Practice Stress and Intonation for English Students

Practice Stress and Intonation for English Students It is often surprising at how focusing on the stress - timed quality of English helps students improve their pronunciation skills. Students often focus on pronouncing each word correctly and therefore tend to pronounce in an unnatural manner. By focusing on the stress - timed factor in English - the fact that only content words such as proper nouns, principle verbs, adjectives, and adverbs receive the stress - students soon begin sounding much more authentic as the cadence of the language begins to ring true. The following lesson focuses on raising awareness of this issue and includes practice exercises. Aim: Improving pronunciation by focusing on the stress - time nature of spoken English Activity: Awareness raising followed by practical application exercises Level: Pre - intermediate to upper intermediate depending on student needs and awareness Lesson Outline Begin awareness raising activities by reading an example sentence aloud to the students (for example: The boys didnt have time to finish their homework before the lesson began). Read the sentence the first time pronouncing each word carefully. Read the sentence a second time in natural speech.Ask students which reading seemed more natural and why it seemed more natural.Using the ideas students come up with, explain the idea of English being a stress - timed language. If the students speak a syllabic language (such as Italian or Spanish), point out the difference between their own native language and English (theirs being syllabic, English stress - timed). Just this awareness raising can make a dramatic difference in such students abilities.Talk about the differences between stressed words and non-stressed words (i.e. principle verbs are stressed, auxiliary verbs are not).Write the following two sentences on the board:The beautiful Mountain appeared transfixed in the distance.He can c ome on Sundays as long as he doesnt have to do any homework in the evening. Underline the stressed words in both sentences. Ask students to try reading aloud. Point out how each sentence seems to be approximately the same length in stress - time.Ask students to look through the example sentences and underline the words that should be stressed in the worksheet.Circulate about the room asking students to read the sentences aloud once they have decided which words should receive stresses.Review activity as a class - ask students to first read any given sentence with each word pronounced followed by the stress - timed version. Expect a surprise at the quick improvement students make in pronunciation (I am every time I do this exercise)!! Another approach can help students improve their stress and intonation skills is sound scripting. Sound scripting has students highlight content words using a word processor. You can take it one step further with this lesson  helping students learn how to choose the focus word to improve pronunciation. This quiz  on Content or Function Words can be used to help students test their knowledge of which words are function or content words. Pronunciation Help - Sentence Stress Take a look at the following list of stressed and non-stressed word types. Basically, stress words are considered CONTENT WORDS such as Nouns e.g. kitchen, Peter(most) principle verbs e.g. visit, constructAdjectives e.g. beautiful, interestingAdverbs e.g. often, carefully Non-stressed words are considered FUNCTION WORDS such as Determiners e.g. the, a, some, a fewAuxiliary verbs e.g. dont, am, can, werePrepositions e.g. before, next to, oppositeConjunctions e.g. but, while, asPronouns e.g. they, she, us Mark the stressed words in the following sentences. After you have found the stressed words, practice reading the sentences aloud. John is coming over tonight. We are going to work on our homework together.Ecstasy is an extremely dangerous drug.We should have visited some more castles while we were traveling through the back roads of France.Jack bought a new car last Friday.They are looking forward to your visiting them next January.Exciting discoveries lie in Toms future.Would you like to come over and play a game of chess?They have been having to work hard these last few months on their challenging experiment.Shakespeare wrote passionate, moving poetry.As you might have expected, he has just thought of a new approach to the problem.

Expert Interview with Steve Frederick Should You Get a Career Coach

Expert Interview with Steve Frederick Should You Get a Career Coach Steve Frederick has a unique perspective on hiring; as an executive career coach for Lucrative Careers, he helps people find the jobs that better fit their lives, one client at a time. He discussed hiring and careers with us in this interview. What’s the role of a career coach?First, helping clients to find their way in a rapidly-changing job market. He or she helps the client to get in touch with what they want to do, to find where they can do it and to get the satisfaction and the money they need.Second, assisting the client in marketing him or herself. Many people have been busy working, and they haven’t had to articulate what it is that they do. But unless they do that well, both verbally and on paper, their chances of getting hired drop precipitously. I once spent a whole hour with an engineer to get just one one-minute story about an accomplishment into plain English.Third, provides training in how to network effectively: How do I get in to see the people I need t o talk to; what do I say while I’m there; and how do I get them to refer me to others?Fourth, helping clients to use their time effectively. The longer the search goes on, the more expensive it is in dollars, energy expended and negative impact on self-esteem. One woman, for example, had been out of work for a year, despite being very accomplished and personable. She also had been â€Å"networking† like crazy. She was keeping Starbucks profitable with all the coffees she had scheduled. We found, though, that she was just randomly talking to people she met at job search groups. In the year that she had been out of work, she hadn’t talked to anyone in her industry.Fifth, support to help clients keep going when things get tough. It’s a very difficult process that can be brutal on people’s self-esteem. Many times, people get discouraged; some want to give up.Sixth, accountability to keep the process moving. It’s easy to be â€Å"busy† wit hout getting the important things done.Seventh, salary negotiation help to ensure that clients get paid well.Eighth, guidance to get off to a good start in the new job.Ninth, advice in office politics.Who should get a career coach? Is it for those new to the workforce? Getting back into it?Many people do fine without a career coach. On the other hand, many people benefit mightily. This includes people who:Are new to the workforce; most colleges teach next to nothing about how to actually get hired.Want to do something different, but don’t know what it is.Know what they want to do, but aren’t sure how to get there.Are in transition and frustrated that they’re not getting traction.Haven’t had to look for a job in some time.Are afraid they’ll lose their jobs.How can career coaching help find and keep a job?Finding a job: by giving them the tools they need to communicate about themselves effectively and the techniques they need to get in to see the peo ple who can help/hire them. Many people spin their wheels in job search. Here’s just a few things they do: have boring marketing materials that don’t communicate their value, go around asking people if they know of any openings, talk about themselves in clichà ©s, and not use their network to get beyond the people they already know.Oftentimes, we’ve been able to delay or prevent firing. Just one way we do this is helping clients to:Have conversations that repair damaged relationships with the boss. After testing the waters to see if this is a safe conversation, simply putting the cards on the table, saying, â€Å"This isn’t working. Can I have some time to look for another job? I’ll make sure I get everything done well, but wonder if I might have a flexible schedule to allow me to explore for other opportunities.†What do you see as the future of careers? Will we still go to an office, or will we be a nation of freelancers?I think people wil l always be working together. I would surely hope that we won’t ALL be reduced to sitting in rooms at home, pounding on keyboards all day long. That works for some, but others will wither and die.