Pronunciation: intonation

How can you help your learners to understand "intonation"? 

Intonation exist in every language. However, learners are often too busy finding their words or making correct grammatical structures that their intonation suffers. But a teacher should explain that intonation is as important as grammar or vocabulary. 

1. Awareness of intonation aids communication.

1. Incorrect intonation can result in misunderstandings, speakers losing interest or even taking offence!

How can a teacher help their learners?

• Always provide a model! Sometimes you will even need to exaggerate, it's ok;

• Make your students listen carefully to various recorded conversations (You Tube is the best source for this);

• Record your students. You can use the dialogues in the coursebook or ask your students to make a dialogue. Nowadays every phone is equipped with a voice recorder or you can use Vacaroo ;

• Ask your students to compare two different pronunciations of the same phrase (flat and varied pronunciation); 
  

• Ask students to make a dialogue but they should speak as robots. Is this conversation normal? Is the message of the partner meaningful and understandable? 

• Ask your students to raise their heads if the intonation raises. For example: 

- on yes/no questions - simple rise; 

- on affirmative statements or "wh" questions - simple falls;  

- "Can I help you?" - polite fall/rise;

•  As you have already noticed, teaching intonation can be linked to teaching grammar. 

- Wh-word questions: falling intonation

- Yes/No questions: rising

- Statements: falling

- Question-Tags: 'chat' - falling; 'check' - rising

- Lists: rising, rising, rising, falling

•  On the board, you can put different colour arrows for rises and falls. You can mark the main stresses and the direction of the main pitch changes on the script on the board. This may help visual learners to understand and remember them;

• Use Cuisenaire Rods to mark the intonation of the phrase you focus on;

Links:

• Teaching speaking - Unit 3: Individual Sounds
• Intonation 
• How English learners can improve intonation

Futher reading:

• "Making Sense of Intonation" by Scott Thornbury - read