Skill : Pronunciation
Name : Stress, Reduce, Merge Syllable
THE AIM OF THE MATERIAL
The aim of this pronunciation material is to give students an opportunity to practise working with connected speech in spoken English in a self-study environment. Students should work through each handout systematically, checking their answers at each step. Students will benefit because they will begin to see the patterns that repeat in this method time after time.
The level of this material is: Elementary to Pre-Intermediate
INSTRUCTION
- Print both pages of a set (e.g. Practice Sentence 1, pages 1 and 2) back to back, so that they are on either side of the same piece of paper.
- Hold the page landscape way up and fold it in half in the middle.
- Hold the page so that the blank page is facing you, then cut along the dotted lines on the right-hand side of the page (see picture below).
- Follow the instructions from step 1 to step 8. At the end of each step, turn over the flap to check your answers and read the accompanying notes.
- Try to work methodically, completing one step at a time. Try not to read ahead! If you can’t think of what to do, then turn over the flap to reveal the answer.
Notes for Teachers:
- While the aim of this material is for students to work on their own and practise using connected speech away from the classroom, you could of course work through the different practice sentences with your student(s), guiding them through each point. This might be especially relevant if your students are new to connected speech and phonics. It could also be beneficial if you yourself are not familiar with this method of teaching pronunciation.
- You could encourage your students to do follow-up activities linked to the different steps, e.g. after step 4. you could ask them to think of more content words that have the same stressed vowel sounds as in the practice sentence, and make a new sentence – or encourage them to think of (or find) another sentence that has the same stress pattern... and so on.
- Another option is to use the 8-step process with your own sentence, using the blank template on page 25. Try to elicit all the answers and explanations from the student(s), while guiding them as necessary.
- At the end of step 8 students are directed to compare the original written English version of the sentence with the spoken English version in Clear Alphabet. The question “What do you notice?” is intended to provoke discussion around the differences between the two forms, for example, which written letters are not pronounced. Or, are there any silent letters in the original spelling which are visible in the Clear Alphabet version? And so on.
- On the back of each handout there are links to several free downloadable resources that might be useful to students who want to study this method further. Talk a Lot Foundation Course, in particular, will be helpful because it expands on this method in far more detail than the handouts can.
Final Note:
Enjoy working with stress, sounds, and connected speech! After a little practice you will soon find yourself unexpectedly hearing and noticing linking, elision, glottal stops, schwa sounds, and so on, in the normal everyday speech patterns of native English speakers – and then begin adding these features to your spoken English too!
Direction:
Level: Easy
- I’m going to the shop.
- We wanted to see some gorillas.
- I do not like wasting time.
- We had a great weekend.
- I will pick up something for dinner.
- I passed my exam yesterday!
Level: Medium
- The appointment was at eight o’clock.
- He sent a present to his grandma.
- Leave the car by the side of the road.
- That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever done.
- Blank Template – for use with any sentence
