Dear ex-students and maybe now colleagues, today I want to share with you a tongue twister that I used in my class of English Phonetics to practise vowel number 1 /i:/, and have a bit of fun. If you pronounce it very fast, your students may not know at first what on earth you're saying:, but after you've repeated it several times, they're sure to catch the meaning. In any case, if you finally say it with the right short pause before each 'you see', everyone will understand, and they'll be willing to repeat it themselves:
A sailor
went to sea, you see,
To see what
he could see, you see,
But all he
could see, you see
Was sea, sea, sea, you see?
