english fluency hack - word stress
TRANSCRIPT
ENGLISH FLUENCY HACKWORD STRESS
By: Judy ThompsonMarch 12th, 2016
WHO THE HECK IS JUDY THOMPSON?⦿Passionate ESL teacher and
hacker of Spoken English in Speaking Made Simple ⦿TEDx talk on Three Secrets you
Need to Know about Spoken English⦿Published English is Stupid in
Students are Not in 2009 which is now taught in 40+ countries
Still about Judy⦿3 more books out including
the world’s first Sound Dictionary - Grass is Black⦿Preparing to launch online teacher training and student fluency courses in 2016⦿Founding member of Radical English, an international organization of master teachers dedicated to the reform of education
And You? NOT a Member of the “World is Flat Club?” I Hope.Probably not or you wouldn’t be on this webinar!
True learning involves some unlearning.
Be prepared to let go of the following: things you thought were facts facts you were taught in school or by your parents that have proven to be
untrue
World is Flat for Language LearningAfter billions of wasted dollars and hours… We NOW know
• Grammar study is NOT the best way to learn a new language
Grammar fluency comes with using a language.
• Accents are NOT usually a problem for native speakers to understand.
Accents are like hair, something you worry and fuss over that NO ONE pays any attention to.
The questions of the day are when do accents interfere with communication and what can we do about them?
The answer is Stress.
Stress
Word Stress
It’s something different and it’s really important
Not That Kind of Stress
English is a Stress-Based LanguageGreat but what does that mean?
Unlike Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Korean... where each symbol represents one and only one sound and every sound is equally important
In English some sounds and some syllables are important.
But which ones and important how?
Agenda
• Syllables, Stress and Schwa are the three core elements in word pronunciation
• Activity - Making it real - change the stress, change the meaning
• Unstressed syllables - how unimportant syllable show up in conversation
• Simple pronunciation hack for words and sentences
• The secret to intelligibility in English
Sy•lla•bles are the Beats in a WordRules for syllables that I never tell students:
1. Vowel sounds determine syllables
2. One and only one vowel sound per syllablei.e. Canada - /Ca na da/ has 3 syllables
strength - /strength/ has 1 syllable How many does ‘idea’ have? - /i de a/
(Students can break words into syllables intuitively - no lesson)
The rule I always tell students:There is one and only ONE MOST IMPORTANT
SYLLABLE in ANY WORD!
This is the eye of the storm!
Stress• All syllables are NOT equally important. Chinese, Arabic, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu... LISTEN UP.
• There is one and only one most important syllable in any word and that syllable is STRESSED.
• Stressed syllables are HIGHER, LOUDER and LONGER than other syllables in the same word.
BA NA NA is not a word in English. Neither are BAnana nor banaNA
The word is baNAna and there are no variations.
Change the Stress ActivityWhat happens when you move the stress inthese words:
content
record
rebel
innocence
Word Stress is Everythingcontent content
record recordrebel rebel
80% of two syllable nouns – first syllable 60% of two syllable verbs – second syllable
innocencein essencein a sense
Change the stress - change the meaning
Schwa - What Happens with Unimportant Syllables?
• The vowel sound of unimportant syllables is always the same. It’s the tiniest sound the human voice can make /uh/ and it’s called schwa
• (tiny baby Mustard if you know your vowel colors)
• banana sounds like /buh NA nuh/
• Don’t spend too much time on unimportant syllables (schwa) because they are unimportant
Unimportant is SO Unimportant• Judy – /JU dy/. The stressed syllable is the first one, if
you don’t say the second syllable at all ‘Jude’, I still know you want me
• ‘because’ – cuz “Bring a coat cuz it’s raining”
• ‘second’ – sec “Just a sec”
What happens to the unimportant syllable in:chocolate, family, vegetable, camera, probably?
The ebb and flow of important and unimportant is KEY to FLUENCY in English.
The Fluency Hack is in your desk drawer It’s a rubber band. Hook it between your thumbs and pull your hand
apart to pronounce STRESSED SYLLABLES
buh NA nuh
It works for Sentences, too
This is really starting into the next webinar but
A cup of coffee:
uh CUP uh COffee
Recap• The 3 elements of word pronunciation are syllables,
stress and schwa• Syllables are the beats in a word dictated by vowel
sounds - one vowel sound per syllable
• One syllable is always more important than all the other syllables in a word
• The important syllable is stressed - higher, louder and longer than the other syllables
• The stressed syllable dictates the ‘color’ of the word if you know that system
English is a Stress-Based Language
• Word stress is the secret to intelligibility
• Grammar can be good or bad and accents can be charming or challenging but if word stress is not in place there is nothing
• Word stress hack is an elastic band. Pull your thumbs apart on stressed syllables and the skill goes into your brain kinetically
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