Use a clear easy-to-see way of marking stress on the board and on handouts for students. Build students' confidence by drawing their attention to the tendencies and patterns in word stress that do exist. Try to use a variety of approaches: helping students to engage with English in different ways will help them in their goal to become more proficient users of the language. Some learners love to learn about the 'technical' side of language, while others like to 'feel' or 'see' the language more, hearing the music of word stress or seeing the shapes of the words. These will help to raise the students' awareness of word stress and its importance. You can use the same questions with your students that I have used in this article. Ask if there are similar cases of differences in word stress in their own language - this will heighten awareness and interest. If words like these come up in class, point them out to students. These differences are noted in good learner dictionaries. O O o o Caribbean aluminum (American English) O o O o Caribbean aluminium (British English) There are some recognised differences in word stress which depend on the variety of English being used, for example:
Patterns can usually be found, for example: Students can be alarmed when they meet words which are similar but have different stress patterns:Ī useful thing you can do is to help students see connections with other word families. The verb has stress on the second syllableįairly equally balanced but with stronger stress The noun has stress on the first syllable
Here are some general tendencies for word stress in English:.There are patterns in word stress in English but, as a rule (!), it is dangerous to say there are fixed rules. It is equally important to remember that the unstressed syllables of a word have the opposite features of a stressed syllable! It uses larger facial movements - Look in the mirror when you say the word.Compare the first and last vowel sounds with the stressed sound. It is said more clearly -The vowel sound is purer.The pitch of a stressed syllable is usually higher. It has a change in pitch from the syllables coming before and afterwards.A stressed syllable combines five features:.What are you doing so that the listener can hear that stress? The second syllable of the three is stressed. When we stress syllables in words, we use a combination of different features. These three reasons tell me that word stress is an important part of the English language, and it is something I should help my students with. Even if the speaker can be understood, mistakes with word stress can make the listener feel irritated, or perhaps even amused, and could prevent good communication from taking place.I will look at this in more detail later. Think about the grammatical difference between desert* and desert**. "They will desert* the desert** by tomorrow." Stressing a word differently can change the meaning or type of the word:.
Now reverse the stress patterns for the two words and you should be able to make sense of the sentence!
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