and intelligible pronunciation.
Listen to it with your students 2-3 times. Then, the students repeat at the same time as the speaker, trying to fully imitate the sound — intonation, rhythm, pauses, contractions.

Stress the word is an activity that helps students better understand how stress works in words and why it is so important for clear pronunciation. In English, many words change their meaning depending on which syllable is stressed. For example, record is a noun when the stress is on the first syllable (REcord), but it becomes a verb when the stress is on the second syllable (reCORD).

Then, have students work in pairs to practise:

In addition, include pairs of words that sound similar but differ in stress and meaning — for example, desert (the sandy landscape) vs dessert (the sweet course). To make the activity more engaging, prepare sentence pairs where the same word appears in different forms or meanings. Students read both sentences aloud, using stress to clearly convey the correct meaning in each case.

Mouth position practice is an activity that helps students improve their articulation by focusing on the physical aspects of pronunciation. The teacher models how to position the mouth, tongue, and lips for specific sounds, and students repeat, paying attention to these movements.

This is important because without the correct physical positioning of the mouth and tongue, students will find it difficult to pronounce complex sounds correctly, which is often an obstacle to clear pronunciation.

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In conclusion, you now have a set of tried-and-tested pronunciation activities that actually work in class and don’t require hours of preparation. It’s important to use a variety of tasks that boost student motivation and keep lessons both engaging and effective. 

With the right approach to pronunciation exercises for ESL students, every learner can build confidence in their speaking skills.