List of Homonyms
Example Web Site and/or Technical Equipment Required
Website: http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html
More Ways
Computer(s), Internet access
Activity Description
When teaching spelling, students often struggle with the homonyms/homophones of English.
This site is NOT interactive, but can be used as a resource or to make spelling assignments from the list.
Preparation
- Print any necessary handouts.
- If using any of the "More Ways" activities, be sure to check the sites in advance to be sure they are still available.
- Create any sentence handouts, if needed.
How-To
- Review the list.
- Select 'Go to All About Homonyms' and scroll to the section on Nomenclature to explain the difference between homonyms and homophones.
- Scroll down to a poem: 'An Ode to the Spelling Chequer' to introduce humor to the challenge of spelling/using homonyms.
- Print out the list, parts of the list, or assign students to go to the list every day and practice for a certain amount of time on their own.
Teacher Tips
Warning: the list is 63 pages long, so use the Print feature on your browser to choose which pages to print.
More Ways
- Introduce homonyms daily, test weekly.
- For a bit of online interactivity and practice, use the Activities for ESL Students [www] Web site under their Self Study Homonym Quizzes [www]. Use the quizzes to guide which homonyms to teach, then have students do the quizzes after instruction.
- Another type of activity would be to create sentences that use two or more homonyms and have students underline the homonyms. RHL School - English Basics [www] has an activity already created and you can print it out. Here is another [www], and another[www].
- Use the Horrid Homonyms Class Activity document above to do a whole class activity. When you divide students into teams, put students of varying levels on each team.
Documents
Levels
- Intermediate Low
- Intermediate High
- Advanced