Backup: Basic Speaking Skills

Review Words

Below are words that you will use today.

Overview and Goal:

Saying the vowel sound of a word accurately with proper stress is essential for pronouncing English words in a way that people can understand.

Today, our goal is to

Accomplish the seven challenges to improve our skills in pronouncing vowel sounds as well as saying and recognizing word stress.

The basics of pronunciation:

A Understanding vowel sounds

Although there are only five vowel letters (a, e, i, o, u), they represent 15 different vowel sounds! Below is a chart of some of the vowel sounds and then examples.

Challenge 1:

With a partner practice saying the different vowel sounds.

Note: These are actually not all the vowel sounds of English. These are only the vowel sounds that have actual vowel letters (For example ‘y’ which can make the /ī/ sound is excluded. Please make sure that students are familiar with Long Vowels, Short Vowels, and Others. See if they can produce some words with the sounds or say some words and ask them which vowel sound they hear.

Challenge 2:

Can you think of words that have the following sounds?

When you have finished guessing words, refer to the table below for some ideas

Challenge 3: Play the Sound Maze with Vowels!

Your instructor will give you the worksheet below.

(Below is optional)

B Understanding the rhythm of English

Understanding word stress and intonation will help you read books, dialogues, or chants in a natural and more engaging way. Correct stress is essential for producing English that others can understand. Therefore, it is important for teachers to speak words using the correct accent.

I Understanding Syllables :

Syllables can be thought of as the number of vowel sounds in a word. The word ‘apple’ has two syllables: ˈæ + pəl. The word name has one syllable: nˈeɪm. Some syllables are stressed and some are not. Being able to pronounce the syllables and understanding which are stressed will help us speak English beautifully!

Challenge 4: Counting syllables

Jr. Sunshine is the elementary school textbook used in much of Iwate. The following words appear in the textbook. Please group the words into one, two, three, four, or five syllables.

Words from Jr. Sunshine

Aquarium, August, black, cabin attendant, cherry, comedian, convenience store, grandfather, harmonica, hurry, home economics, Japanese, piano, pyramid, shoe, stew, supermarket, triangle, white, yogurt

• One syllable:
• Two syllables:
• Three syllables:
• Four syllables:
• Five syllables:

Where is the stress on the words? Please listen to your teacher and guess which syllable is stressed.

II Understanding stress:

Challenge 5: Recognizing stress patterns

The words below have the following stress patterns: Oo, oO, Oo, Ooo, oOo, ooO. Read the words aloud and group them into the patterns.

around, basketball, countryside, curtains, December, flower, frying pan, furniture, giraffe, guitar, hot chocolate, incorrect, museum, primary school, romantic, supermarket, tea towel, traffic jam, understand, yesterday

Challenge 6: Play the Stress Maze!

Your teacher will hand out a stress maze. Try to complete it!

Challenge 7: Test your knowledge

Write the number of syllables, stressed syllable and stressed vowel sounds for words you will teach in HS

Reflection

Please consider the following:

Which vowel sounds did you understand better from this class? Which vowel sounds do you need to practice more?

Why is understanding the number of syllables in a word important?