Vowels and dipthongs in English

1. Warm-up

Pre-teach activity:

• Write down the vowels in Spanish
• Now do the same with the vowels in Galician language
• In these two languages, do the vowels represent the same sounds?
• And what about English? How many vowels are there? Do they represent the same sound?

Work in pairs and complete the chart.

2. Vowels

In English there are 12 vowels and 8 dipthongs. You can have a look at them in this chart

Now  to the sounds.

3. Vowels: "i"

Vowels: long and short "i"

Vowel	Usual spelling
	ea:read, speak ee:tree, sheep e: me, we
	i: ship, sit (also English, women, busy)

4. Vowels: "u"

Vowels: long and short "u"

Vowel	Usual spelling
	oo: book, good u: full, put (Also could, would, woman)
	oo: too, ew: drew, flew (Also: do, fruit, shoe)

5. Vowels "o"

Vowels "o"

Vowel	Usual spelling
	or: sort, sport al:talk, small aw: saw, draw (also water, four, bought)
	o: not, coffee (Also what, watch, want)

6. Vowels "e" and "schwa"

Vowels "e" and "schwa"

Vowel	Usual spelling
	e:men, bed (Also friend, bread, breakfast, said)
	Different spellings, always unstressed: America, teacher, ago, umbrella
	er: verb, ir: bird, first ur: turn, nurse or: word, world

7. Vowels "a"

Vowels "a"

Vowel	Usual spelling
	a:cat, black
	ar: part, car a: father, glasses (Also aunt)
	u: but, sun, bus o: son, come, brother (Also does, young)

8. Dipthongs

Dipthongs

Vowel	Usual spelling
	eer:beer, engineer ere: here, ear: year, hear (Also idea)
	a: make, ay: day, play ai: wait, rain (also break, eight, grey)

9. Dipthongs

Dipthongs

Vowel	Usual spelling
	ou: tourist, tour
	oy: boy, toy oi: coin, toilet
	o: go, old oa: road, toast ow: slow, low

10. Dipthongs

Diphtongs

Vowel	Usual spelling
	ear: wear air: hair, chair are: careful (Also their, there)
	i: I, nine, y: my, why igh: high, night (Also buy)
	ou: out, thousand ow: how, cow