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GENERAL ENGLISH · GENERAL ISSUES · ELEMENTARY (A1-A2)

SILENT
LETTERS
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1 Warm up
A day out from A to Z: these words relate to visiting the place in the picture. Put the items from the
box into the list in alphabetical order.

adventure boat camera

1

entrance flower
2 3

journey
4 5 6

mountain nice outside people

quiet road
7 8

village excellent, yellow,

9 10
amazing

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ELEMENTARY (A1-A2)

SILENT LETTERS

It is important to know how to say the names of letters in English so you can talk about spelling. Listen
to the recording and repeat what you hear.

2 Listening

A tour guide is talking to a group of people about the place in the picture. Listen and choose the best
option to complete the sentences.

1. The guide’s name is Jennifer / Jessica / Julie.

2. They are visiting a place called Saint Harry / Saint Mark / Saint Mary.

3. You can buy drinks / hats / ice creams.

4. There is a castle / fort / museum that people can visit.

5. It is four / five / six hundred years old.

6. It takes two hours / an hour / half an hour to visit this place.

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ELEMENTARY (A1-A2)

SILENT LETTERS

Listen again and write the missing words in the sentences. If you’re not sure how to spell the word,
you should guess.

1. If you just to me for a few minutes, ...

2. We’re on the lovely of Saint Mary ...

3. There’s also a little business here that sells , drinks and postcards...

4. Does anyone know the ?

5. If you want to visit the castle while we’re on the island, just follow the .

6. ...you will learn more about built the castle ...

3 Language point

Read the information in the box.

Silent letters

English words are sometimes hard to spell because many words have silent letters. These
are letters that we use when we write the word, but when we speak, we do not
pronounce them. Most silent letters in English words are the final E: for example, drive.
This lesson focuses on other types of silent letters, like the W in the word two.

When you learn a new word, notice if there are any silent letters. You could record them
in your notes like this: t(w)o. The W is in brackets because we don’t pronounce this letter.

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ELEMENTARY (A1-A2)

SILENT LETTERS

Look at the words you wrote in the last exercise. Which letters are silent? Add them to the middle
column of the notes below and put the silent letter in brackets.

silent letter example from listening more examples

exercise

D 1 - _________________________

G 2 - _________________________

H w(h)at, w(h)ere, w(h)y, w(h)ich,

7 - _________________________,
8 - _________________________

I fr(i)end, 9 - ________________

K 10 - ____________________

L 11- __________, 12 - _________

S 3 - _________________________

T 4 - _________________________ 13 - _________________

U g(u)ess, 14 - ______________,
15 - _____________

W 5 - __________, 6 - __________ t(w)o, (w)rite, 16 - ___________

Now add these words to the right column of the table and put the silent letter in brackets.

Practise saying all the words correctly.

Work in pairs. Ask your partner to spell five words from the table.

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ELEMENTARY (A1-A2)

SILENT LETTERS

4 Speaking

Work in A/B pairs. Take turns to ask each other the questions on your list. Answer in full sentences,
as in the example, and be careful with pronunciation of the words in bold.

Example: Who makes the best guide to a city? The best guide to a city is someone who lives there because
they know it really well.

Student A:

1. What would you like to do after the lesson today?

2. When did you last listen to a podcast or a radio show?
3. Where is there an interesting castle to visit in your country (or another country)?
4. Which island in the world do you think is the biggest?
5. Who is your oldest friend? Describe them - what are they like?
6. Do you like sandwiches? Why (or why not)?

Student B:

1. Why do you sometimes get the answers wrong in class?

2. Who is your favourite writer?
3. Which English song do you know all the words to?
4. Where would you like to go on holiday?
5. When you are older, would you like to start your own business? Why (or why not)?
6. What is the tallest building in your town or city?

Extension task: write some or all of your partner’s answers.

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ELEMENTARY (A1-A2)

SILENT LETTERS

5 Writing and pronunciation

The words below are from the lesson today. Write a short story or dialogue (or just some sentences)
and use ten of these words. You should choose words that you often make mistakes with. Then
record yourself on your phone as you read what you wrote out loud. Listen and check. If you made
any mistakes with pronunciation, record yourself again.

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ELEMENTARY (A1-A2)

SILENT LETTERS

6 Optional extension

A day out in London, from A to Z. Look at the picture and imagine you are spending the day here.
Think of one word which starts with (or contains) each letter of the alphabet that can relate to your
visit.

How many of your words have silent letters?

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TEACHER MATERIALS · ELEMENTARY (A1-A2)

SILENT LETTERS

Transcripts

1. Warm up

Speaker: /i:/ as in tree ... B ... C ... D ... E ... G ... P ... T ... V ... Z ... (zee)

Speaker: /e/ as in bed ... F ... L ... M ... N ... S ... X ... Z ... (zed)

Speaker: /eI/ as in train ... A ... H ... J ... K ...

Speaker: /aI/ as in rice ... I ... Y ...

Speaker: /u:/ as in boot ... Q ... U ... W ...

Speaker: /a:/ as in car ... R ...

Speaker: /@U/ as in phone ... O ...

2. Listening

Female reader: Hi everyone! My name is Jessica and I’ll be your guide today. If you just listen
to me for a few minutes, I’ll tell you about where we are and what we’re doing.
We’re on the lovely island of Saint Mary and we’re standing outside the tourist
information building. There’s also a little business here that sells sandwiches, drinks
and postcards, if you want to write to your friends back home.

Female reader: The history of Saint Mary is connected to the castle which you can see on the hill
over there. When do you think this castle was built? Does anyone know the answer?
Would you like to guess? It doesn’t matter if you’re wrong. ... Well, I’ll tell you. It’s
five hundred years old. If you want to visit the castle while we’re on the island, just
follow the signs. It will take about half an hour to get there, and you will learn more
about who built the castle and why. We’re here for two hours so you have plenty of
time.

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TEACHER MATERIALS · ELEMENTARY (A1-A2)

SILENT LETTERS

Key
1. Warm up

10 mins.
There are two aims for this stage: to introduce the topic of a day out which relates to the listening in the next stage,
and to review/consolidate the pronunciation of the 26 letters of the English alphabet to facilitate the discussion
of silent letters later in the lesson.
Call attention to the picture and explain that the words in the list all relate to spending a day visiting this place.
Demonstrate the activity with one or two items and let students complete the rest before checking answers. Then
call attention to the second table and explain how it is organized according to the vowel sounds in the names of
the letters, eg /bi:/ for B, /ef/ for F, etc. Play the recording so that students can listen and repeat. Note that the
letter Z is pronounced differently in British and American English, as shown in the table. Students often confuse
letter names and they are useful in real-life situations where they have to spell a name or give a reference code.
1. drive
2. garden
3. house
4. information
5. king
6. lunch
7. sea
8. travel
9. understand
10. water

2. Listening

10 mins.
Students will listen to the recording in two stages. First, they recover information and complete a multiple-choice
exercise. Before you play the recording, ask students to read the sentences and options out loud and check their
pronunciation so they know what they are listening for. The /dz/ sound of the names in the first sentence may be
surprising to students as the letter J is pronounced as a /j/ sound in many languages (as in yes). Play the recording
for students to complete the exercise - it’s fine if they need to listen twice. Check answers.
In the second exercise, students will complete the sentences with missing words. Go over the sentences again
so that students know what they are listening for - they may remember some answers. All the items have silent
letters so it’s very likely that students will be unsure about the spellings, but just tell them to do their best - it’s fine
if they guess or make a mistake. Check answers and spellings and move swiftly on to the language point, which
gives more information about silent letters.
Part 1
1. Jessica 2. Saint Mary
3. drinks 4. castle
5. five 6. half an hour

Part 2
1. listen 2. island
3. sandwiches 4. answer

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TEACHER MATERIALS · ELEMENTARY (A1-A2)

SILENT LETTERS

5. signs 6. who
3. Language point

20 mins.
Call attention to the information in the box, which defines silent letters and gives some advice for recording
vocabulary. Note that final silent E is not the subject of this lesson. If students are interested and can understand,
you could feed in some of the information from the additional notes below.
Students then go back to the second listening exercise to place the silent letters in the correct place in the middle
column of the table. Demonstrate with the first item and check answers, making sure students are using brackets
to mark the silent letter. Then students add more examples from the list to the column on the right. Drill all
pronunciations and then set up pairs to test each other on spelling (and indirectly on pronunciation - as they have
to say the word to each other). Monitor and support, correcting any mistakes you hear. Students could respond
by spelling the word out loud or writing it down. Variation: the teacher reads out 10 (or more) words from the
table to the whole class as a written spelling test. Check answers by asking students to spell the words out loud.
Additional notes: around 60% of English words have silent letters, but most of these are the final silent E. Many
silent letters relate to old pronunciation patterns, or dialects that are no longer used, but some extra letters were
added to differentiate homophones (be/bee) or to make the origins of words clearer (the B in doubt relates to its
Latin roots).
Answers:
example from listening exercise: 1 - san(d)wiches, 2 - si(g)ns, 3 - i(s)land, 4 - lis(t)en, 5 - ans(w)er, 6 - (w)ho
more examples: 7 - (h)our, 8 - w(h)en, 9 - bus(i)ness, 10 - (k)now, 11 - ha(l)f, 12 - wou(l)d, 13 - cas(t)le, 14 - b(u)ilding,
15 - g(u)ide, 16 - (w)rong
4. Speaking

15 mins.
Set up A/B pairs and go over the instructions and examples. Give students a few minutes to look at the questions
that their partner will ask them so they can think about what to say. Encourage them to ask questions or check
dictionaries if they need to, but they shouldn’t write their answers. Then students work in pairs to ask and answer
the questions. Monitor and support as necessary and round off the stage with some feedback. This could include
error correction (pronunciation and other errors) as well as highlighting some successful answers. Early finishers
could write some/all of their partner’s answers.
5. Writing and pronunciation

5 mins to explain.
Explain the task in class for students to complete as homework. Students write a short text which incorporates
words with silent letters, to test their spelling. They then read the story out loud to test their pronunciation
- they should record this on their phone. The recording could be sent to the teacher for checking - focus on
pronunciation. You might ask students to make a start on this in class, choosing the ten most useful items for
them to include, thinking about what they’d like to write, and making arrangements for them to send the story to
you so you can listen and check. Perhaps in a future lesson, you could correct common errors, drill pronunciation
and check the spelling.
6. Optional extension

10 mins.
This activity continues the model from the Warm up. Go over the instructions and give students a few minutes
to complete the exercise, using their imagination - they can write any type of word (nouns, verbs, adjectives) and
they can cheat a bit with the letter X or Z, as in the warm-up.
This is a fun competitive activity to do in pairs with a time limit, to see who can think of the most words. Check
answers - spelling and pronunciation - and pose the follow-up question.

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