Teaching Sentence Stress

Teaching Sentence Stress

 

What is “Sentence Stress”?

 

“Sentence Stress” need not be referred to as the particular anxiety an ESL student experiences when attempting to pronounce a particularly wordy sentence in English…  Sentence Stress is actually the “music” of English, the thing that gives the language its particular “beat” or “rhythm”.  In general, in any given English utterance there will be particular words that carry more “weight” or “volume” (stress) than others.  From a speaking perspective, Sentence Stress will affect the degree to which an ESL student sounds “natural”.  In terms of listening, it affects how well a student can understand the utterances they hear.

 

 

What is “Word Stress”?

 

Whereas Sentence Stress refers to the process whereby particular words are stressed within an overall sentence, Word Stress refers to the process whereby particular syllables (or parts of words) are stressed within an overall word.  In general, Sentence Stress is more of a consideration for overall fluency – Word Stress tends to have more of a phonological and morphemic importance.

 

 

Which do you teach first – Sentence Stress or Word Stress?

 

An attempt to teach Sentence Stress should proceed any attempt to teach Word Stress.  Both are areas that can be more or less picked up naturally – but Sentence Stress can be picked up and learned across all levels, whereas Word Stress requires a little more focus if students are to understand the phonological and morphemic issues involved (making it thus more appropriate at later/higher levels).  Once Sentence Stress is an ongoing consideration in the classroom, Word Stress can be introduced to demonstrate the significance of syllable stress on sound changes (for instance variation in the pronunciation of “y” depending on its position in a stressed or unstressed syllable).  Otherwise, Word Stress should be a general pronunciation issue.

 

 

 

 

How Sentence Stress Works and Why

 

In any given sentence in English there will be words that carry stress and others that don’t.  This is not a random pattern.  Stressed words carry the meaning or the sense behind the sentence, and for this reason they are called “Content Words” – they carry the content of the sentence.  Unstressed words tend to be smaller words that have more of a grammatical significance – they help the sentence “function” syntactically and for this reason they are called Function Words (NOTE: sometimes “Function Words” are referred to as “Structure Words”).

 

Obviously the “content” of a sentence carries more significance than the particular “way” it is put together.  An easier way to think of it is that if you take out all the “function” words (without real meaning) from a sentence, the sentence will still have a certain amount of meaning and can be understood.  Doing the opposite will remove the meaning from a sentence and render it obsolete.  It is logical that the meaningful units within a sentence will carry the most significance and therefore stress.

 

Content Words include:   (Main) Verbs, Nouns, Adjectives, Adverbs, Negative Auxiliary Verbs, Demonstratives, Question Words

 

Function Words include: Pronouns, Prepositions, Articles, Conjunctions, Auxiliary Verbs, (Main) Verb “to be”

 

Examples:

 

Content Words		Function Words
Main Verbs	go, talk, writing	Pronouns	I, you, he ,they
Nouns	student, desk	Prepositions	on, under, with
Adjectives	big, clever	Articles	the, a, some
Adverbs	quickly, loudly	Conjunctions	but, and, so
Negative Aux. Verbs	can’t, don’t, aren’t	Auxiliary Verbs	can, should, must
Demonstratives	this, that, those	Verb “to be”	is, was, am
Question Words	who, which, where

 

I am talking to the clever students.

You’re sitting on the desk, but you aren’t listening to me.

He’s writing quickly, so it’s difficult for him to hear me.

 

 

 

 

A Note on Sentence Stress and English “rhythm”

 

It is important to remember that an English sentence will have a certain number of beats.  Stressed (content) words always take up an entire “beat”, while “unstressed” function words fall between the beats – irrespective of how many function words have been grouped together.  The time between beats is always the same.  For this reason, function words are often spoken faster and with less volume – they are literally being “squeezed” into the gap between regular stressed beats.  In the examples below, all of the function words (or groups of function words) take the same amount of time to pronounce, irrespective of the number of sounds or syllables they include.  Doing a simple rhythmic clap or thump in time to the spoken sentence will demonstrate how this happens.

 

Examples:

 

	Beat 1		Beat 2	Beat 3
I am	talking	to the	clever	students.

 

 

	Beat 1		Beat 2		Beat 3	Beat 4
You’re	sitting	on the	desk	but you	aren’t	listening	to me.

 

 

	Beat 1	Beat 2		Beat 3		Beat 4
He’s	writing	quickly	so it’s	difficult	for him to	hear	me.

 

Relevance to Korean Students

 

It is important for Korean students to learn sentence stress because many of the function words that are squeezed between beats in English are actually suffixes attached to verbs in their own language.  They thus often try to pronounce each and every word with equal stress, and it is harder for them to pick up individual function words during listening.  Actually focusing too much on the function words often confuses them and sometimes results in them missing the content words, which carry the sentence’s meaning.

 

Sentence Stress Teaching Methodology

 

As mentioned above, a certain amount of Sentence Stress will develop in the students naturally through listening and imitation.  Making it an important part of their Phonics development should help their Listening Comprehension and ability to sound more natural when speaking English.

 

Below are some of the ways you can introduce and create activities for Sentence Stress according to level.  As a general rule, it should only be introduced when the students have gained the ability to read and/or write sentences.  Age 8-9 is a good time to introduce it for Elementary Students, earlier if they have begun to read and write.  Middle and High School students could begin learning Sentence Stress at pretty much any time, but generally the earlier the better.

 

 

Þ Elementary School Levels

 

Introduction:

 

Take some sample sentences that the students have either produced themselves during some kind of activity, or are studying in the Phonics Part of their textbook.  Whenever possible, try to combine Sentence Stress activities with words that are being taught as part of Phonics.  Combining Sentence Stress activities with lessons that have prepositions or pronouns as the focus are likely to create confusion, as the teacher and students will naturally be over-emphasizing these words in order to learn them, and they are essentially unstressed in a naturally articulated sentence.  To begin with, the sentences should be relatively simple and have as many monosyllabic words as possible.

 

Step 1:

 

Have the students repeat the sentences after you slowly, with a little “over-emphasis” on the stressed elements.  Try to get them to start stressing the content words through natural imitation, without ever knowing they are now working on Sentence Stress.  Repeat this process for two to three lessons at least, and anywhere up to one month.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 2:

 

After repeating some set sentences as per Step 1, get the students to start clapping or stamping out a rhythmic beat.  Insert the sentences into this rhythm.  They are likely to have initial difficulty with this, as they will instinctively start trying to correspond the number of words to the number of beats.  Repeat this sort of activity for up to a week.

 

 

Step 3:

 

Adapt the process in Step 2 by stipulating how many claps or beats the students are allowed for each sentence.  For example, in the sentence “The strong man is walking in the park”, the students should be instructed to fit the entire sentence into four claps (corresponding to the number of stressed words in the sentence) rather than 8 claps (the number of words in the sentence).  First allow them to try and do it on their own.  Then say the sentence aloud and really emphasize the stressed words (without clapping).  They should be able to hear the number of beats based on this.  Allow them to try it again, and then do it yourself – clearly pronouncing the sentence in time to the required beats.  Practice this with a variety of sentences for up to a week – always asking them how many actual words they hear and how many “clap words” they hear. 

 

This process should give them a conceptual awareness of sentence “beats” as opposed to number of words.  Do not proceed to Step 4 until the students can repeat the sentences accurately within a defined number of beats.

 

 

Step 4:

 

Now is the time to give the students a solid idea of what it is they are doing.  Following a demonstration of step 3 above, review the words “big” and “small” or “long” and “short” or “loud” and “quiet” or “slow” and fast”.  Whatever words you choose, they should be clearly understood as opposites incorporating a sense of size or speed.  At younger levels you can even use terms like “elephant words” and “mouse words”, or “walk words” and “run words”.  Generally, the more fun the terms are, the more likely they are to find the activity interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Write the sentence out on the whiteboard.  Have the students pronounce the sentence using the clap/thump-based rhythm.  Then ask them which words are “big” in the sentence and which words are “small” (or whatever terms you want to use).  They will probably be able to identify them immediately, or at least get the swing of it with some repetition and help.  Now the students are actively sorting out which words they need to stress and which ones they don’t.

 

To practice and facilitate this, there are a number of activities and games that can be employed. 

 

• Worksheets with lists of sentences (preferably using corresponding Phonics material or “key language” phrases) can be distributed to the students where they listen and circle the stressed words they hear.  They then attempt to pronounce the sentences on their own.
• Following up on the activity above, students can be divided into pairs.  One student pronounces his/her sentences (where the stress has been indicated for them) while a partner student listens and writes down only the stressed words he/she hears.  They are awarded a point for each accurate transferal that occurs and then they swap roles and repeat the exercise.
• Divide the class into two teams.  A student from each team stands on either side of the whiteboard with a marker pen.  The teacher pronounces a sentence and the student who writes down all the correct stressed words first wins the “bout”.  Alternatively, the teacher can show the other students on each team a sentence where the stressed words have been circled, and it is up to the team to get the stressed words across to the member of their team in front of the whiteboard.  This kind of activity can also be used in conjunction with spelling.
• At younger levels, students can be given “word cards” that when combined in the right sequence create a sentence.  The stressed words are in a different color to the unstressed words – which is another way to conceptually illustrate that these words are somehow different.  This is a useful way of combining Sentence Stress with word order in a “puzzle” activity.
• At older levels, students can be given a grid where each square represents a word.  Certain squares are a different color or highlighted (for the stressed words).  They then refer to a wordlist (or word cards) and try to put them into a sentence in the correct order with correct stress pattern.

 

 

 

 

 

 

• In a TPR-related activity, the students take turns to use a punch-hammer.  They should be banging the hammer in time to the beats (stressed words) in the sentence.  The students could be banging word-cards (again with the stressed words marked in different color or type case), or simply beating the desk or floor.  The only essential thing is that the students are pronouncing the sentence as they bang out the beats.  Other ways to do this are with ball throwing, or jumping in time to stressed words in a sentence.

 

• Another TPR-type activity is to have the students pronounce sentences as a team.  Create sentences with a beat/rhythm corresponding to the number of students in the classroom (Note: not sentences with a number of words corresponding to the number of students, but stressed and unstressed beats).  As an example, a class of 7 students could be given the sentence “What’s [your] name [and] how [are you] today?”  This sentence has four stressed and three unstressed beats (7 total).  Allocate these elements to the students and have the “stressed beat” students stand up or even stand on their chairs.  Indicate that “stressed beat” students should speak loudly and clearly, whereas “unstressed beat” students should speak softer and faster.  The classroom and students themselves can physically create sentences with stressed and unstressed beats.  The activity can be expanded later to make it more challenging – the students can be asked to judge for themselves which beats are stressed and unstressed after hearing the teacher, and they then decide as a team who should be standing and sitting when they reproduce the sentence as a class.  Following proficiency in this, they can then be challenged with making their own sentences and then trying to allocate correct stress pattern.

 

• Sentence Stress can also be taught and practiced with drawing.  Students can be given a printed sentence on paper.  Beneath it they can draw a “landscape” that corresponds to the stressed and unstressed words.  For example:

 

We  are  studying  English  today  at  school!

  

 

We  are  studying  English  today  at   school!

 

• Other methods similar to the activity above are drawing activities where the students fill stressed words into big balloons or balls and unstressed words into small ones – these sorts of activities are virtually limitless, and with some creativity can be made to incorporate key language and vocabulary.  For example, if the students are studying food, animals, clothing, classroom items etc, they can fill words into big or small examples of these items.  As long as the conceptual idea of “big” and “small” elements in a sentence is conveyed, the students can practice allocating the words and beats in any number of ways.
• Sentence Stress (following the steps and kinds of activities listed above) can be made an ongoing part of the students’ Phonics Testing.  Sentences can be listed in the Phonics section of the Test, and the students circle stressed (or alternatively unstressed) beats in the sentence after hearing the teacher pronounce it.

 

Sentence Stress is not difficult to teach to children, and it can be surprising how rapidly they learn the pattern of it.  As long as it is introduced with simple conceptual terms and activities and made an ongoing thing in the classroom (with variety in the practice activities), the students should have little difficulty in identifying what they can clearly hear.  When they can clearly identify stressed and unstressed elements in a sentence, and practice producing it in relatively controlled and focused activities, they are well on the way to naturally producing English rhythm on their own.

 

 

 

 

Middle School and Higher Þ

 

Introduction:

 

Many of the steps and activities listed above can be adapted and used for Middle and High School students.  However, there are some important considerations for these levels that make learning Sentence Stress both easier and more difficult at the same time.  It is easier for older students because of their cognitive ability and familiarity with “patterns” and “rules” characteristic of grammar learning.  They can also usually read and write with some proficiency, which is useful in identifying and sorting words as “units”.  What makes Sentence Stress more difficult is the fact that they may already have been taught to produce English orally with

 

 

little or no sentence stress, which creates the sort of robotic flat-sounding English sometimes characteristic of students in this age bracket.  It can thus be a matter of attacking and rectifying a somewhat “entrenched” error in the students’ pronunciation.

 

A teacher of these levels first needs to gauge the ability of the students.  Students of very low ability will find many of the steps listed above for younger levels very useful, as long as they are carefully adapted to suit this “older” age bracket (they may or may not really appreciate a “childish” approach).

 

Once the conceptual idea of stressed and unstressed words in a sentence has been conveyed to the students, it can be practiced and expanded through some of the activities below (in addition to some of the activities listed above for younger levels):

 

 

• Sentence Stress Bingo:  the teacher creates a list of sentences incorporating key language and vocabulary from the regular textbook.  From these sentences a vocabulary list can be made which only includes the stressed words.  Students choose words from this list and fill it into their Bingo grid.  The teacher then reads the sentences aloud, and students must listen for the stressed words and cross them off if they have chosen them.  This is essentially a listening-based activity that is helpful in encouraging and practicing identification of stressed words in a sentence.  Students will focus on stressed words only, and may even repeat the sentence they hear in a similar pattern in an attempt to remember the words they heard spoken.  It can be made more challenging at higher levels by incorporating minimal pairs into the sentences.  Another option is to deliberately play on words and word-combinations that are sound-alike but vary in the stress pattern.  For example: “I am playing in the yard” and “I play in the yard”. 

 

 

Students can be given worksheets that have lists of sentences containing only unstressed elements (such as pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions etc).  It is up to the students to fill in the gaps with stressed words, either from a word bank or by coming up with them on their own.  They can challenge each other by writing sentences and then removing the stressed words, which a partner must then try to produce to make them complete again.  This kind of activity can be used very effectively with lessons emphasizing pronouns and auxiliary verbs –

 

 

 

 

• as the students are gaining practice in combining appropriate nouns, verbs and adjectives with these essentially unstressed elements.  The opposite can be employed as well – that is, students begin with sentences containing only stressed words and it is up to them to fill in appropriate unstressed words/ word-combinations.
• Students can be given lists of sentences incorporating key language where neither stressed nor unstressed elements are marked as such.  They then compile a two-column list wherein stressed and unstressed words are clearly divided.  This can be based on listening to the teacher or listening to each other.  This sort of activity can be combined with instruction on Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives (see the note below regarding “English Grammar Proficiency”).
• Various “memory games” can be employed to practice Sentence Stress.  Lists of (five or more) sentences are distributed to the students where the stressed elements are missing.  After listening to the teacher (or to each other), they then attempt to remember and write all the stressed words they heard and complete the sentences.
• As students gain in proficiency with Sentence Stress identification, activities can be introduced that actively encourage actual production on the part of the students.  They can write or fill in sentences and then decide which elements should be stressed and which ones shouldn’t.  They then read the sentence aloud, and the teacher (and/or the rest of the class) decides whether Sentence Stress was correctly utilized.  They can also be given lists of words that are stressed in sentences, and be asked to produce a sentence on the spot using those words.  The “Speaking in a Crowded Room” activity can also be employed, where students are listening to each other and listing the stressed elements they hear the student pronounce.
• A more alternative activity could be in the form of listening to English pop songs.  As long as the song chosen has a relatively consistent stress pattern (and note – sometimes in songs “unstressed” elements are given more length or emphasis that is not indicative of natural speaking), the students can practice identifying the stressed words they hear.