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Pronunciation is the most neglected aspect of English language teaching. An effective teacher considers the teaching of pronunciation an integral part of the course. Phonology is the study, analysis and classification of the physical properties of sounds. Individual sounds, sounds in connected speech, stress within words, and stress within whole utterances, are all difficult for students to perceive in isolation. In the classroom there should be time given to pronunciation, stress and intonation practice so as to make students aware of the importance of accuracy and clarity of communication. Intonation is about how we say things, rather than what we say. Without intonation, it's impossible to understand the expressions and thoughts that go with words. Intonation carries the message in a sentence. It?s particularly important in questioning, agreeing or disagreeing, or confirming statements. It's also fundamental in the expression of emotions or feelings. There are three patterns of intonation. The first one is the rise/fall intonation (when you finish what you want to say, the intonation falls ? in positive and negative statements, questions, greetings and instructions). The second common intonation pattern is the fall/rise pattern (indicates surprise and often disagreement, but above all indicates that the speaker wants the person to whom he?s speaking to respond or confirm). The third pattern of intonation is flat (indicates that the speaker doesn?t really have that much to say, and perhaps doesn?t want to communicate). Intonation patterns can be powerful predictors of the nature of forthcoming information. There are a number of ways we can help students to emphasize different parts of a sentence: nonsense words (can be used to practice conveying attitude), by gesture, humming or singing (can be used to hear the stress and intonation), the board. There are different ways of interpreting the sentence. The strong part in the sentence allows to understand what the speaker is trying to say. The strong part is the stressed word, or word that bears the principal emphasis in the sentence. All multi-syllable words in English have one or more parts that are stressed. There are some basic rules of word stress in English: one word has only one stress, and can?t have two stresses. There can be a ?secondary? stress in some words, but this stress is much smaller than the main stress, and is only used in longer words; we can only stress syllables, not individual consonants and vowels. There are rules that can help understand where to put the stress: stress on first syllable: most 2-syllable nouns (EXport) and most 2-syllable adjectives (HAPpy); stress on last syllable: most 2-syllable verbs (decIDE); stress on penultimate syllable: words ending in -ic (paTHEtic) and words ending in -sion and -tion (compeTItion, teleVIsion); stress on ante-penultimate syllable: words ending in -cy, -ty, -phy, -gy (geOLogy), words ending in -ive and -al (RElative, CRItical); compound words: for compound nouns, the stress is on the first part (GREENhouse), for compound adjectives, the stress is on the second part (old-FASHioned), for compound verbs, stress is on the second part (underSTAND). For many words, the stress can change according to where the native speaker of English is from. In normal speech there are more syllables without stress. Auxiliary verbs in all their forms (be, have, do) are rarely stressed, except for special emphasis, e.g. He didn?t steal it! (Don?t say he did!) Articles (a, an, the), pronouns and prepositions are unstressed. Here some techniques for indicating and teaching stress: contrastive stress, by gesture, choral work, the board and stress marks. There are four major ways that sound join together in English: linking (Marble Arch -> marblarch), sound dropping-t,d (Bond Street -> bon street), sound changing (Green Park -> Greem Park), extra lettering (Anna and the king -> Anner and the king). Place of articulation: velar (sounds /k/, /g/), palatal (/j/), palatal-alveolar (/?/), alveolar (/t/), dental (/ð/, /?/), labio-dental (/f/, /v/), bilabial (/p/, /b/, /m/, /w/), glottal (/h/). Manner of articulation: plosive (/p/, /t/, /b/, /d/, /k/, /g/), fricative (/f/, /v/, /s/, /?/), nasal (/m/, /n/, /?/), lateral (/l/), affricate (/t?/, /d?/), approximant (this class of sounds includes /l/, /j/, /w/). Teaching techniques for the pronunciation of individual sounds include peer dictation, visuals, your own mouth, phonemes and tongue twisters. Teachers must to decide where to include pronunciation work in their lessons. It could take a whole lesson, as and when required or lesson slots.
