SKKN some measures to help grade 7 students at canh nang town secondary school master english word stress

This requires manyfactors, in which it is quite important to help students master word stress inEnglish.. Students are only allowed to listen to tapes on how to read word stress of some

1 Introduction

1.1 Rationale

In the context of global integration today, English is an importantlanguage It is the key to help us access the quintessence, progress inculture, education, science, technology and many other fields of humanity.Therefore, it is a second language, a compulsory subject of many countriesaround the world According to analysts' forecasts, by the end of thisdecade, more than one third of the world's population will be engaged inlearning English, This global need to learn English has shown that English isextremely important and essential for economic and social development on anational level as well as for each individual in society

From that practical requirement, English has been included in themainstream curriculum of all academic levels in our country The ultimategoal of teaching and learning English is that students can communicate inEnglish The ability to communicate shows on two aspects: receptive language(listening and reading) and producing language (speaking and writing) So,what must teachers and students do to achieve this goal? This requires manyfactors, in which it is quite important to help students master word stress inEnglish The correct pronunciation of English word stress will help communicate inEnglish more smoothly, avoid misunderstandings in communication

From the reality of teaching English for many years, I found thatknowledge of English word stress is being taught in secondary schoolprograms only in practical level, not explained Students only need to listenand repeat the number of given words correctly The content of Englishword stress is only introduced in the part “Pronunciation- A closer look 1”

of Unit 9, Unit 10 and Unit 12 of grade 7 Students are only allowed to listen

to tapes on how to read word stress of some words and then repeat.However, in exams, there are often some questions about stress Throughstudying the results of students' tests, I find that students often do not givethe correct answers of the questions about word stress In addition, I alsofind that when the students speak English, most of them only speak evenlyand do not pay attention to the stress of words, which reduces theeffectiveness of using English

Some authors also share many good experiences and solutions to helpstudents learn word or sentence stress well, but those experiences are brought fromscientific research, mainly applied to excellent students, high schoolstudents and serve for graduation exam, college and university Very fewdocuments mention teaching word stress for middle school students,specifically, groups of general students

From the results above, I strongly launched an innovative experience

"Some measures to help grade 7 students at Canh Nang town secondary school master English word stress” It is hoped that the measures, to some

extent, will contribute to improving the teaching and learning of English wordstress in grade 7 at Canh Nang town secondary school in particular and Englishstudy in general

1.2 Aims of the study:

For above mentioned reasons, the main aims of the study are as thefollowing:

- Firstly, make students aware of the importance of using correct Englishstress; thereby help them have a sense of stress in training their communicationskills

- Secondly, help students speak English correctly, ensure subject knowledgestandards, thereby help students solve the questions about stress knowledge

in exams

- Thirdly, this topic can help teachers of foreign languages have a few smallsuggestions in teaching speaking skills for students

1.3 Scope of the study

Stress is one important part of English pronunciation, which consists ofsentence stress and word stress However, due to both limited time andexperience, this study only focuses on the word stress and some measures tohelp grade 7 students at Canh Nang town secondary school master English wordstress Any attempt to study English word stress on other aspect is beyond thescope of this study

1.4 Methods of the study

- Reading reference books

- Discussing with other teachers

- Analyzing the data

- Observing and drawing out experiences

- Applying in teaching

2 Content

2.1 Theoretical bacground

The aim of this part is to review theoretical background which related

to English word stress This basic knowledge will be provided in order tohelp students consolidate their knowledge and understand the issues deeper

2.1.1 Stress

2.1.1.1 The definition of tress

Stress is defined as using more muscular energy while articulating thewords.When a word or a syllable in word is produced louder, more lengthy, withhigher pitch or with more quality, it will be perceived as stressed Theprominence makes some syllables be perceived as stressed

E.g: - Important [im’pɔ:tənt] - Decision [di'siʒn]

2.1.1.2 Characteristics of stressed and unstressed words

English words can be made up of one, two or many syllables In all words

of two or more syllables, one syllable is more prominent, louder, or morenoticeable than the other syllables in that word This strong syllable is stressed(accented), and the other weaker syllables are unstressed (unaccented)

low or low to high) often occurs on stressed syllables.

Unstressed syllables sound softer, are usually shorter, and are frequently reduced or centralized This means that the vowels tend to become / ə /, / I /, or /

ﮞ /, and the consonants are weaker The pitch does not change direction onunstressed syllables

important factors They are loudness, length, pitch and vowel quality.

2.1.1.3.2 Length (duration or quantity)

Roach P in Phonetic and Phonology (1983: 163) defined that: “The

length of syllables has an important part to play in prominence If a word ispresented to English listeners, with no pitch variations but with vowels ofdifferent length, those vowels which have the greatest length will be judged as

“stressed” Therefore, vowels and diphthongs will always be associated withprominence, especially by a listener, however weakly stressed they may be anddespite the fact that a long vowel or diphthong in a relatively unstressed syllabledoes not have the same length as it will have in a stressed syllable A vowel in astressed syllable may in fact be longer than that in an adjacent stressed syllable,without depriving the latter of its prominence, e.g /æ/ and / ai / in ally, / ʌ / and /

iə / in frontier” In other words, among others syllables with the same length, ifonly one of them is lengthened intensively, there is quite a strong tendency forthat syllable to be heard as stressed

2.1.1.3.3 Pitch

Roach P (1983:163) also discussed: Every syllable is pronounced on some pitch, it might vary from low pitch to and high pitch Within a word, if one syllable isnoticeably said differently from the others, it will be recognized as prominent,and of course a stressed syllable Therefore, to place some movement of pitch(e.g rising or falling pitch) on a syllable is an effective way to produce a

syllable with prominence It is closely related to the frequency of vibration ofthe vocal folds and to the musical notion of low- and high-pitched notes He alsoemphasized: “If one syllable of a nonsense word (e.g ba: ba: ba: ba) is said with

a pitch that is noticeably different from that of the others, this will have a strongtendency to produce the effect of prominence If all syllables are said with lowpitch except for one said with high pitch, then the high-pitch syllable will beheard as stressed and the others as unstressed”

2.1.1.3.4 Vowel quality

A syllable will be considered as a prominence if it includes a vowel thathas different quality from neighboring vowels (Roach P.1983:163) If anonsense word “ba:ba:ba:ba ” is changed as “ba:bi:ba:ba”, then the “ bi” syllablewill usually be heard as stressed

In short, a stressed syllable can be recognized thanks to the combination

of those above four factors, among which the strongest effect is produced bypitch and length respectively, and then, loudness and vowel quality

2.1.1.4 Placement of word stress

According to O‟Connor J.D (1967:91), within a sentence, there are twokinds of words known as content(lexical) words and function(or grammatical)words Content words are those that express independent meaning include:Nouns, main verbs, adverbs, adjectives, question words and demonstratives,which are usually stressed

Function words are words that have little or meaning in themselves, butexpress grammatical relationships They include: Articles, prepositions, auxiliaries,pronouns, conjunctions, relative pronouns Function words are more likely to beunstressed, although they may be exceptionally stressed if given specialattention In terms of syllables, content words are classified as mono-syllable,bi-syllable and multi-syllable words

English is a very inconsistent language when it comes to rules Since it islittered with exceptions, you should always keep in mind that there are nodefinite rules to English, but general rules and patterns that can be followed.First, only one syllable can be stressed in an English word regardless if it hastwo, three, or even four or more syllables:

- Two-Syllable Words

In most two-syllable nouns and adjectives, the stress comes in the first

syllable of the word

Rule: stress on first syllable Example

For most two-syllable verbs, the stress is in the second syllable.

Rule: stress on second syllable Example

 Photograph – PHOtograph (3 syllables, first one is stressed)

 Photography – phoTOgraphy (4 syllables, third to last one is stressed)

 Photographic – photoGRAPHic (4 syllables, second to last one isstressed)

2.1.2 Role of stress in language learning

Stress is an important aspect of pronunciation, which decides one’s communication ability The better one is good at stress patterns of English, the more he understandsnative speakers Why exactly is correct word stress so important when it comes

to conversing in the English language? Here are some reasons:

• Word stress heavily affects the sounds of the vowels in a word Different wordstress can make a word sound completely different

• Native speakers rely on word stress to identify words Thus, incorrect wordstress patterns can lead to miscommunication between non-native speakers andnative speakers

• Knowing the stress pattern of words will help students to learn and rememberthe correct pronunciation of words

• Knowing correct word stress will help students to improve their listeningcomprehension skills

• Overall, the skill to stress words correctly will help ESL learners more toconverse more confident in English and enjoy it!

While some languages have little or limited stress, English is a heavilystress-based language Unfortunately, the majority of ESL teachers and studentsignore the necessity to practice word stress Word stress is not something extrathat students should study if they have time It is an essential part of learningEnglish because it is a major component of the English language

2.2 The reality of teaching and learning English word stress in grade 7

Located in a mountainous district of Thanh Hoa province; therefore, thereare some factors that affect the process of teaching and learning English in theschool as follows:

About the students: Living in mountainous area makes the studentsbecome less concerned and confident in learning than those from crowded andmore developed regions because they do not have accesses to modern devicessuch as computers or word processors Besides, their background knowledge ofEnglish and their proficiency of English are poor Thus, it is more challengingfor teachers to activate and motivate them to take part in the lesson, especially inthe oral practice because of their shyness That is why, it can be concluded thattheir English knowledge especially their phonetic abilities are still limited andtheir attitude towards learning word stress is also a matter to be considered

About the material: The course book used to teach the students are English 7

designed by the Ministry of Education and Training and published by

Educational Publishing House It includes 12 units about all the topics relating

to daily lives Each unit is divided into five lessons corresponding to four skills:

Reading, Speaking, Listening, and Writing The last lesson is called Language Focus, in which pronunciation is mentioned The problem here is that among the

12 units, stress is only taught to the students in units 9, 10 and 12, which is toolittle time for the students to understand about stress thoroughly Throughinterviewing many colleagues and students, and through the reality of teaching, Ifound that the majority of students studying English from elementary to juniorhigh school, except for the excellent student team, did not learn about Englishstress Only good at "rubbing" and knowing what "stress" is An undeniable fact,most teachers do not have the time or attention to guide students on this matter.Teachers, when correcting mistakes for students, only pay attention to wordusage, grammatical errors or incorrect pronunciation errors, not correct stresserrors Most students have no concept of stress in English pronunciation.Students can learn about stress by looking at the glossary section at the end of atextbook However, many students do not watch this part or watch but only payattention to the meaning of the word without paying attention to thepronunciation or stress of the word

About facilities: There is not any modern equipment such as laboratory

or high classed rooms, which makes it difficult for the teachers and students toimprove English teaching and learning

Before doing the topic, I have done two surveys on students' understanding

of stress and the current situation of teaching stress:

- The first survey: is a survey on students' ability to use English stress in

grades 7A and 7B at Canh Nang town secondary school I have given eachstudent a five-question English stress questionnaire and asked them to do it within

5 minutes The words on the questionnaire were selected from unit 1 of the 7thgrade English program when students finished this lesson The questionnaire is asfollows:

Choose the word whose stress pattern is different from that of the rest.

1 A arranging B flower C collage D unique

2 A unusual B gardening C skating D eggshell

3 A strange B model C monopoly D surfing

4 A strange B attention C melody D mountain

5 A essential B fragile C pottery D climbing

The results of each class are as follows (with percentages attached):

on the ballot at random As a result, most of the children did not pronouncethe word stress correctly, even if they answered all 5 questions on thequestionnaire correctly Thus, it can be seen that students' knowledge ofstress is relatively weak Even those who understand the theory are weak inpractice.

- The second survey:

I have done a survey on the teaching situation of English languagestress knowledge of English teachers at 3 secondary schools at Canh Nangtown After attending some lessons and through interviews, I noticed thatteachers have mentioned stressing when teaching new words, but not often

In the part “Pronunciation- A closer look 1” of the lessons Unit 9, Unit 10

and Unit 12 of grade 7, teachers only let students repeat words in the textbook,without any additional exercises or explanations about stress

From the above situation, I have taken some measures to improve theability of students to use English stress in grade 7 The measures are dividedinto two parts: the first part includes measures taken during distributedEnglish lessons and the second part includes measures taken during Englishextracurricular hours

2.3 Solution made to solve the problem

2.3.1 During English lessons:

2.3.1.1 Measure 1: Integrating word stress into the lessons.

I do not teach separate lessons on word stress Instead, I often integrate itinto their normal lessons The ideal time to focus students' attention on it iswhen introducing vocabulary That is, I quickly and simply elicit the stresspattern of the word from the students and mark it on the board I also guidestudents to use stress patterns as another way to organize and sort their vocabulary

For example, in students’ vocabulary note-books they can have a sectionfor nouns as follows:

Word O o o O O o o o O o Noun

TableLeather

…

CommandPrincess

…

HappinessSaturday

…

ComputerUnhappy

…

2.3.1.2 Measure 2:

When speaking English in the class, I always pay attention to pronounceaccent and intonation of words correctly to guide and create habits for students tolisten English words correctly In order to do this, I always have to practice

my speaking skill properly in many ways such as: listening and practicingaccording to tape, using dictionary to look up words that I am not sureabout, listening to broadcast programs in English on television or radio

2.3.1.3 Measure 3:

This is the measure used in the part “Pronunciation- A closer look 1”

of the lessons Unit 9, Unit 10 and Unit 12 Because the time for teachingword stress in each pronunciation period is only from 10 to 15 minutes, sothere is only enough time for students to listen to tapes and repeat thepronunciation of words Teachers don't have time to explain to studentssome general rules regarding to word stress Therefore, students can onlygrasp the stress of words in the textbook Before part “Pronunciation- Acloser look 1” of the lessons Unit 9, Unit 10 and Unit 12, I ask students topreview the “Word stress” at home, divide the class into groups of 6students and ask each group to find more words with similar stress patterns,write in the form of multiple-choice questions about stress in the sub-boardfirst Each group prepares 3 questions

In class, I proceed to teach word stress as follows:

- Firstly, I let students listen to the tape once time to recognize word stressand then ask students to repeat the tape twice

- Secondly, I check the word stress positions to see if the students havemastered them

- Thirdly, tell students to listen to the part "Practise reading aloud thesentences" and call some students to read it again

- Finally, I organize groups to exchange sub-boards with each other, do theexercises on those sub-boards

2.3.1.4 Measure 4:

This is the most important measure of this topic based on the idiom

"Practice makes perfect" Before each class, I prepare two multiple-choicequestions about stress with the requirement “Choose the word whose stress

is differently placed from the other words” The words chosen in these twoquestions are the words that will be used in that class These two questionscan be written in advance on the extra board, or written on an electroniclecture to show on the projector At the end of each class, I spend from 30seconds to 1 minute for students answering the two questions andpronouncing the words in the two questions The student who correctlyanswers and pronounces the word stress will receive a reward point card

This card is used to add points for students to tests of 15 minutes, 1 period

or semester tests in proportion:

+ 2 cards = 1 point for the 15-minute test

+ 4 cards = 1 point for the 45-minute test

+ 6 cards = 1 point for the semester test

This measure is administered in lessons of 12 units Thus, after eachlesson, students will master the stress of 8 words and after 72 lessons of 12units, students have been practicing stress with 576 words

When I take this measure, I find that students who want to answercorrectly and read correctly will have to listen more attentively At the sametime, the reward point card has the effect of stimulating students to payattention to study and actively volunteer to answer questions Furthermore,

it also helps students improve their scores in a legitimate way and helpsteachers evaluate students more accurately

In addition to the measures taken during the formal teaching hours, I also conduct a number of activities during the English extracurricularactivity

2.3.2 During the English extracurricular activity:

To help students easily memorize and deepen their knowledge ofEnglish word stress, I organized an extracurricular activity for students in

grade 7 with the theme “English word stress" This event will be held at

the end of the second term, when the students have finished their semesterexams The extracurricular session is organized as follows:

2.3.2.1 Prepare:

- I divide the class into 3 groups, assign each group to prepare a part

of knowledge related to stress and accompanying exercises The knowledgecontent that needs to be prepared includes:

+ Stress in two-syllable words

+ Stress in three-syllable words

+ Stress in more than three-syllable words

- Students need to prepare content for presentation on Powerpoint forconvenience

- I prepare some simple, easy-to-remember rules about word stress togive students at the end of the session

- In addition, I prepare some small gifts to reward students

- Exercise part: Groups take turns to project their homework for othergroups to do The group with the fastest and most accurate answers willreceive a reward

- Game part:

+ I divide the class into 4 teams to play with symbols A, B, C, and D.+ Prepare 4 chairs with numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 These numbers correspond

to the stressed syllable position of the word

+ Let teams draw the order number to play Four teams stood in line, each team in turn sent a member to participate in the game

+ Members of the first team play a word with 2 or more syllables andmembers of the other teams quickly run to the seat with the numbercorresponding to the word stress position The person who reads the wordand reads the word stress correctly and the person sitting in the correct seatwill leave the row

+ The member of the team with the next number read another word andremaining members of the teams continue to find the right seat to sit

The game continues until the team with all members removed from therow earliest becomes the winner and receives the prize

At the end of the game, I give the students a handout with some simpleand easy to remember stress rules

The content of the handout is as follows:

MỘT SỐ QUY TẮC VỀ TRỌNG ÂM TIẾNG ANH

1 Với từ có 2 âm tiết:

- Trước tiên hãy xác định từ loại và nhớ rằng hầu hết tính từ và danh từnhấn trọng âm ở âm thứ nhất còn động từ nhấn ở âm thứ hai

Ví dụ: MUsic, CENtral, comPOSE, preFER

- Tuy nhiên, nếu động từ kết thúc bằng một trong các âm /∂ /, / i/ hoặc /∂u/thì nhấn ở âm thứ nhất

Ví dụ: ENter, FInish, FOllow

- Chú ý các cặp danh từ và động từ như:

Verb: preSENT, exPORT

Noun: PREsent, EXport

2 Với từ có 3 âm tiết:

- Nhấn vào âm thứ nhất nếu âm thứ hai và ba chứa nguyên âm ngắn với chỉmột hoặc không có phụ âm

Ví dụ: Everything, ANcestor, CInema, LIbrary

- Nhấn vào âm thứ hai nếu nó chứa nguyên âm dài hoặc nguyên âm đôi và

âm thứ ba chứa nguyên âm ngắn hoặc âm /∂u/

Ví dụ: poTAto, deVElop, surRENder

- Nhấn vào âm thứ ba nếu nó chứa nguyên âm dài hoặc nguyên âm đôi

- ia + phụ âm: meMOrial, influENtial, phySIcian

- io+ phụ âm: compeTItion, oPInion

- ient, ience: efFIcient, conVEnience

- nguyên âm + ous: mysTErious, couRAgeous

- ual: indiVIdual

- ic, ical: CLASsical, enerGEtic

- ity, ify: uniVERsity, BEAUtify

- ive, itive, itude: desTRUCtive, inFInitive, ATtitude

- logy, graphy: biOlogy, geOgraphy

- ant, ent, ance, ence: CONstant, dePENdent, atTENdance, indePENdence

- ular, ure: REgular, adVENture

b Nhấn trọng âm cách các hậu tố hoặc đuôi sau một âm tiết tính từ cuối lên :

- ate: REgulate, conSOlidate

- ize: aPOlogize, CRIticize

- ary: SEcretary, voCAbulary

c Chú ý : khi tra từ cần tra luôn cả cách phát âm và trọng âm vì các quy tắc

vẫn có ngoại lệ và cần phải học thuộc lòng đồng thời luyện tập thườngxuyên

Ví dụ: aRITHmetic, NAturalize, eleMENtary, TElevision…

Through the extracurricular session, I noticed that the students arevery conscious of preparing the assigned content and most of the content iscorrect, the teacher does not need to fix much In the homework, they solverelatively well, proving that they have grasped the theory In the game, thechildren participated very enthusiastically and always found the right seatquickly