Listening to Spoken English

Helping learners with difficulties in listening to spoken English

ESSAY TITLE: The importance attached to pronunciation today is reflected in the inclusion in the majority of course books of carefully planned and systematic pronunciation or sound practice material. Nevertheless, many pupils have difficulty in understanding or making themselves understood to anyone but a language teacher. What are the major causes of pupils' inability to communicate effectively in oral situations? How should teaching programmes be devised to counteract this?

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Teaching English intonation and stress patterns

Teaching intonation - the theories behind intonation

Definitions

1. Tone - the rise and fall of the voice. Tune/Pitch variation. An oscilloscope will give an oscillograph of speech. The frequency will be shown by the closeness of the waves (high frequency will be shown by waves which are closer together).

2. The volume (strength of signal) will be shown by the height of the waves. The height of the note depends on the speed of opening and closing of the vocal cords. More vibrations of the larynx (up to 800 per sec) show up more compact waves.

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