So if someone asks you to spell your name, you can say: R as in Romeo, A as in Alpha, C as in Charlie, H as in Hotel, E as in Echo, L as in Lima. So no matter what your accent is, you’ll probably be understood using this alphabet system. Apparently the letters were chosen for understandability based on hundreds of thousands of comprehension tests involving 31 nationalities. A system was developed in the 1950s by the International Civil Aviation Organization to put a word with each letter. So many misunderstandings can happen when spelling. Why? I think it’s because unvoiced sounds like SS and TH don’t carry well over the phone.Īnd we have so many letter names that rhyme: B, C, D, E, G, P, T, V, Z, or A, J, K, or I, W But even though it’s so common, often, over the phone, people don’t understand me. Smith is the most common last name in the United States. So, there is a specific set of words corresponding to each letter of the alphabet to make spelling over the phone much easier. Letter names, over the phone can be unclear and hard to distinguish, and not just for non-native speakers. Have you ever noticed, when you’re on the phone, that you often need to spell things out? Your name, for example, or maybe the name of the street you live on. YouTube blocked? Click here to see the video. Learn the target words in the NATO phonetic alphabet to make spelling out names, address, confirmation numbers, and more much easier! While on the theme, you could follow any of these activities with a fun round of the alphabet game or even the categories game.Alpha, bravo, Charlie: each letter of the alphabet has a target word to increase understandability in spelling. CrosswordsĬrosswords and Half Crosswords involve spelling vocabulary items correctly in order to complete the puzzle. You could play with a bag of scrabble tiles or try out our online version on. You’ll need a stack of vowels and consonants and you’ll want to rig the deck so that some difficult letters rarely come up ( Countdown letter distribution). Contestants have to choose random vowels and consonants (nine in the show, I go with ten to twelve) and then teams attempt to make the longest possible word from the letters given. This is a long-running game show on British TV. I sometimes bring it out for the last lesson with a group, to play along with a few snacks and a glass of something fizzy. This classic board game can work well in the ESL classroom, especially with more advanced groups. Groups then swap papers and mark each other’s work as you go through the answers. Group spellingĭivide the class into small groups, give a word to the class and each group decides how it is spelt and writes it on a sheet of paper. Students then decide which word is wrongly spelt. Students then spell the words on the list to the class who write them down as they are given. Using a dictionary or other available resources, students write down five words and deliberately misspell one of them. The game is over when only one student remains in the game. If a student isn’t able to spell the word correctly then they are out of the game and the next student attempts the word. Think of a word and ask the student on your left to spell it, for example, tomato. If successful that student asks the next student to spell a word which begins with the last letter of the last word, for example, orange and so on. This activity is also a good lead-in for a speaking activity.įor more dictation activities see this page of dictation activities. To make it more difficult, dictate the word string backwards. If you dictate questions, they can then discuss the answers in pairs and small groups. It doesn’t matter if they miss some letters, they should be able to self-correct after the dictation. For example:ĭictate at a relatively swift pace to prevent students from anticipating what letter is coming next. If that’s the case, here’s a handy template.ĭictate a statement or question for the students, one letter at a time, as a string of uninterrupted letters. You could also get students to do this in pairs. It should look like the table below (unless you teach an Americanised alphabet then ‘Z’ will be in the second box.) Group the lettersĭraw a table like this on the board, students draw the table in their books and add the remaining letters of the alphabet, invite a student to complete the table on the board. If you find the hanged man image a bit morbid or culturally sensitive then draw a digital style figure 8 on the board and remove a part every time the students are wrong until there is nothing left.Īfter playing on the board a couple of times you can invite students to come up to the board with their own words or play a couple of games with their partner.
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