Discourse intonation and language teaching david brazil. We know that the basic feature of intonation is pitch, being high or low. An analysis of language teaching approaches and methods effectiveness and weakness liu qingxue, shi jinfang foreign language school, east china jiaotong university, nanchang jiangxi 3300,china abstract. Stress and intonation in english about the fellows.
The communicative value of intonation in english book. In the 70s and 80s, audio and video courses were improved through the added use of video projectors and slide shows. For instance, through a newspaper article, a letter or an extract from a book, a teacher can teach a grammar rule. A case for reflective journals harumi moore australian national university lois paper portrays the benefits of using reflective journals in a tertiary education environment. So training intonation actually frees up space for your brain to learn the language faster. Intonation conveys the givennew information, or provides information for. Discourse based teaching using authentic written and spoken discourse can be a prefect resource for teachers to teach the different language skills. An analysis of language teaching approaches and methods. Childrens intonation is a practical guide that focuses on the nature, causes and assessment of intonation problems for children and adolescents.
This chapter provides an introduction to intonation in general, and is loosely based on an oral presentation given in the workshop nonnative prosody. Imagine you are asking a cab driver if he will take you. English, on the other hand, is not a tone language or lexical accent language, and is generally agreed to have relatively complex intonation. If you want to download you have to send your own contributions. Discourse intonation and language teaching book, 1980 worldcat. Articles about learning, using and teaching the english language, including advice, tutorials, opinions and lesson plans from various authors and contributors. Longman, 1980 audiolingual method language teaching 205 pages.
Efl english as a foreign language teachinglearning for communicative. Yet if l2 teachers are to be provided with clear guidelines on how to incorporate di into communicative language teaching, much more empirical research is needed with l2 students of different l1. Example an english language speaker uses a rising intonation in spoken discourse to show that they havent finished a sentence. For those concerned with englishlanguage pedagogy, dalton and seidlhofer point out a conundrum. Boyle department of english, chinese university of hong kong renewed interest in the teaching of stress and intonation has arisen through the functional approach to language teaching, with its wider use of.
English intonation patterns expressing politeness and. Welcome to esl printables, the website where english language teachers exchange resources. Words that are stressed are key to understanding and using the correct intonation brings out the meaning. An activity for teaching intonation awareness to eslefl. Try these 7 excellent exercises to improve esl intonation and.
Unlike lexical tone as in tone languages, changing intonation does not change. However, it can be beneficial to focus specifically on word and sentence stress. Conversation analysis a discourse approach to teaching. Articles cover topics from english grammar, spelling and punctuation, through to language teaching, career development, specialisations, and ideas and suggestions for the classroom. Dec 04, 2003 a unique contribution to the literature on teaching pronunciation in l2, this book uses the research done over the years on intonation, and particularly on discourse intonation, as a starting point for a discussion of how to teach discourse intonation in l2. Although intonation has been gaining more and more recognition in l2 teaching for several decades, as an integral part of language. Discourse intonation and systemic functional phonology. Teaching discourse intonation with narrative elt journal. Integration of media technology began in the 1950s when small language schools began to use the phonograph, movies and the tape recorder as tools in english language teaching.
Intonation can be rising, falling or flat and is used to communicate how a speaker feels. Papers and reports on child language development, no. The teaching of intonation is a problematic area for efl teachers. Intonation english grammar today a reference to written and spoken english grammar and usage cambridge dictionary. His examination of intonation was limited to the domain.
Jones 1960 the variations which take place in the pitch of the voice in connected speech, i. Intonation and grammar in english when you teach a new grammar item e. More speci cally, tone encodes morphemes, and intonation gives utterances a further discoursal meaning that is independent of the meanings of the words themselves. Wilkins observes that although there have been major changes in the methodology of language teaching over the years the. But her ability to turn everything into a question demonstrated to me just how important it is to teach intonation to english language learners. However, falling intonation can also sound less friendly or even a little hostile, as though you are saying this is the end of the matter, whether you agree or not. Teaching in all cases concerns itself with androgogy or pedagogy. Discourse is one of the four systems of language, the others being vocabulary, grammar and phonology. Language teaching approaches and methods have cast light on the language teaching theory and practice. Pdf discourse intonation and systemic functional phonology.
Teaching english intonation with discourse approach. Even if youre making the correct sounds of american english, but youre speaking in the speech patterns, or intonation of another language, it will still sound very foreign. Triangulated results show an integrated view of language and intonation highlighting relationships between component aspects of intonation and among the. The final chapter on intonation and language teaching considers critically the view of intonation that existing teaching materials present. Halliday and greaves raise the question of the risk of doing this and explain that the lexicogrammar is the theoretical construct that enables us to explain the semogenic meaningmaking power of language as a whole provided that we present it. Intonation and stress refer to the music of the english language. Language and linguistic society symposium by an authorized editor of byu scholarsarchive. Yet if l2 teachers are to be provided with clear guidelines on how to incorporate di into communicative language teaching, much more empirical research is needed with l2 students of di. Research in the teaching of english pronunciation as a second and foreign language eslefl over the last decade r so has made evident the significance ofo suprasegmental features i. Sounds, words, sentences areexplored from many points of views and by thousands of people and consequently thosestudiesmetatasinglepoint.
Dicourse intonation and language teaching free download pdf. Fazle muniem, a teacher at the british council in bangladesh, explains. Correct intonation and stress are the key to speaking english fluently with good pronunciation. Simply go over the common rules and characteristics of english pronunciation and give them plenty of exercises to practice stress and intonation. Theory and practice of teaching discourse intonation mark chapman. Its aim is to promote original enquiry into linguistics, literary and translation studies, language and literature teaching with the main focus on english. Drawing on data from advanced level eap learners, it advocates a systematic approach to the teaching of the pragmatic and discourse functions of english intonation through a consciousnessraising. Finally, elt textbooks still tend to teach intonation from grammatical dimension, especially in pakistani language classroom that is already heavily influenced. Business english different stress and intonation in negotiations. Perspectives on stress and intonation in language learning 193 the three following tests are offered as examples of helpful ways of testing the stress and intonation patterns of english. Its also a largely unconscious mechanism, and as such, a complex aspect of pronunciation. Understanding and using correct intonation is a very important part to sounding natural. Many children with speech and language disorders including, but not limited to, childhood apraxia of speech struggle not only with speech errors due to deficits in motor planning, but also with a lack of prosody in their speec.
Accompanied by a cassette containing two transcribed recordings and excercise material. How english learners can improve intonation british council. Stress and intonation in english 2 ruth wickham, righton education training fellow facilitators manual stress and intonation in english 2hour workshop for pismp semester 2 at ipgkdri august 2012 introduction this is a 2hour workshop for 2 students in pismp semester 2, along with their lecturers. Intonation units and break index suprasegmental melody patterns of iu, break index, mismatch patterns and declination e. But theres no need to dwell on the differences between english and your students native language.
The book presents a statement of the structure of the english intonation system in relation to the structural systems of stress, pause, and rhythm. Perspectives on stress and intonation in language learning. This book presents a new description developed to account for the interactive significance of intonation, relates it to an existing description of discourse structure and goes on to discuss both the general question of the place of intonation in language teaching and. May 30, 2018 i am loathed to complicate matters, however, i believe i must in order to bring clarity to this posting. Narrative is proposed as a register that can be used effectively to teach the basics of english intonation, with a suggested method. Watch a video by hisa fujio discourse intonation for dummies here. Getting learners to say somethinganything at allin a conversation class is great, but it must be built on. More scientific ways to understand the intonation of english d. The communicative value of intonation in english book applied linguistics non brazil, david, hewings, martin, cauldwell, richard on. Discourse intonation and language teaching and brazil. It is addressed to international teaching assistants in the usa, but is useful for work on presentations. How are tone and intonation languages different acoustically.
Chun 2002 seems to be particularly well suited for use. Intonation is usually defined more or less generally. Its no surprise that many teachers dont feel confident about tackling it in the classroom. British and american english dialect double negatives and usage formal and informal language newspaper headlines register slang standard and nonstandard language swearing and taboo. Learning pronunciation and intonation of japanese through drama by beginning language students. Intonation is the way the pitch of a speakers voice goes up or down as they speak. To be honest, before i started teaching her, intonation activities never crossed my mind. Ingram english language battery, elba, 1964 this test is designed to see whether the students can hear the main stress in a sentence. Intonation helps to produce the effect of prominence on stressed syllables. Falling intonation commands, statements, wh questions. Intonation is a layer of meaning beyond words and helps speakers communicate meaning through the rise and fall of the voice. Eric ed202248 discourse intonation and language teaching. Discourse intonation, with its emphasis on communicative value, is appealing theoretically for instructors and for practical reasons aiding in. While many instructors and students feel it is an important aspect of language to incorporate into a curriculum, it is difficult to teach and often resistant to learning.
Highlighting the importance of intonation for everyday conversational interaction and the implications of this for teaching and therapy contexts, this book addresses the following questions. Discourse in english language education discourse in english language education provides a solid introduction to the major concepts and issues in discourse analysis and its applications in language teaching and learning. Falling, rising, and nonfinal intonation patterns rising and falling intonation patterns are an important part of american english. Intonation is particularly important in expressing questions in spoken english. Discourse intonation and language teaching jack windsor lewis. For example, take the sentence, when does the meeting start. Intonation helps to recognise the grammar and syntactic structure of the utterance. The patterns of rise and fall are described as tones. Discourse intonation and systemic functional phonology from the phonology to the semantics. It focuses its discussion on how the use of a reflective journal. A read is counted each time someone views a publication summary such as the title, abstract, and list of authors, clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the fulltext. Tones can be static, level tones or moving tones, either rising or falling.
Although intonation is particularly difficult for learners of a second language to master, it is seldom taught systematically. The material in this book is the result of an investigation to determine how to teach english intonation effectively and to find the smallest number of patterns which could be used as a basis for initial drills in the language. In speech, intonation is the use of changing rising and falling vocal pitch to convey grammatical information or personal attitude. The ability to communicate and the ability to be understood are the most important parts of learning a new.
Teaching intonation and stress english language learning. To include a comma in your tag, surround the tag with double quotes. As movement of pitch is heard on stressed syllables in the english language, practice of english intonation and stress patterns are closely linked. One possible way of understanding extended is as language that is more than one sentence. In this essay, i compare and contrast grammatical model of intonation with discourse intonation model. Discourse intonation and speaking english as a second language. Pdf discourse intonation vs grammatical intonation. On what aspects tonal languages differ from intonation languages when analyzing them acoustically.
Significantly the impulse to look at intonation in discourse. If you continue browsing the site, you agree to the use of cookies on this website. If you come from a stresstimed language that great because british english is a stresstimed language. Teachers of english to speakers of other languages, inc. On the other hand, a falling intonation in english is used to convey security and confidence about a statement, along with a sense of finality or completion.
A change or variation in pitch can affect the meaning of what we say. Discourse has various definitions but one way of thinking about it is as any piece of extended language, written or spoken, that has unity and meaning and purpose. Eric ed3639 discourse analysis for language teachers. Stress and the intonation of the italian language or how to. English language teaching elt and integration of media. Introducation oral language teaching demands a variety of concerns, such as the features of spoken language compared with written language.
Theory and practice of teaching discourse intonation elt. Discourse analysis and language teaching malcolm coulthard like other branches of linguistics language teaching has, until recently, been concerned with grammatical rather than communicative competence. Examples of realworld discourse in diverse international settings help to make the concepts and theories accessible. They suggest that both the phonological system and phonetic realization of intonation structure should be taken into consideration in assessing acquisition of second language intonation. Jul 16, 2011 intonation and its functions slideshare uses cookies to improve functionality and performance, and to provide you with relevant advertising. It presents the principles seen as relevant to the language teaching context and illustrates them with real spoken and written language data. How to train intonationand learn your target language. This article argues that with some modifications, a discourse model of intonation can be a valuable resource for the tesol classroom. People learn language primarily for communication with others. However, teachers still find intonation a difficult and complex area of language, despite attempts to convert discourse intonation di into a teaching programme brazil 1994.
What is intonation and how can you improve this aspect of your pronunciation. The phonology of tone and intonation tone and intonation are two types of pitch variation, which are used by speakers of many languages in order to give shape to utterances. Pdf teaching discourse intonation with narrative researchgate. A historical overview key issues historical overview of methods and approaches to teaching english as a foreignsecond language the grammartranslation method the direct method the audiolingual method suggestopedia the silent way total physical response the natural approach. Learning pronunciation and intonation of language students. Learn english with lets talk free english lessons 280,694 views. The introduction to discourse analysis is intended specifically to inform second language teachers about aspects of discourse analysis that can be helpful in instruction. Abstract intonation, long thought to be a key to effectiveness in spoken language, is more and more commonly addressed in english language teaching through the use of speech visualization technology. The word startincluding the question markrises up or comes up in your voice when you utter the word, notes. Intonation english grammar today cambridge dictionary. The different types of meaning intonation communicates include.
The teaching of intonation seems to sit naturally with communicative language learning, but it is not an easy aspect of english to incorporate into the efl classroom. Title exploring the teaching of discourse intonation authors. But once you train intonation, physically processing those sounds becomes automated, and you have more capacity to focus on learning the meaning of words. While the use of visualization technology is a crucial advance in the teaching of intonation, such teaching can be further enhanced by connecting technology to an understanding of how intonation. Lepetit 1989, for instance, reported the results of his study on how native speakers of canadian english n 45 and japanese n 30 acquired french intonation. In the next two sections i will outline the theory of discourse intonation and then will discuss some considerations in deciding whether and how to teach it. Our collection is growing every day with the help of many teachers. An activity for teaching intonation awareness to eslefl students gerard counihan. This book presents a new description developed to account for the interactive significance of intonation, relates it to an existing description of discourse structure and goes on to discuss both the general question of the place of intonation in language teaching and how this particular description might be taught.
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