Tales from Teaching: rhyming

Some of my English as a Second Language (ESL) students have really struggled with the concept of rhyming this year. Teaching someone to rhyme is not an easy thing, and something I have never had to teach in the past. We have been looking at word families, talking about sounds, learning poems and nursery rhymes, and singing songs.

I taught the kids a song I had learned from my sister, that goes, "I am a nut (click your tongue three times)....in a rut (click your tongue three more times.)" There might even be more to the song, but I don't know it. The kids were having fun singing it and clicking their tongues, and then we started rhyming. They came up with "I am nut...in a hut" And "I am a nut...in a mutt." I then reminded them that it helped to go through the alphabet to come up with more rhymes without really thinking that the first letter we always start with is "B". One little boy promptly comes up with "I am a nut...in a butt" Let me tell you to nine and ten year old boys that was the funniest thing they could have ever sang. I think they laughed for five minute straight. You should have heard them howling and repeating the line over and over. It was actually pretty cute to see how amused they were at themselves, and at least they rhymed, right?

Some other students overhead all the hoopla, and being ten year old boys tried to sing it too, I encouraged them to be appropriate, so then they started singing "I am a nut...in a squirrel's gut." Who knows what they added to that line when I wasn't listening.