Module 2.2.

Pronunciation, Stress
and Intonation
Module Objectives
At the end of this module you will:

 understand the importance of teaching pronunciation

 have some ideas on how to do this

Introduction
Many teachers do not often involve their classes in formal speaking practice but are at
pains to correct their students' pronunciation errors as and when they occur and to give
advice on stress and intonation.
The matter of pronunciation rarely takes up a whole lesson because of its potentially
repetitive nature; in fact, it is not unusual to see it restricted to a five or ten-minute
portion in some lessons. It is good policy to include it in response to the making of a
common error; some teachers do this at the end of a lesson, others consider it as a
useful tool for varying the pace of a lesson and schedule it as a secondary activity in the
middle. Wherever they occur pronunciation activities enable the students to concentrate
on the same thing at the same time thus bringing the whole group under the teacher's
control.
Although it may seem less important than the teaching of structures and vocabulary in
terms of the limited time spent on it, pronunciation is an element essential to effective
communication and is a subject with which all EFL student teachers are expected to be
familiar.

Elements of Pronunciation
Pronunciation is understood to include:

1. intonation
2. stress
3. phonology (the sounds of the language)

Not all textbooks agree that the concept of pronunciation should be taught in this order
although the sounds produced in individual words should come without too much
difficulty if intonation and stress are focused upon within the structure of a sentence or
phrase.
 Lesson 1. Intonation
Intonation
Intonation is to do with how you say a word or phrase rather than what you say.
Speakers can change the pitch of their voice making it higher or lower as and when
required. Thus intonation is the 'music' of speech which can convey various feelings or
attitudes such as surprise, curiosity, boredom, politeness, abruptness etc. It is therefore
important for the speaker to convey his appropriate feelings at the time otherwise an
incorrect impression might be gained by the listener and confusion or offence might be
caused.
It is difficult to learn the rules of intonation as English has a wide intonation range
compared with other languages; nevertheless, students should be encouraged to
acquire them naturally rather than to consciously learn them.

The Two Basic Patterns

When teaching English to students with little experience of the language, teachers
should note that there are two basic intonation patterns:
1. The Rising Tone
The rising tone which is used in questions expecting a yes/no response or to express
surprise, disbelief etc. The voice rises sharply on the stressed syllable.
eg
The single word "Really?" expects a yes/no response
As does:

 Did you see the Queen?

 Would you like a scone?

2. The Falling Tone

The falling tone is used for statements, commands and for wh... questions. The voice
rises sharply earlier in the sentence and then falls on the key word being stressed.
eg

 How's your brother?

 Stand back!
 Two returns to Bristol, please.

Self-check 1
Self-check 1
Experiment by saying the following as described in the brackets.
i) Oh! It's you!
(pleasant surprise)
(lack of enthusiasm)
ii) Turn the radio on please.
(polite request)
(repeated request, signs of impatience)
iii) He jogs three times every day.
Does he?
(with surprise)
(without surprise)
Self-check 2
Self-check 2
Read the examples below and decide for each one if the tone is rising or falling:-
A) Is Pierre French? ..........................................
B) No, he's from Belgium. ..........................................

A) Which area? ..........................................

B) Bruges, I believe. ..........................................

A) Will you lend me Ј10? ..........................................

B) Certainly not. ..........................................

In repetition activities there are two main techniques of demonstrating falling and rising
tones: the first is by gesture using arm and hand movements, the teacher taking care
that the student will observe each movement starting on the left and finishing on the
right; the second is simply by drawing arrows on the blackboard after the sentence or
phrase, thus\ or /.
Lesson 2. Stress
Stress
Stress refers to the emphasis we place on the syllable of a word or on (a) word(s) within
a sentence. It presents great difficulty for the foreign learner of English.

Unlike in a language such as Spanish, there are no easy rules in governing where the
stress falls on a word. We have all made mistakes ourselves when pronouncing a word
we have not seen or heard before. A native speaker can only work from experience with
similar words but is not always guided towards correct pronunciation.

If we take the average sentence or utterance in English we will find stressed and
unstressed words. The speaker will demonstrate the words that are of most importance
to the listener by stressing them more, ie by making them more audible.

For example, consider the sentence "I've lost my wallet!".

The words which are of most importance are 'lost' and 'wallet' and they will therefore be
stressed.

There are various ways of marking where the stress falls in a sentence or a word. Some
EFL teachers draw small squares above the place where the stress falls. For written
exercises you could mark the stressed syllable in bold or underline where the stress
falls.

English makes ample use of stress in order to point to a context. You can ask the same
question but can place the stress on different words depending on which fact you would
like to have confirmed or denied.

eg
Is Bernard going to France in July? (Stress on Bernard)
No, Zoe is.
Is Bernard going to France in July? (Stress on France)
No, he's going to Belgium.

Is Bernard going to France in July? (Stress on July)

No, he's going in August.

As already stated, in English we place stress on the most important parts of the
sentence or message we wish to be conveyed. The unstressed part of the sentence is
more difficult to catch so the foreign learner has to train his ear to pick up the less
important part of the message so he/she can fully understand what is being said.

English is often referred to as a 'stress-timed' language. This means that the length of
time between the stressed syllables is always about the same. The greater the number
of unstressed syllables between those that are stressed, the quicker the unstressed
syllables are uttered.

eg
He gave a speech.
He gave a short speech.
He gave a very short speech.

In each sentence, the unstressed syllables ( 'a', 'a short', 'a very short' ) took about the
same amount of time to say, so 'a very short' had to be said more quickly.

However, there are times when normally unstressed words are stressed for obvious
reasons.
eg Bill and George are coming to the party. (stressing that George is to be included in
the party guest list)

'And' and lots of other small words or weak forms (listed in the next page) are habitually
unstressed within the structure of a sentence unless used in isolation.
Weak Forms
Prepositions: at, to, of, for, from
Auxiliary and modal verbs: be, been, am, is, are, was, were, have, has, had, do,
does, shall, should, will, would, can, could, must
Pronouns: me, he, him, his, she, we, us, you, your, them
Others: who, that (as a relative pronoun), a, an, the, some, and, but, as, than, there, not

The sound produced in the weak form is called 'shwa' and is represented by the
phonemic symbol as seen on the phonemic script chart at the end of this unit.

Practise these examples. The weak forms are underlined.

Take a look at it.
It's for you.
I was here yesterday.
We must go.

Stress-timing is a noticeable characteristic of the spoken language. By getting used to

hearing English spoken with a natural rhythm in class, students will find it easier to
understand real English beyond the confines of the classroom. It will take some time
however, for the students themselves to produce this sort of language so they need a
lot of time and every encouragement in this endeavour.
Self-check 3
Self-check 3
Indicate what part of the sentence in each question should be stressed to elicit each of
the answers. Write the letter of the answer above the word you would stress in the
question.
Are you going to the disco tonight?

1. No, I'm going tomorrow.

2. No, I'm going to the cinema.
3. No, my friend is though.
4. I most certainly am.
Lesson 3. Phonology
Phonology
It is important when teaching students new vocabulary to indicate where the stress falls.
With the majority there is no argument
eg programme cigarette lesson

Remember, the stressed syllable is longer and more audible.

With other words there is disagreement on pronunciation, sometimes depending on

your origins.
eg harass and harass (American origin)
cinema and cinema (Southern English pronunciation)
advertisement and advertisement (localised northern pronunciation)
Carlisle and Carlisle (local pronunciation)

At other times it is essential to differentiate:

eg invalid (noun = incapacitated)
invalid (adjective = cannot be accepted)

Unstressed syllables are often pronounced as shwa (see chart) regardless of spelling. It
is the vowel sound many British people make when hesitating in speech, spelt as 'uh' or
'er'.
Here are some examples:
Occupations: teacher, driver, doctor, sailor
Comparatives: longer, bigger, better
Beginning with 'a': ago, about, along
Ending in: '-ory', '-ary : factory, library
Ending in: '-ion', '-ian' : nation, Egyptian
Ending in: '-man' : woman
Plurals: horses, matches etc.
Third person endings: washes etc.
Superlatives: shortest, fastest etc.
Ending '-age', '-ege' : luggage, language, college

The Phonemic Script Chart

Vowels and Consonants
All sounds, whether they are made by a vowel or a consonant are represented by a
phonemic symbol (see chart) to enable the native as well as the foreign speaker to
pronounce words correctly. The same letters or combination of letters can make a
different sound eg a word such as 'the' is pronounced differently according to whether a
vowel or a consonant follows.
Compare the pronunciation of 'the' before 'book' with 'the' before 'apple'.

In English there are variations in the pronunciation of the same vowels

eg Contrast:
hat - hard
bed - beer
bid - bird
dog - do - ford
cut - cute - could

As you can see from this, different letters can be pronounced in an identical way: note
the case of 'do' and 'cute'.

Two Types of Vowel in English:

There are two types of vowel in English: those represented by the phonemic symbols
above are monothongs meaning that the vowel sound consists of one phoneme. (A
phoneme is the smallest unit of speech) There are also diphthongs which are often
recognised by two vowels together, but not always.
'Beer' contains a diphthong, where you experience a gradual change in lip and tongue
position during the making of the sound. 'Bay' is another example, it is monosyllabic but
has two phonemes.
In all there are 20 vowel sounds and 24 consonant sounds compared with, for example,
Japanese and Spanish which have only 5 vowel sounds.

A Few Points to Consider

Do not assume that students will automatically pick up (acquire) the ability to use stress
and intonation if they are given enough exposure to the language; the natural
acquisition of stress and intonation can be both difficult and slow. Teachers should not
overlook the importance of pronunciation work in the classroom; simple exercises
introduced into the EFL classroom can be of great value. Pronunciation work can be
both fun and rewarding.

Dialogues
Dialogues offer the perfect opportunity to focus on stress and intonation. When working
with dialogues, clearly model the stress and intonation patterns of words, sentences or
phrases to the class, and get the students to repeat after you (known as chorusing -
there will be more information on chorusing in Unit 3 Module 1). Taking the time to focus
on stress and intonation during dialogue work can help to promote more natural
communication.

Look at the dialogue below:-

A: ‘Hi, ……..(name), how’re you?’
B: ‘Hi, ……..(name). Not so bad thanks, and you?’
A: ‘Fine thanks. I haven’t seen you for ages. What’ve you been up to?’
B: ‘Nothing much. Just the same old things. And you? What have you been doing with
yourself?’
A: ’Well, I’ve been really busy with my new job, and I’m moving house next week.’
B: ’Really? Good luck with the move’ ……………..
‘Anyway, it’s been nice seeing you.’
A: ’You too. Take care. Bye.
B: ‘Bye.’

A simple dialogue such as this can be introduced into the EFL classroom to focus on
stress and intonation. The teacher should model the dialogue first (taking the part of B)
with a student. The teacher should use a flat, monotone voice. After the exchange, the
teacher should ask for feedback on how the student felt during the exchange (eg that
the teacher was not interested, etc). The teacher should then model the dialogue again
with the same student, but this time focusing on stress and intonation patterns. The
teacher should then ask for feedback again on how the student felt, thus increasing
student awareness of the importance of stress and intonation. The teacher could then
chorus certain pronunciation patterns form the dialogue before asking the students to
practice the dialogue in pairs. (Facial expression and body language could also be
encouraged.)
If you are teaching a homogenous group (of the same nationality), it is important to pay
attention to the common pronunciation problems experienced by that nationality. For
example, with Turkish students the most common problems are the pronunciation of the
‘soft’ th sound, and the V sound (it tends to be pronounced very softly, and can sound
more like a W). Listen out for those problematic phonemes, ensure that you model them
clearly and correctly, and give the students plenty of opportunity to practise them.

Minimal Pairs
Minimal pair work can be beneficial for contrasting and practising similar sounds which
students experience problems with. The term ‘minimal pair’ refers to two words within a
language which have different meanings, but which differ in one sound (phoneme) only.
Examples of this in English are words like FAT and HAT. There are many of these in the
English language. Which minimal pairs cause a student problems, depends on the
phonetics of their own language and their language of study (L1 and L2). For example,
Japanese learners of English have difficulty differentiating between FAT and HAT.
Another example would be eel and heel for French learners of English because the
French language lacks an H sound.
As a result of the students’ lacking certain sounds in their native language, they will
have a very difficult time clearly differentiating between the sounds both when they hear
them, and when they attempt to pronounce them.
When using minimal pair activities in the classroom, It is important firstly to increase
students’ awareness of what minimal pairs are, and why they can cause students
problems.
A teacher who understands his or her students’ L1 can create lists and card sets of
minimal pairs which cause her students difficulties. There are a number of ways of
introducing minimal pair activities, eg the pairs can be recorded and played back to
students for listening practice, asking students to identify which sounds they hear. The
minimal pairs can also be recorded within the context of sentences, again asking
students to identify the sounds they hear. Card games can be introduced where
students have to ask other students for particular cards, providing practice in both
productive and listening skills.
Self-check 4
Self-check 4
Assign each of the following words to the phonemic symbol which represents the vowel
sound:
horn
foot
seat
word
lard
mud
rod
sit
rude
fed
mad
Self-check 5
Self-check 5
Find a word of your own to assign to each symbol on the chart provided.
Write the symbol after each of your 44 chosen words.
Self-check 6
Self-check 6
Now look at the consonant section of the phonemic script chart. Which phonemic
symbol represents the letters underlined in each of the following words?
lorry mash
vast ring
then yellow
nylon measure
hope go
road weep
joke fast
choke crisp
think plus
puzzle press