Elbe: I hope this may help you and your students: I've written 300 new poems to which I have added my own clear English voice recording. Many of the poems are rhyming poems and students will see quite clearly that words such as: sigh/sky threw/blue/through; and hundreds more, may be spelt differently, but they are pronounced with the same vowel sound. Writing poetry is my hobby (I write almost every day), and local children asked me to put the poems on the internet for them, with my voice recording attached, to help them with their problem of reading English. Of course, they have the same problem as
ESL students. Now I find that students from all over the world are using my poems, reading along with me, and pronouncing the words in the correct way. Since I put the poems onto the internet last year, almost 22000 people have been there, so I guess they are popular. If you write "Josie Whitehead - Poetry" on Google, you will find the website easily. A poem is short enough to be slotted into a lesson, or prepared at home the night before for recitation. I go into schools and the children love to recite or even dramatise the poems. One of my poems "The Winter Picnic" was sang by a little group, and another group did it to "rap" which was quite fun. The rhythm and rhyming are very effective when learning a language, and that is one of the reasons why our own children learn English at an early age using Nursery Rhymes. It is a fun way to learn and I have written several articles on how poetry helps with language learning. Although many of the poems are for children, adults will love them too, and it will introduce them to new vocabulary such as they won't get in textbooks, in a fun way. Do let me know if it is useful, and let others know. The website is:
Josies Poetry - POEMS FOR EVERYONE BUT ESPECIALLY CHILDREN. Good luck.