I’ll never forget watching Ahmed confidently grab a marker when I handed out the first listening labyrinth of the term.
“You want a pencil?” I asked.
“No pencil,” he said, waving me off. “I know this.”
Three minutes later, his paper was a disaster of crossed-out lines, scribbled corrections, and increasingly frantic marker strokes as he tried to find the right path. Meanwhile, the other students in the room were carefully tracing their route in pencil, ready to erase.
Ahmed learned what they already knew…these things are designed to trick the listeners.
And here’s the thing – students LOVE that. They know I’m trying to mess with them. They want to beat the game. That’s exactly why listening labyrinths make fantastic informal assessments for auditory discrimination. I can watch them struggle (or breeze through), and they think they’re keeping their results private because I give them the answer key to self-check.
Spoiler: I already know who’s struggling. But letting them think it’s between them and the page? That’s what keeps them engaged.
What you need before you start
You need a solid list of minimal pairs for whatever sound contrast your students are butchering. If you’ve got students mixing up short i and long e (is/ease, bit/beat, slip/sleep), you need as many of those pairs as you can generate.
What are minimal pairs? Words that sound identical except for ONE sound. Ship/sheep. Pen/pan. You get it.
Once you’ve got your list, here’s how to turn it into a labyrinth.
Making the answer key first (yeah, really)
I know it sounds backwards, but it’s the easiest way to do this.
Set up your table
Find the longest word on your list. That word determines how big your boxes need to be.
Open whatever program you like and create a table. I use 8 columns and 14 rows, but you can add more rows if you want. Don’t add more columns unless you enjoy squinting at tiny text.
Drop that longest word into a box and set your font and size. Does it fit comfortably? Make the font in that whole table that size. If that one word is way longer than everything else, just make that single word smaller and move on.
Delete the word. You don’t need it cluttering things up yet.
Create your winding trail
Pick a color and highlight boxes to create a path from top to bottom. Make it wind. Make it turn. You can let boxes touch at corners (harder) or only at sides (easier).
Now fill in the boxes along your colored trail with your minimal pairs, making sure there’s only ONE correct choice at each step. If a student needs to distinguish between “bit” and “beat” to know where to go next, perfect. Just make sure you’re not accidentally creating an alternate route through.
Got your trail filled in? Go back and randomly fill the remaining boxes with other words from your list. Keep checking that there’s still only one correct path through.
Make the student version
Highlight the whole table, copy it, paste it on a new page. Highlight again and delete the background color.
Done. You’ve got your student page and your answer key.
How to use these in class
Hand out the student pages. Keep your colored answer key.
Tell students to trace the path from top to bottom as you read each word. I always tell them to use pencils. The confident ones ignore me. Once.
Cover your mouth with your answer key as you read. You want them listening to the sounds, not wasting time trying to watch your mouth shape the words.
Read at whatever pace fits your group. Repeat words if you want. Speed up if they’re getting cocky. This is your show.
When they’re done, give them the answer key to check their own path. They think this keeps their results private. Cute, huh? Truth is, you’ve been watching the whole time and already know exactly who’s struggling.
The variation I didn’t plan on
A student once asked if he could practice SAYING the sounds instead of listening for them. He wanted to read the path out loud to a partner who would tell him if he was on the right track.
Brilliant. Now I sometimes pair students up. One reads the path, the other (who has zero issues with that particular sound contrast) confirms whether they’re pronouncing it correctly enough by staying on the path.
Same game. Different skill. Still trying to beat the labyrinth.
Rather not spend 30-45 minutes making these?
Look, once you get the hang of it, creating a listening labyrinth takes a little over half an hour. Some teachers love that kind of focused task.
Me? I made a bunch of them so I’d never have to make another one again. Almost all of my pronunciation resources include listening labyrinths plus full-color photo presentations and other activities.
Check them out in my TpT store if you’d rather spend your evening doing literally anything else.
That’s it from me. See you in the next post!
Read more about adult ESL pronunciation!
Pronunciation Truly Matters: The Spelling Quiz That Made My Students Question Everything
When Your Best Student Is Also Your Most Incomprehensible
Two Ways to Teach Pronunciation (Whatever Your Adult ESL Class Looks Like)
Sh/Ch: 3 Ways to Help Your Students Stop Saying “Teasher”
4 Strategies for R/L Pronunciation That Don’t Involve Parroting
