EFL Pronunciation Practice by use of Limericks

On many occasions I've been asked by teachers and students to recommend materials for pronunciation practice. I've rather despised most of the feeble sentences I've seen offered in textbooks for such purposes which packed in a large number of words containing a particular sound but were completely boring and silly, like the ghastly "rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain".

Some books have offered as such materials light verses or nursery rhymes but the latter especially have very often the disadvantage of incorporating archaic or other unusual words, senses or grammatical features or requiring abnormal pronunciations to make them rhyme or scan.

The reading well of serious verse is an extremely difficult thing to achieve as witness the very few even very highly educated native speakers of English who can manage to do so with success. It is notorious that the authors of much respected verse very often read aloud their own work quite badly.

Very few EFL students should ever be encouraged to attempt to read aloud serious verse. On the other hand non-serious verse which has been written with the sort of excessive rhythmic regularity which thereby makes it bad as poetry can, I believe, be put to good use for the encouragement of those who might benefit from practising material which embodies English typical conversational rhythms.

With this in mind I produced numbers of limericks for rhythm practice including a dozen or so which can be used to focus at the same time on certain vowel contrasts that many EFL learners need to cultivate. I shall give some of them below after a brief note on the limerick form.

A limerick consists of a five-line stanza with, in all, thirteen stresses. The first two lines constitute a rhyming couplet with three stresses in each of its lines. The two lines which follow it are also a rhyming couplet but with only two stresses in each. The final clinching line matches the first in number of stresses and also rhymes with it. The rhyme scheme is thus aa bb a.

The best examples of the form may additionally incorporate further internal rhymes but these are not necessary defining features. The typical content of a limerick is a potted story about a person who is indicated at the beginning of its first line and usually accorded a geographical attribution at the end of that line. Some limericks may incorporate puns and many have tended to be at least slightly improper as, you are cautioned, will be evidenced below.

Some limericks for pronunciation practice:

Note that in the following first 13 limericks a first vowel-type occurs as at least every stressed vowel in the longer lines viz numbers 1, 2 and 5, and that at least every stressed vowel in the shorter lines viz numbers 3 and 4 is a similar vowel often confused with it by EFL learners. The seven remaining ones are offered for rhythm practice alone.

1) Vowel of see versus that of sit

2) Vowel of ash versus that of bed

3) Vowel of ash versus that of bed

4) Vowel of hot versus that of saw

5) Vowel of too versus that of foot

6) Vowel of too versus that of foot

7) Vowel of cup versus that of ash

8) Vowel of burn versus that of hair

9) Vowel of sit versus that of see

10) Vowel of ash versus that of bed

11) Vowel of bed versus that of sit

12) Vowel of arm versus that of cup

13) Vowel of hot versus that of saw

14)

15)

16)

17)

18)

19)

20)