THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENTTHACH THANH I HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENTIAL INITIATIVE some methods to help students AT thach thanh i HIGH SCHOOL master word stress Author: Vũ Thị
Trang 1THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT
THACH THANH I HIGH SCHOOL
EXPERIENTIAL INITIATIVE
some methods to help students AT thach thanh i
HIGH SCHOOL master word stress
Author: Vũ Thị Xuân Occupation: Teacher Experiential initiative on: English
THANH HOA, YEAR 2021
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CONTENTS
1 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Reasons for the study
1.2 Aims of the study
1.3 Scope and object of the study
1.4 Study method
2 2 STUDY CONTENT
2.1 Theoretical rationale of the study
2.1.1 What is English stress
2.1.2 Why do we need to master stress
2.1.3 How do we learn stress
2.2 Status of the study problem
2.2.1 For the teachers
2.2.2 For the students
2.2.3 For objective factors
2.3 Solutions
2.3.1 During English lesson
2.3.2 Some rules to master word stress in English
2.3.2.1 Phonetic stress
2.3.2.2 Word stress with suffix
2.3.2.3 Word stress for compound nouns and reflexive
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Trang 41 INTRODUCTION 1.1 REASONS FOR THE STUDY
It’s easy to see just how important English is around the world Therefore,more and more people are dedicating time to studying English as a secondlanguage because English is the most commonly spoken language in the world
One out of five people can speak or at least understand English Whether we arelooking for a job, taking an exam or planning to travel the world, studyingEnglish can help us progress in both personally and professionally
Phonetics is considered as one of the basic elements of all languages in theworld If the pronunciation is correct, all skills such as listening, speaking,reading will become much easier On the contrary, if the pronunciation is wrong
or unclear, it will make the listener misunderstand or even not understand thespeaker's meaning
To support the correct pronunciation of English words, hitting the correct stresswill bring success in communication in general and in exams in particular Inorder for the other person to understand the content of the sentence they want toexpress, in addition to pronouncing the correct word to avoid misunderstanding,
it is also important to use stress for words in a sentence However, the fact thatmany students pronounce the wrong words and stress incorrectly is still verycommon due to the lack of grasping the pronunciation and stressing rules orperhaps due to the application of long, rambling rules, hard to remember
Having identified the problem, I have tried to search for solutions to helpstudents learn word stress more efficiently Thus, in this writing I would like to
share “ Some methods to help students at Thach Thanh I High school
master word stress ” with the hope that my colleagues can also considered my
teaching strategies as useful suggestions to help their students become moreinterested and confident in speaking English
1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY:
- Helping students at Thach Thanh I High School know how to pronounce English words correctly
1.3 SCOPE AND OBJECT OF THE STUDY
- Scope: Research subjects are students at Thach Thanh I High School, school year
2020-2021
- Object: This subject is concerned with ways of teaching word stress in the class.
1.4 The study method
- Finding out difficulties that students have in English classes
2
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Trang 5- Research methodology through the documents: Book of Applied Informatics, Internet, textbooks 12, teacher books, exercise books and related documents.
- Observing and drawing out experiences
- Research Methodology of actual survey, gathering information and data processing
2 STUDY CONTENT 2.1 The theoretical rationale of the study 2.1.1 What is English stress?
Have you ever heard a very fast saying from a foreigner and did notunderstand anything? Or do you say a sentence that makes the person facing youalso not understand? That is because you do not know how to grasp word stress
in English If you set wrong syllable stress or say words without stress, you willhave difficulty in both speaking and listening when communicating in English
There will be an accent in each word Stress is a syllable that is pronouncedlouder and clearer, with more emphasis on other syllables in a word, used todistinguish one word from another When you look up in a dictionary, you willidentify word stress by the symbol (‘) before the syllable is stress
In English, there are many words written the same but will have differentmeanings, different types of words if the stress is different Therefore, if you donot pronounce the stress correctly, the listener will not understand ormisunderstand what you are saying For example, the word desert, if it is a nounstress falls on the first sound / ˈdezərt / and means a dry, barren area of land, if it
is a verb, stress falls on the second sound / dɪˈzɜrt / and means neglect
According to Peter Roach in "English phonetics and phonology," the stress of
a word is pronounced more prominently than the other Stressed sounds have
at least four distinct characteristics:
- Have a louder volume than the rest of the sound
- Have a longer length than the other sounds
- Have a higher pitch than the rest of the sound
- The vowel of a stressed sound is different from the other vowels in the same word
2.1.2 Why do we need to master stress?
First, stress distinguishes one word from another when listening to and speakingEnglish, because misplaced stress can cause misunderstanding to differentwords with different meanings In fact, there are many "half-hearted and funny"
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Trang 6situations that happen just because speaking English has no stress and thelistener understands it differently This is extremely dangerous if you useEnglish to communicate with customers, foreign partners.
Second, stress helps to emphasize and convey important information If youknow the word stress well, you can hear and capture information very well eventhough people "speak fast like the wind"
Third, stress creates the natural intonation of the sentence, making the Englishvoice flexible, professional, and in a native-like style Without stress, wordsbecome boring, unattractive, reading English as if it were Vietnamesetranscription A statement with up and down intonation will certainly appeal tothe listener much more than a flat statement, all without emotion
2.1.3 How do we learn stress?
Like all language knowledge, stress has its own rules Learners can buybooks about stress and follow the rules in them With fixed rules, learners onlyneed to memorize and do lots of exercises However, the rules have exceptions
Learners need to pay more attention to these exceptions
In addition, learners can learn stress in many different ways such as: learning incommunication, learning while listening to the teacher lectures, learning whenlistening to programs played in English, or by looking up a dictionary And onlyregular practice and practice can help people learn successfully on the path ofconquering the language
2.2 Status of the study problem
2.2.1 For the teacher:
Most teachers understand the importance of word stress, especially for highschool students But until now there are many teachers who are fearful andconfused of the ways to teach stress They are not confident of when to teach,how much time they should spend on stress and especially how to present themclearly and comprehensibly
2.2.2 For the students:
Most students have no concept of stress in English pronunciation Studentsmay know about stress by looking at the Glossary section at the end of thetextbook However, many students do not watch this part or only pay attention
to the meaning of the word without paying attention to the pronunciation orstress of the word
2.2.3 For objective factors
4
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Trang 7- Difficult to remember and applyThe rule of determining stress is already there, but it is a very difficult process tomemorize in theory and apply it to the lesson You need to do and read a lot to
be able to deeply remember the learned rules, thereby forming the ability toreflect and analyze with new words
- Difference between Vietnamese and EnglishVietnamese is a monosyllabic language with built- in tones so you won't need aheadache because of defining stress But English is different English is a multi-syllable language with complex features of stress and intonation The daily use
of Vietnamese has gotten your brain used to simplifying intonation and stress,now you have to memorize a bunch of complex rules Isn't it difficult?
- There are rules but there are exceptions
In school, after teaching you many rules about stress, teachers always end withthe word "but" This "but" makes your knowledge indeterminate, as there aremany exceptions beyond the rules
These are the problems that urge me to find out the solutions to help students getover the difficulties and hold interest in the foreign language in a flexible andeasy way To know exactly about the problem, at the beginning of the schoolyear, I investigated 76 in two classes before applying “ methods to teach wordstress” by asking them to do the following questionnaire The questionnaire isabout the students’ ability of using English stress in grades 12A10 and 12A9 ofThach Thanh I High School with the same level I gave each student a 5-question English stress questionnaire and asked them to do it within 7 minutes
The words on the questionnaire were selected from unit 1 of the 12th gradeEnglish textbook when the students have just finished this lesson
The questionnaire is as follows:
Choose the word whose stress pattern is different from that of the rest.
1 2 3 4 5
A garbage B mischievous C daughter D member
A reserved B importance C photograph D decide
A secondary B attempt C biologist D obedient
Here are the results:
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Trang 85 correct 4 correct 3 2 1 correct 0 correct
students do not correct any questions about stress After the students had
finished their answers, I continued to ask some students to pronounce words on
the ballot at random As a result, most of the children did not pronounce the
word stress correctly, even if they answered all 5 questions on the questionnaire
correctly Thus, it can be seen that students' knowledge of stress is relatively
weak Even those who understand the theory are weak in practice
2.3 SOLUTIONS
2.3.1 During English lessons
Measure 1: When teaching new words I always focus on the stress of
words by using the stress mark for new words and ask students to write the
whole part in their notebooks When I let students read words, I also pay
attention to correct them if they see that they are not reading the stress correctly
by re-pronounce the word they read wrong and ask them to read it correctly
Measure 2: When using English, I always pay attention to correct accent
and intonation to guide and create habits for students to listen correctly In order
to do this, I always have to practice my speaking skills properly in many ways
such as listening and practicing according to tape, using dictionary to look up
words I am not sure about, listening to broadcast programs broadcast in English
on television or radio
Measure 3: This is the measure used in Language focus periods of Unit
3, Unit 4 and Unit 5 Because the time for stress in each Language Focus period
is only from 10 to 15 minutes, so there is only enough time for students to listen
to tapes and repeat the pronunciation of words Teachers don't have time to
explain to students some general rules regarding stress Therefore, students can
only grasp the stress of words in the textbook So before every Language Focus
periods of these lessons, I ask students to preview the “stress” at home
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Trang 10In class, I proceed to teach stress as follows:
- First, I let students listen to the tape 1 time to recognize word stress and then ask students
to repeat the tape twice
- I check the word stress positions to see if the students have mastered them correctly
- Tell students to listen to the part "Practise reading aloud the sentences" and call some students to read it again
Measure 4: Before each period, I prepare 2 multiple-choice questions
about stress with the requirement “Choose the word whose stress is differentlyplaced from the other words” The words selected in these 2 questions are thewords that will be used during that class These two questions can be written inthe sub-chart first At the end of each period, I spend from 30 seconds to 1minute for students to answer the two questions and pronounce these words
The questions for each section are listed in the following table
A.family B secret C person D member
Unit 1
Listening A together B dinner C leftover D children
A excited B often C crowded D rarely
Unit 1
Writing A permit B different C.grandfather D idea
A prepare B allow C finish D discuss
Unit 1
Language
Focus
A party B listen C enjoy D married
A central B expensive C.interesting D.anywhere
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Unit 2
Trang 11A traditional B.contractual C marriage D.difference
A maintain B physical C majority D reject
Unit 2
A country B holiday C precede D income
Unit 2
Listening
A banquet B ceremony C exchange D altar
A envelope B attend C ancestor D schedule
Unit 2
Writing
A.conical B picture C symbol D.Vietnamese
A culture B attractive C protect D material
Unit 2
A police B.decide C arrest D.neighbourLanguage Focus
A several B grateful C.photography D thousand
Unit 3
A action B apology C common D difficult
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Unit 3
Language Focus A company B successful C because D discuss
A explain B marketing C office D visit
Unit 4
A system B.environmen C.goverment D February
t
Unit 4
A.examination B national C optional D lower
Unit 4
Listening A methodical B teacher C actually D carefully
A behave B always C listen D struggle
Unit 4
A follow B suggestion C system D.writing
Unit 4
Language Focus A algebra B chemistry C physical D.computing
A typical B normally C surprise D medicine
Unit 5
A colleges B challenge C inflation D library
Unit 5
A application B certificate C identity D require
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Writing A supply B tuition C provide D section
Language cs B.geographicalB.philosop y D.proficiency
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Trang 15Reading A.measure B.inflation C.stagnant D.foreign
A.technique B.policies ge D.efficientlySpeaking
C.drainaA.salary B.scholarship ge D.facilities
Unit 7
Listening A.rationally B.eventually C.discourage D illegal
A.negative B.unfortunately C.solution D.discover
Unit 7
A.economic B people C.fishery D.better
Unit 7
Language Focus A.important B.distance C.recognize D manage
A.myself B.vacation C.English D.advise
A together B organize C concern D.employment
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A comprise B enormous C acacia D colony
Unit 9
A animal B climate C.important D buffalo
Unit 9
Listening A location B rabbit C needle D human
A develop B become C cover D around
Unit 9
A.information B.composition C tableland D elevationWriting
A feature B exist C winter D summer
Language Focus A sentences B begin C.remember D.excitement
Unit 10
Reading
A extinction
A effort
B destroy
B species
C habitatC.temperature
D dependD.destruction
Unit 10
Speaking
A forest A.endangered
B huntingB.tropical