[Quotes from Teaching American English Pronunciation (Peter Avery & Susan Ehrlich). Chapter 11, Suprasegmentals in the Pronunciation Class: Setting Priorities by Maureen McNerney & Davis Mendelsohn.]
Classroom norm has been to devote majority of time and effort to segmentals (individual sounds), and usually vowels. This is because in a multilingual group of ESL learners, vowels usually pose more of a problem than consonants.
Suprasegmentals control the structure of information… they are far more important and central to communication than accurate production of the individual sounds. (“I just killed my doggie.”)
Giving priority to the suprasegmental aspects of English improves learners’ comprehensibility and is less frustrating for students because greater change can be effected in a short time.
Pronunciation work should always be tied to meaning.
Remember: how Ray taught us Turkish, saying whole sentence, and then worked it in smaller phrases from the middle to the end, not the beginning to the middle.
Stress/Unstress
Word level
Errors in word stress are often a result of transfer fro the learner’s first language. When introducing new vocabulary items, teachers should be as concerned about correct stress patterns as they are about correct usage.
Sentence level
Content v. function words: stressed words = content (meaning-carrying) words and unstressed words = function (grammatical) words.
Learners must be able to identify and produce stressed words appropriately, making them louder, clearer, and longer. Unstressed words, on the other hand, are usually reduced, and are thus much shorter… The goal is for students to grasp the way stress/unstress reflects the way information is structured in English.
Activities
- Work initially with nonsense words… trains students to listen for the acoustic signals of stress
- Use of newspaper headlines… students must construct the full message from the headline
Stress & Rhythm
The time it takes to say a sentence depends on the number of syllables receiving stress, not on the number of syllables.
When a student doesn’t use the appropriate rhythm, results can range from incomprehension to annoyance.
Activities
- Expanding sentences: Construct sentences in which number of stressed syllables is the same but number of unstressed syllables varies. Students read them, and create their own.
- Tapping: tap out stressed syllables
Major Sentence Stress
Generally occurs on the content word of the sentence to which the speaker is directing the listener’s attention = information focus. Major sentence stress usually falls on the last content word of the sentence.
Activities
- Dialogues: Relation of major stress to the information structure of a longer stretch of speech. Questions with “multiple choice” phrases (“Where are you going: to the north or the south?) lend themselves well.
- Paraphrasing: Read a sentence and shift the major sentence stress each time, and get people to explain the new meaning. (“Well, I liked the movie.”)
- Multiple choice: Like the above, but let people come up with various meanings depending on stress. (“The man wearing the baseball cap is the murderer.”)
- Questions: Ask about things that require students to place sentence stress on the appropriate answer. The student repeats the same sentence it assigns major sentence stress to a different word. You could also do this with pictures and ask questions about them. (“My doctor is great.” “Who is great?” “My doctor is great.” “Whose doctor is great?”)
Intonation
Final falling intonation is the most common pattern in the production of English sentences. It is used in most statements, commands, and wh- questions. Final rising intonation is used primarily in ‘yes-no’ questions. Tag questions can be produced with either rising or falling intonation.
Activities
- Eliciting information: Ask for/give directions, suggestions, instrucctions, etc. Gives a great deal of contextualized communicative practice in both wh- question intonation and yes-no question intonation. “Where is the post office?” “How do I get there?” “Are you sure?” “When is it open?” “Till six?”
- Using persuasion: You can practice tag questions with both rising and falling intonation through information-getting and persuasion. Taped commercials are a good source. Students can make up their own ads. “You’re looking for a new apartment, aren’t you?” vs. “You’re a student, aren’t you?”
- Analyzing tapes: Recorded native speaker conversation. Have the students listen to the intonation patterns and the attitudes conveyed through tone.
Linking and Pausing
When no pauses exist between words we say that they are linked. Linking should be introduced, not only as a naturals aspect of connected speech but as necessary for comprehension. The inability to pause and link can have serious consequences. “John hit Bill and then Tom hit him” v. “John hit Bill and then Tom hit ‘im.”
Activities
- Identify the sentence: Prepare pairs of sentences and have the students try them on each other. E.g. “Alfred,” said the boss, “is stupid.” v. “Alfred said the boss is stupid.”
- Information sharing: Have students exchange phone numbers, b’days, addresses, to learn about pauses in giving numbers.
- Analyzing tapes: Bring tape of native speaker and have students listen for patterns of pausing and linking. It may be helpful to bring a transcript.
Palatalization
Reduction and assimilation. “Would you” v. “wouldja.” Important that students know these aren’t sloppy or incorrect. On the contrary, they’re natural and appropriate in many situations. Formality v. informality, e.g.
Activities
- Invitation and persuasion: Present a situation and have the students practice persuasion. E.g. someone is throwing a surprise party but that person doesn’t want to leave the house. “Why can’t you go with me?” “Couldn’t you change your plans?” “Would you like to do something else” etc.
- Advertising campaign: Have students set up an ad to persuade classmates to do something. E.g. to visit their home country. They’ll be using “would you,” “could you,” “won’t you,” “can’t you,” “did you,” etc. “Wouldn’t you like to spend a month by the sea? Don’t you need a holiday?”
Conclusion
Pronunciation teacher must give priority to suprasegmental features in a short-term pronunciation course.