Warming up

1. photographic

• pho
• to
• gra
• phic

2. photography

• pho
• to
• gra
• phy

3. committee

• com
• mit
• tee

4. volunteer

• vol
• un
• teer

 

5. Maryland

• Mar

• y
• land

6. society

• so
• ci
• e
• ty

7. demonstration

• dem
• on
• stra
• tion

8. character

• cha
• rac
• ter

9. referee

• ref
• er
• ee

 

There are some definite words which have different stresses depending of parts of speech. It is useful to read them aloud in the beginning of a lesson.

For example: contest, insult, convert, extract, escort, exploit, convict, digest, discount, desert.

Such exercises as given below are useful for acquiring phonetic skills and ability to work with dictionary, but they are rather tiresome, especially for younger students.

So students are to mark primary and secondary stress (where present) in the following words using the dictionary. The they read the words aloud.

papyrus  pedigree  vigilante

feminine  hypotenuse  peripheral

millionaire  summary  macaroni

     harmonica  memorandum imperialism

pelican  architecture  satellite

     geometry  discipline  characterize

vocabulary  caterpillar  chromosome

compliment  penetration  accidental

In the next exercise students mark primary and secondary stresses.

(a) catastrophe

catastrophic

(b) synonym

synonymous

(c) repeat

repetitive

repetition

(d) migrate

migratory

migration

(e) intellect

intellectual

intelligent

(f) apply

application

applicable

applicability

(g) exhibit

exhibition

During the warming up teacher should pay attention to the following questions:  How does stress affect the quality of the first t in repetitive and repetition?

How does stress affect the quality of the p?

How does stress affect the voicing of the consonants?

Students read the pairs of words aloud trying to memorize the change of stress.

(a) proverb proverbial

reflex           reflexive

(b) perfect perfection

tranquil tranquility

(c) injure injurious

enter entertain

Students should understand the inner forms of stress change, its place in the words of The English language. Due to seeming simplicity of the exercises they can be used during warming up in order to develop the phonetical skills of students.

The following example illustrates the peculiarities of using stresses in numbers.

Stressed  syllables  are  in bold. Listen and repeat.

three	thirteen	thirty	3	13	30
four	fourteen	forty	4	14	40
five	fifteen	fifty	5	15	50
six	sixteen	sixty	6	16	60
seven	seventeen	seventy	7	17	70
eight	eighteen	eighty	8	18	80
nine	nineteen	ninety	9	19	90

 

The stress  in these 'teen  numbers is different when we are counting: thirteen,  fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,  seventeen,  etc.

The stress  in these 'teen' numbers  is also  different when  there  is a strong stress  in the next word.

Tim  lives at number  fifteen.

Tim  lives at number  fifteen  Green Street.

Students can practice  giving replies in the conversations  for  example:

A:  The dentist is at seventeen  Mill  Street.

B:  Seventy?

A:  No, not seventy  -  seventeen.

Teacher may ask students by himself or let them practice short dialogues one by one. During this warming-up students should listen to each other and correct mistakes. For additional exercises see Appendix D.

 

Another variant of warming-up for this theme is called Mini Bingo  game.

It is played in a group of 3-5. One person calls  out the numbers from the table given above but  in a  random order (students should take  turns to call  the numbers). The others each choose  one of the boxes  A, B, C or D below:

 

13	3	80
7	19	50
17	90	8

60	4	16
40	30	13
70	5	90

 

5	15	16
70	90	3
40	7	18

60	6	15
8	14	17
9	90	80

 

Students listen  to the numbers and if a number  is in his or her box, cover it with  a small piece of paper. When  all the numbers in box are  covered,  the winner shouts, BINGO!

 

2.3 Teaching right intonation in sentences

 

Intonation is the name given to sentence stress, or what is sometimes called the "music of the language". Just as words have stressed syllables, sentences contain regular patterns of stressed words [16, 11].

Practice of sentence stress is achieved by cueing the learners with questions while requiring them to use the whole sentence in reply. The second time this is done, the learners can discard the parts of the sentence which do not contain the important element of the answer in order to form a more natural response.

The teacher provides cues such as: "Is John going to Brighton...?", "Is Janet going to London..?", "Is Janet going away from Brighton...?", "Is Janet coming from Brighton...? Is Janet going to sell her mother a pair of red, leather shoes?", "Is Janet going to buy herself three pairs...?" "Is Janet going to buy herself a pair of blue, suede shoes / red, leather sandels?"

It will become clear to learners that there are many variations of sentence stress, which will decide the meaning of their responses.

English has a number of intonation patterns which add conventionalized meanings to the utterance: question, statement, surprise, disbelief, sarcasm, teasing.

An important feature of English intonation is the use of an intonational accent (and extra stress) to mark the focus of a sentence. Normally this focus accent goes on the last major word of the sentence, but it can come earlier in order to emphasize one of the earlier words or to contrast it with something else.

In the beginning of a lesson it is useful to remind students about the peculiarities of pitch patterns. 

Here are some examples of how American listeners interpret pitch patterns:

1. If you use a very high pitch it may indicate that you are surprised.

2. If you use a very low pitch it may indicate that you are angry.

3. If your pitch is too neutral it may indicate that you are bored or uninterested in the conversation.

In spoken American English intonation patterns can occur over phrases or entire sentences.

The most common intonation pattern in spoken English is rising falling intonation. In rising falling intonation the pitch rises on the most important word in a sentence and then drops to indicate that you are finished speaking.

Americans use rising falling intonation in declarative sentences, commands and when asking questions that begin with the words who, what, where, when and why.

For example, in the sentence-where is she going?-the pitch rises and falls on the word going.

Another common intonation pattern is rising intonation. In this pattern the pitch rises and stays high at the end of the sentence. When you use rising intonation it indicates that you are waiting for a reply from the listener.

Americans use rising intonation for questions that they expect to be answered with yes or no, or when they are expressing doubt or surprise.

For example, in the sentence-The president is here?!-the pitch rises and stays high at the end of the sentence.

Even if you pronounce all of your American English vowel and consonant sounds clearly you will still have a difficult time communicating with American English speakers if you don't use the correct intonation patterns. Your speech patterns may sound rather boring to American listeners or may even contribute to misunderstandings.

During the initial part of a lesson teacher can give students one sentence and ask them to pronounce it differently. Then the analysis follows.  For example, if we look at the sentence, "You mean she left," the sound of the voice changes depending on how the sentence is used. If someone says, "She isn't here," and you are confirming the information by repeating it in different words, you will say a sentence like, "You mean she left," with the pitch dropping on "left" to show that it is a "statement." If you use "rising" intonation on "left," as in "You mean she left???" you are asking a question. You don't really believe this happened. If you emphasize the word "mean," as in "You *mean* she left," you are correcting someone's mistake. Perhaps he said to you, "She leaved," and you correct him. There is also an emphasis on "she," as when someone says to you "Their marriage broke up," and you, knowing that it was the wife who walked out, say "You mean *she* left."

The next example is the sentence “I don't think he should get the job”/

I don't think he should get the job.

Meaning: Somebody else thinks he should get the job.

I don't think he should get the job.

Meaning: It's not true that I think he should get the job.

I don't think he should get that job.

Meaning: That's not really what I mean. OR I'm not sure he'll get that job.

I don't think he should get that job.

Meaning: Somebody else should get that job.

I don't think he should get that job.

Meaning: In my opinion it's wrong that he's going to get that job.

I don't think he should get that job.

Meaning: He should have to earn (be worthy of, work hard for) that job.

I don't think he should get that job.

Meaning: He should get another job.

I don't think he should get that job.

Meaning: Maybe he should get something else instead.

The sentence has multiple meanings, depending on which "intonation pattern" you use. For additional exercises see Appendix C.

This kind of warming-up is made not only to prepare students for the work during the lesson, but also to test them in their abilities to differentiate intonation patterns. Teacher reads aloud or plays the recording of a short text without a pause.  In some  items discussed during the conversation speakers’ voice goes  up  (    ) or down  (     ). Students should tick the  column for each item. If they are not sure,  they should tick the ?  column.

			?
1
2

For example:

a) That's  Lesley,  isn’t       it?

b) That's  Lesley,  isn't       it?

 

The following example shows the way of working through the intonation of questions with ‘or’. In questions with ‘or’  the intonation usually goes down at the end. First of all students must listen and repeat after the teacher:

Would you  like veal     or beef        ?

Would you like coffee     or tea      ?

Would you like coffee,      tea    or milk      ?

After the brief introduction the warming-up follows in a form of a role play.

The students should use the menu to practice a conversation  in a group of four or five.  They are in a  restaurant and take  turns to be the waiter. They should ask each other questions. For example:

Would you like  ... or ...?

Then one person gives  the order  to the waiter, who  repeats  the order to check  it. If possible, also  practice using other menus. If it is an expensive restaurant, the waiter or waitress  can be more  formal,  saying  “Good evening” before asking for  the order.

Thus the different sound patterns can be practiced. A major benefit of focusing students on how words and sentences are pronounced and stressed is the extra mental engagement with the figure that it gives. A language learner needs to engage with a word or language pattern many times, preferably in different ways, in order to really learn it - identifying and practicing word and sentence stress can provide one or two of those engagements.

Phonetic exercises (phonetic warm-up) is obligatory at the each lesson. It can be a fairy tale about our tongue for children, a tongue twister, rhyming or small game. Such warm-up helps with pronunciation improving and directs pupil to study and perception of the basic material. In our course paper we describe different ways of phonetic warming up according to age, level and needs of students.

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

 

The warm up of a lesson often receives less attention than it should. Teachers spend a lot of time preparing explanations and worksheets to introduce and practice the target language, for example. They then enter the classroom unprepared for the first five or ten minutes. A fun warm up raises energy levels. Fun activities also produce relaxed, less inhibited students. With the right warm up, teacher will have created a positive atmosphere to practice and experiment with the language. The warm-up should raise awareness of the topic and activate pre-existing knowledge and language. As in regular lessons, teachers should avoid correcting students here. This allows students to relax, get into English-mode, and to build confidence.