I’m hoping to do a whole article on the tricky but important point of practising consonant clusters, but not sure I have enough ideas for 700 words on the topic yet. I have come up with two ways of using minimal pairs to practice spr, sl, tr etc though.
The first one is to use minimal pairs where the difference is a sound added into the middle of the consonant cluster, e.g. spine/ supine. Some other examples with s + vowel + consonant/ s + consonant are given below.
The other (sneakier) way is to do another pronunciation point, e.g. sin/ seen, through minimal pairs and make sure some of the words you use have consonant clusters in them, e.g. skim/ scheme. After sorting out the minimal pairs pronunciation differences, you can then do a little practice on consonant clusters. Other examples for ship/ sheep with consonant clusters given at the bottom.
I have actually tried these yet, so feedback and other ideas on consonant clusters gratefully accepted.
Minimal pairs for s + consonant(s)
succumb/ scum
sullied/ slid
sullies / sleaze
sumac/ smack
supine/ spine
supple/ spool
support/ sport
supported/ sported
supporting/ sporting
supportive/ sportive
Nearly minimal pairs with s + consonant(s)
sap/ spa
sapped/ spat
sapper/ spur
sappier/ spear
sepia/ spear
septum/ sputum
serpent/ spent
sopor/ spoor
sopped/ spot
soppier/ spear
usurp/ asp
super/ spur
i/ i: minimal pairs with consonant clusters in them
bl
blip/ bleep
br
britches/ breeches
cr
crick/ creek
fl
flit/ fleet
gr
grid/ greed
grin/ green
grist/ greased
nd
finned/ fiend
sk
skid/ skied
skim/ scheme
skit/ skeet
sl
slick/ sleek
slip/ sleep
slit/ sleet
st
cist/ ceased
fist/ feast
still/ steal steel
TEFLtastic 
Hi there =)
I really support your intent here. With some speakers, consonant clusters do really make a syllabic difference in their pronunciation. The one thing that bothers me a little with some of them is their words’ frequencies. It may be a culturally relative issue, but if students (or me, for example) aren’t likely to ever say the words (e.g. sopor/ spoor), I’d rather use contrasting pairs that they will–definitely a difficult task for teachers to come up with; they really need collecting over time.
If nothing else, my argument here can be fodder for your article. ;)
Cheers,
Tyson
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Hi Tyson
Absolutely agree, which is why I started doing my lists of minimal pairs by level:
http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/minimal-pairs.htm
Unfortunately, that was all the ones I could find for sp, despite spending quite a lot of time looking, so I included the lot plus not quite minimal pairs. One possible solution in my next post.
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Thanks a lot for this. Am doing a workshop with local Myanmar teachers and intrusive schwa sound are a problem. Was looking for some examples and these were really useful. Thanks again. Glen
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Here are some more –
string – stirring
please – police
caress – cress
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More consonant clusters and minimal pairs here:
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