TEACHING WORD STRESS

- before a word whose first syllable is stressed, primary stress on the number and secondary stress on –teen.. EX: Her cake has thir teen can dles on it.[r]

Teaching

Word Stress

… and how to not stress out about it 

Quick Tips for Teaching Word Stress

1 Emphasize the length of stressed vowels

2 Present sets of words with the same stress patterns

3 Pronounce new vocabulary so students can hear

which syllables are stressed

4 Use pronunciation spellings to develop students’

awareness of how stressed/unstressed vowels are pronounced

5 Point out that unstressed vowels have a short,

indistinct sound regardless of spelling

6 Teach classes of words that have predictable stress

patterns

Anderson-Hseih and Venkatagiri, 1994, 809

Primary/Heavy Stress

 Matching or comparing stress-syllable patterns of words is effective for

building sensitivity to patterns of

Primary/Heavy Stress: Month Activity

 What are the names of the months? Seasons?

 How many syllables are in each name?

 Which syllable is stressed in each month?

Primary/Heavy Stress: Month Activity

1 Which words have a stress pattern like

September?

2 Which word has a stress pattern like January?

3 Which words have a stress pattern like April?

4 How many words have a stress pattern like

July?

5 Which words have only one syllable?

Primary/Heavy Stress:

Travel Trivia Activity

 Where would you like to travel?

 When would you like to go?

 What’s the best time to travel?

Primary/Heavy Stress:

Travel Trivia Activity

1 You want to go to South Africa When is the shoulder season?

a January to April c October and November

Primary/Heavy Stress:

Travel Trivia Activity

3 You want to go to Turkey When is the shoulder season?

a Winter c July and August

Primary/Heavy Stress:

Travel Trivia Activity

5 You want to go to Italy When is the shoulder season?

a Summer c June and July

b Fall d January to March

6 You want to go to Mexico When is the shoulder season?

a June and July c Fall

b February and March d Winter

Primary/Heavy Stress:

Travel Trivia Activity

7 You want to go on safari (a trip to see wild animals) in

Kenya When is the shoulder season?

a Spring c June to September

b February and March d Winter

8 You want to go to Costa Rica When is the shoulder season?

a Summer c Winter

b July and August d Mid-October to mid-December

Secondary Stress

What is the difference between primary and secondary stress?

Pitch is lower with secondary

Secondary is often (but not always) predictable

Secondary Stress

- second word of compounds

- on the preposition in prepositional prefixes

- on some suffixes

EX: real ize, chi ldhood, at titude

- polysyllabic words with primary stress toward the end of the word (usually two syllables in front of the primary stress to make it even) EX: contri bu tion, Japan ese , capa bil ity

Secondary Stress: Numbers

“teens”

- before a pause, primary stress on –teen and secondary stress on the number

- before a word whose first syllable is stressed, primary stress on the

number and secondary stress on –teen

- when counting, primary stress on the number and secondary stress on – teen

Secondary Stress: Numbers

“tens”

- with –ty numbers, primary stress is always on the number and secondary stress is always on the –ty

- the letter t: in –ty numbers, t is a fast d

EX: sixDy

- the letter t: in –teen numbers, t is a t

EX: sixTeen

• Information gap in pairs

with turned backs

• Competition

• Switch for grading

Two-Syllable Nouns and

Verbs

- over 90% of two-syllable nouns are stressed on the first syllable

EX: MOther, KITchen, HUSband, TAble

- about 60% of two-syllable verbs are stressed on the second syllable EX: rePEAT, oCCUR, adMIT, anNOUNCE

- a useful rule: stress is placed on the root syllable, or the last

syllable of the verb is stressed if it contains a long vowel or

consonant cluster (has more letters)

EX: decIDE, contAIN, eleCT, distuRB

Two-Syllable Nouns and

Verbs:

What’s in your bag?

 3 column headings: Things

in the Room, Things in Your Pocket, Things in Your Bag

Circle all two-syllable words

Nouns or verbs?

Where is the stress?

Can be turned into a guessing game for pairs

Stress with Compounds

 Compound nouns and adjective/noun compounds have primary stress (red) on the first word and secondary stress (blue) on the second

 EX: graduate stu dents, the White House , rail road , hot dog

 Phrasal verbs have the same stress-pitch pattern

 EX: the take off , my make up

Stress with Compounds:

Which came first? Activity

 Cell phones – iPods

Computer games – web

Heart transplants – liver transplants

Fingerprinting – blood typing

Abbreviations (and articles)

 last letter always has the heaviest stress and highest pitch

EX: ATM (automated teller machine)

 the – refers to a specific or known referent (the UN)

 a/an – used with a nonspecific or unknown referent (an ATM)

 No article – used when the abbreviation is a proper name (IBM)

 Possessives – used when the referent “belongs” to an individual

(his DOB)

Abbreviations: Pronunciation and Grammar Activity

Abbreviations: Pronunciation and Grammar Activity

A The time a flight is expected to arrive

B “modus operandi,” a Latin term used in police work for the method a particular criminal uses in his crimes

C An international organization that aims to maintain world peace and solve world

problems

D A machine that gives cash

E The date and year a person was born

F A very important person

Unstressed Vowels

What are they?

Why are they important?

Dauer “argues that it is difficult to speak English at a natural speed without reducing either the length or quality of

unstressed vowels” (2005)

“Flege and Gohn suggest that learning to make a length

difference between stressed and unstressed vowels is a

necessary precursor to vowel reduction” (1989)

Unstressed Vowels

•Shorter, softer (less loud), and pronounced at a lower pitch than stressed vowels

•Most vowels in unstressed syllables are reduced to a

centralized vowel, usually an uh sound (most

common sound in English); sometimes i

•Emphasize and remind students that unstressed

vowels can be spelled with any letter in English but

are still pronounced with an uh or i sound

Unstressed Vowels:

Disappearing Syllables

Which syllables are dropped or disappear as the unstressed syllables?

Aspirin Chocolate Evening Family

Temperature Vegetable Federal General

Interest Miserable Separate (adj) Every

Laboratory Beverages Favorite Comfortable

Naturally Practically Accidentally Awfully

Unstressed Vowels:

Disappearing Syllables

Unstressed Vowels:

Disappearing Syllables

level?

Quick Tips for Teaching Word Stress

1 Emphasize the length of stressed vowels

2 Present sets of words with the same stress patterns

3 Pronounce new vocabulary so students can hear

which syllables are stressed

4 Use pronunciation spellings to develop students’

awareness of how stressed/unstressed vowels are pronounced

5 Point out that unstressed vowels have a short,

indistinct sound regardless of spelling

6 Teach classes of words that have predictable stress

patterns

Lengthened vowels in stressed syllables and shortened vowels in unstressed syllables

Leads to clearer pronunciation

Next step is easier – natural English rhythm (alternation of long and short or stressed and unstressed words)

Using words like compounds, where stress is predictable, helps students avoid the serious pronunciation error of misplaced word stress (leading to unintelligibility)

Lane, Linda. Tips for Teaching Pronunciation: A Practical

Approach Edited by H Douglas Brown, Pearson Education,

Inc., 2010