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Unit 13 contains a rundown of English phonology, including the aspects of intonation, stress, and the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet in teaching pronunciation. Intonation is generally defined as the variation of volume and pitch within a sentence, as opposed to stress, which is on the level of individual words. The normal pattern of intonation in English is rise-fall, which often expresses agreement, completion of a thought, finality, etc. and is used in sentences ranging from statements and instructions to questions and greetings. The second main pattern of intonation is fall-rise, which is used to express surprise, disagreement, incompletion, or to elicit a response or confirmation on the part of the listener. The final commonly occurring pattern of intonation is the flat pattern, which expresses disinterest, dislike, or lack of desire to communicate. Intonation may be taught using methods such as hand gestures, humming or singing, marking on the board, and practice using nonsense words and sounds. In a sentence, the main stress falls on the word with principal importance, as a method of emphasis. All words with multiple syllables have one syllable with primary stress; which syllable this falls on is guided by basic principles which can be memorized. In normal speech there will be more unstressed syllables than stressed, and learners will need practice and drills to gain a solid grasp of common English rhythm and stress patterns. Some possible methods and exercises include choral work, gestures, marking on the board, and contrastive stress. Closely linked to the concepts of intonation and rhythm is sound joining, which in English commonly takes the forms of linking, sound dropping, sound changing and extra lettering. Students will need to master these if their pronunciation is to sound as authentic and natural as possible. The unit next moves on to the complicated subject of the English pronunciation-spelling gap, and introduces a phonemic alphabet as a tool for teaching correct pronunciation of consonants, vowels, and whole phonemes. Following this is a rundown of the primary speech organs, places of articulation (bilabial, labio-dental, dental, alveolar, palatal-alveolar, palatal, velar and glottal), and manners of articulation (plosive, affricate, fricative, nasal, lateral and approximate), and how they fit together to produce specific sounds. Techniques for teaching individual sounds? pronunciations such as peer dictation, modeling, the use of IPA symbols, mouth diagrams, and tongue twisters are examined. While longer than the average unit, this unit contained much valuable information and techniques on this difficult and often overlooked aspect of English teaching. I found the phonology demonstration class video particularly helpful in understanding how to go about teaching pronunciation in a class. One point I am curious on is what specific standard was used for the system of phonemic symbols taught in this lesson. It differs substantially from standard IPA transcription, and is referred to in various parts of the text as the phonemic alphabet, the International Phonetic Alphabet, and the (nonexistent) International Phonemic Alphabet. I am presuming it is a simplified version for in-class use; is this correct?
