Pronunciation Awareness Activity: Sounds

Use a phonemic chart with a partner, or practise saying the sounds with a teacher.
Next ask yourself these questions:

1. Which English sounds do I sound accurately?
2. Which sounds do I have trouble with?
   • Practise saying the problem sounds.
   • Listen to yourself as you speak in English. Can you hear the inaccurate sounds?
   • Record yourself reading a passage from a book. Listen to the sounds you have trouble with. Are they accurate?

Pronunciation Activity 1: Word stress

• Look at the words below of two or more syllables. Say each word aloud, and decide as you say it which syllable is stressed and which is not.

  kitchen	afternoon
  industry	industrial
  important	intelligent
  interrogation	interrogate
  economy	economical

• Mark the stress on each word, and check with a friend or teacher.
• There are patterns for syllable stress, but not rules. Are there any patterns you notice above?
• Listen to word stress as you listen to radio or TV news. You should hear stressed and unstressed syllables in every English word.
• Practise more words with a teacher, or as you read from a book.
• Record yourself speaking in English. Do you think you speak with attention to word stress? Check with a friend or teacher.

Tip: when you learn new vocabulary, always make a note of the word stress.

Pronunciation Awareness Activity: Sentence stress

• Read the three sentences below aloud and note or underline which words you consider are stressed and which are not.

1. As the truck came down the hill its brakes failed and it was unable to stop.
2. I love my city, but one problem that it does have is over-crowding, especially on the trains during the rush hour in the mornings.
3. Because I was always particularly good at maths, I studied accounting at university and am now a chartered accountant.

Pronunciation Awareness Activity: Sentence stress

• Read the same sentences again. The stressed words are in bold type below. Are the balded words the same or similar to the words that you decided would be stressed?

1. As the truck came down the hill its brakes failed and it was unable to stop.
2. I love my city, but one problem that it does have is over-crowding, especially on the trains during the rush hour in the mornings.
3. Because I was always particularly good at maths, I studied accounting at university and am now a chartered accountant.

Pronunciation Awareness Activity: Sentence stress

• Practise these short statements placing stress on at least three different words. How does the meaning change?

1. How are you today George? (A general greeting towards George.)
2. How are you today George? (Suggests George was unwell yesterday.)
3. How are you today George? (Emphasises George and nobody else.)
4. Could you please close the window? (The listener might not want to close the window.)
5. Could you please close the window? (The listener might want to open the window.)
6. Could you please close the window? (The speaker wishes only the listener to close the window, not himself.)

• Watch a TV comedy program you like. Listen to the word an? sentence stress in the everyday speech.

Note: some sentence stress changes can create a comic effect!

Pronunciation Awareness Activity: Intonation

• Listen to yourself say a sentence from your first language. Listen to the natural intonation pattern. Does it go up or down at the end of the sentence? Does it go up in the middle of the sentence, or just before the end? Does it remain flat?
• Try another sentence in your language and listen to the natural intonation pattern.
• How would you describe the general intonation patterns of your first language: up at the beginning, the middle or near the end of a sentence? Flat? Rising or falling patterns? When? Does this change in different contexts? If you are aware of your own Language patterns you will be more aware of the patterns in English.
• Listen to radio or TV in English. Can you hear the intonation patterns?

Pronunciation Awareness Activity: Rhythm

• Listen to yourself reading a passage aloud in your first language. Does your pronunciation have a rhythm or beat as you read?
• Now listen as you read aloud in English. Is there a rhythm? Try to read with beats.
• Listen to English native speakers. Can you hear the rhythm of English as they speak?