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Unit 12 covers sounds and pronunciation in the English language. It typically focuses on stress within words and sentences, sentnce rythm, intonation, the phonemic alphabet and their articulation. Briefly I was able tO take in, but not limited to the following points: INTONATION It refers to the general variation of volume and pitch within a sentence. The importance of intonation lies on the fact that, one can easily tell the mood or feeling of the speaker, judging fro their intonation. Three main patterns have been identified: -The rise/fall pattern. It indicates that the speaker has finished talking and most likely isnt expecting a response. It is the pattern often perceived during statements, for example when agreeing, diagreeing, asking information question etc. -Fall/rise pattern. This pattern is used to implore a response from the listener. Depending on the context, rise/fall pattern could express surprise, happiness mood, etc. -Flat pattern. often indicatin disinterest. By making up a sentence of nonesense words and modelling for students to try and identify the pattern and possible mood or emotion, students take turns in pairs and do same, using a common or individually made-up nonesense sentences. STRESS Withiin a sentence, the stressed word is the one that bears the principle emphasis, could also be said to be the point where the intonation begins to fall. The stressed word within a sentence could serve as a guidline to interpreting the speaker's intention. Within a word, stress applies only to syllables and only one syllable can bear the princple, never two or three. As a simple but not definitive rule, stress applies to the following parts of speech differently: -Nouns and adjectives with two syllables have their stress on the first syllable. -Verbs with two syllables often have their stress on the second syllable -Compound nouns have their stress on the first part - AIRtime, BARbershop, etc -Compoound adjectives have their stress on the second part - self-CONfident, bad-MAnnered, etc Contrastive stress technique is an effective approach to teaching stress in the classroom THE PHONEMIC ALPHABET It is a table of symbols, each representing a sound in the English language. The sounds vary from individual consonant sounds to sounds for consonant combinations, from short to long vowel sounds and finally to dipthongs. Articulation of sounds in the mouth involves area and organs of the mouth, together with the manner of a build-up and release. Hence, all the phonemes are the product of some place and manner of articulation. The is a standardized table for the various combinations, which includes names and phenemic symbols. Also, mouth diagrams can be used to illustrate places articluation. Meanwhile manner of articulation for the production of voiced and unvoiced sounds could be demonstrated simply by placing a finger on the area of the vocal cord to feel the presence or absence of vibraton.
