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[Mark]

Hi folks,

Just thought I'd post a question for the board. It's this: how much stress, intonation, reduction, linking, etc., do you teach?

I teach ESL in Canada and I find that a lot of students (especially Asian students) have virtually no understanding of English as a stress language. Therefore they can't speak spoken English, they can only speak in a slow and deliberate kind of reading-out-loud way.

Not only that, but even after extensive study, they can't understand anything that native speakers say. I've found that the private schools I've worked for don't include much of this in the curriculum, and consequently student may stay here for 6 months or a year and still not be able to have a remotely natural conversation.

Therefore, they can't understand anything they hear on TV or in movies. Students tend to think that it's because they don't know enough slang and idioms, but I don't think it's really that. For example, if I give a script of a television show to a class and we read through it together, an intermediate level class will understand probably 75 percent or more of the script. I'll clarify some slang and idioms, as well as cultural and contextual stuff, and then we're off and running. But if I just show them a TV episode, as I've done as an experiment, they understand virtually nothing.

So, again, the question is: in your country (or if that's too general, in your school) how much are students taught about how English is actually spoken (i.e., strong and weak syllables, sentence-level stress, intonation, reduction, linking, etc.)?

There are of course concerns about the pronunciation of individual sounds and the strange relationship that English spelling has to English pronunciation (i.e., explaining to yet another student that "bird" is pronounced (at least in NA) "brrrrd" and not "beard" and that "i" doesn't make an "ee" sound in English as it does in their language), but I'm interested in how common it is to teach the other concerns that I mentioned above.

Cheers,

Mark

[Glenski]

Whether in high school, eikaiwa, or private classes, I never focused on those things. If a student showed obvious bad patterns, I would help him/her, but I never made any lessons with those as the focal points.

In my HS recitation and speech classes, I paid more attention to it, but with 40 kids per class, it's practically impossible to teach such things...uh...practically. You almost always deal with them one on one.

In the speeches my HS students write and present, I show them what a robotic, monotonish language Japanese can be, and how English speakers use more tones. That's the best one can hope for.

[Mark]

Hi Glenski,

Wow, I can't imagine teaching these things in a class of 40 students. You could explain the kinds of words that are stressed vs. those that aren't, but I guess you couldn't ever really check to see if it's been absorbed.

And given that I have yet to meet a Japanese student had even the vaguest idea of English stress patterns, I'm not surprised that they're not taught. Especially in classes that large. I have to admit that I shudder at the thought of trying to teach a language class of 40 people.

But I don't know why the eikawas don't introduce this topic. The one idea that strikes me is that perhaps students would rather ignore the existence and importance of these things rather than deal with them. Sometimes, over here, it seems like students from Japan get annoyed when one of these topics is introduced. They glaze over a bit, shake their heads, and ignore it. Any thoughts on why that might be?

Mark

[Roger]

I have to say that stress, rhythm and intonation are very important aspects to SPOKEN communication, yet so tricky that no one can, or so it seems, teach them to East Asian students. I submit part of the problem lies in how English is presented to our learners - as a sum of X words that they have to learn. In other words: they focus on too small a part of the language, that is on the individual words - which are easier to identify and to memorise than subtle features such as those that govern entire sentences.

[Celeste]

I just finished teaching an intensive seminar for Junior highschool English teachers, and we did 45 to 60 minutes of this kind of pronunciation practice every day. I used the coursebook Clear Speech with them, and they learned quite a bit. The concept of English syllable counting was new to many, and we spent a lot of time learning how to say words with correct syllable stress. I used the textbook and I had the teachers work on the exercises (that are formulated for pair work) through our brand spnking new CALL lab(Though some days we did it the old fashioned way in regular desks with "live" partners; this was also fun). It was a lot of fun, and I would recommend this method for anyone dealing with large pronunciation classes in Japan.

[Celeste]

I just finished teaching an intensive seminar for Junior highschool English teachers, and we did 45 to 60 minutes of this kind of pronunciation practice every day. I used the coursebook Clear Speech with them, and they learned quite a bit. The concept of English syllable counting was new to many, and we spent a lot of time learning how to say words with correct syllable stress. I used the textbook and I had the teachers work on the exercises (that are formulated for pair work) through our brand spnking new CALL lab(Though some days we did it the old fashioned way in regular desks with "live" partners; this was also fun). It was a lot of fun, and I would recommend this method for anyone dealing with large pronunciation classes in Japan.

[Capergirl]

[dyak]

I think songs can be so useful for stress, intonation and especially linking; and I usually find Asian students more than willing to sing along. I also think it depends on how �open� their ear is; Asian students that can grasp these concepts and grasp them well are nearly always good musicians as well� their ear is developed enough to hear it and reproduce it. Try it yourself � listen to a random pitch and see how long you can hold it in your memory for; unless you have perfect pitch it just won�t stick. I think a similar process happens when they try to retain English intonation.

Though saying that I have an Asian student in my advanced class; he sings beautifully in English with perfect intonation, stress etc. but when he speaks it all goes out the window.

[Mark]

Interesting points, all.

As a side note, Capergirl, what's the ESL situation like in N.S. I've always thought Halifax would be a cool place to live, so I'm curious.

Anyway, back to the topic. As to the point about music, I completely agree. It definitely helps as far as language learning is concerned. I have a musical background myself, so I can appreciate its usefulness.

As to whether it's too difficult to teach, I don't know. I think it's just difficult for students to accept that they have to go back and kind of relearn how to speak English.

I'm a little unclear about how students can learn to read English without ever looking at syllables, but some appear to have never thought about English words in terms of syllables.

I find it a little difficult to convince some students that these things are important. They've studies for so long without them, that they're not interested, and you can't teach these topics to students who aren't receptive and active learners.

Oh well, students have their own ideas, and I guess that's that. But it's just frustrating to see students ignore the thing that could help them achieve their goals.

[dduck]

[dduck]

[MELEE]

[SueH]

I have found that initially just letting sts hear and make a rythym without vocalising helps them appreciate the differences.

Also get them to try saying a phrase that they know ever more quickly and then see what naturally gets dropped. I demonstrate with my posh (assumed) RP voice where every syllable is enunciated with unrealistic clarity and then speed up to classroom and then street speed. Often I get smiles of amusement and dawning understanding.

[Capergirl]

[Shonai Ben]

Halifax is a great port city and the seafood is delicious.I lived there for 4 years while I was attending university.Great place to live if you want to be near the sea.The summers are hot and the winters can be cold but usually there is not much snow.I loved it there.