Sounds in contact

Unfortunately, however, sounds are rarely produced in isolation in ‘real life’ and what happens when sounds come into contact with one another and are produced in rapid speech is consequently of considerable significance to both teachers and learners.

Stress

In dictionaries, word stress is usually marked with a small line just before the stressed syllable, e.g.: 'record, re'cord. Notice the grammatical difference that the stress marks here. It is certainly worth using exercises like this one to make sure your students can actually hear different stress in words:

Listen and underline the stressed syllable:

beautiful interesting industrial gallery

historical restaurant cathedral university

(Taken from: Abbs and Freebairn 1990: 28)

Sentence stress is important for two reasons. First, the rhythm of English speech tends to bounce along from the stressed syllable to stressed syllable with the same amount of time between the stresses, no matter how many unstressed syllables intervene. If you say, ‘This is a TERRibly obSCURE POINT!’ and tap out the rhythm of the stresses, you will find that the amount of time between ‘SCURE’ and ‘POINT’ is the same as that taken to say the three syllables of ‘ib-ly-ob’. And you will also notice that ‘This is a’ is said very quickly in order to rush in order to rush on to the first stressed syllable.

All this seems very natural to a person who has grown up speaking English, but it may well not to be the learner. In fact, this is a major reason why people say that English people talk very quickly, or swallow their words, or mumble. The language teacher can help by providing a rhythm by tapping on the desk, or clapping hands, especially when students are practising a new language structure.

The second reason why stress is so vital is that we clearly stress words which we think are important to the meaning of what we want to say. Try saying this simple sentence in three different ways, each time stressing a different part: I’ll help you.

Intonation

We have seen that intonation can change the meaning of what is said. Intonation is also closely related to politeness, and therefore to appropriacy. In normal speech outside the classroom, people will overlook grammatical inaccuracy and hesitancy, but if they feel that someone is being impolite, they are not so forgiving.

As with grammar, people do not want to learn about rules of stress and intonation for their own sake. They want to be able to use stress and intonation meaningfully. For this reason, the teacher has to keep them constantly in mind when teaching other things.

Even if students are only repeating a dialogue, or practising new structures in a drill, or using functions in an exercise, insist that they say their lines meaningfully.

The teacher can also use feelings to help students in areas such as tone and pitch, where it is very difficult to state any rules, or even provide any clear descriptions of what is happening. When, for example, the students have completed an exercise practising some point of grammar, the teacher might say:

Who can do number three again? This time say it as if you are surprised. Now number eight – as though you didn’t mean it.