Teaching English rising and falling intonation

Jun Xu & Xiaolin Hu

Literature Review

1. Lin, H., Fan, C., & Chen, C. (1995) Teaching Pronunciation in the Learner-Centered Classroom. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED393292 )

When listening to English, most students pay more attention to vocabulary and grammar rather than pitch changes.Therefore, when speaking, they tend to pronounce each word as clearly as possible. Many students speak English simply by applying the rhythmic structure of Chinese. The result is that they sound monotonous.

The two major problems: (1) misused intonation patterns; and (2) lack of sentence focus, and emotions appropriate to the situation.

Literature Review

2. Chen, W., (2013). An Empirical Study on the Acquisition of English Rising Tone by Chinese EFL Learners. English Language Teaching, 6 (6), 97-102.

The study includes a survey by questionnaire and recording of read speech using Praat. The survey shows that these learners are lack of acoustic realization of stress and rising tone. Besides, the acquisition of sentence stress and intonation is much more difficult than that of words, especially in longer sentences. Problems such as failure to control the contour of pitch of nucleus, replacement of rising tone by falling tone, etc.are very common.

Pitch Contours

Justification of the lesson

1. Chinese EFL learners, influenced by the negative transfer of their first language, usually have difficulties in acquiring and applying rising tone in their speech.

2. Chinese EFL learners have little access to authentic communicative context and they don’t get sufficient practice concerning intonation learning.

3. With teacher’s guidance in class and the phonological technology outside of class, we hope to raise students’ awareness of the importance of intonation in English communication and pay more attention to it when they speak.

Lesson Plan

- Lesson Title:Rising and Falling Intonation in Interrogative & Declarative Sentences - Class/Student Information:It’s an English workshop held in a private English training center in China. The focus is mainly on speaking and listening. There are 20 learners and they all come from mainstream high schools. Their language proficiency in reading and writing is generally intermediate, but their speaking ability is lower.- Length of Class:50 minutes

Learning Objectives

● Students will know the importance of intonation in English communication.● Students will get to know that the intonation of the same word changes in different sentences under different situations.● Students will be able to use rising intonation in questions and use falling intonation to express answers.● Students will be aware that there are exceptions under certain situations in real communication.● Students will be able to use phonological technology such as Praat to facilitate their acquisition of intonation in the future.

Orientation (6 mins)

● How many ways to say ‘Hello!’? (Adapted from online resource)

√ To their boss in office. √ To their best friend at a party. √ To a six-month-old baby in the street. √ Answering a phone call from a stranger.

● Think & Share & Perform

Justification

● ‘Hello’ is a very simple disyllabic word and it can be used as a sentence with different intonation under different situations.

● Students use it a lot in daily life. So it’s a perfect word for students to get started.

● Different contexts are provided for students to utter the same word/sentence, which surely will raise their awareness that even the same word might change its word stress and intonation under different situations.

Presentation (12 mins)

● Introduction of the rising tone and falling tone in interrogative/declarative sentences.

● Examples will be given and students are required to read after the teacher.

● Listen to an mp3 twice and ask students to mark special intonation applied in this short dialogue: rising intonation in declarative grammar structure.

Pitch Contour

● Bold sentences in handout. Pitch contours developed by Praat will be shown in PPT respectively. Ask students to imitate native

speaker’s intonation and think about:1. Why do the speaker use raising instead of falling intonation in a declarative sentence?2. What’s the emotion behind these sentences? 3. What would happen if they speak these sentences in a falling intonation. √ Your new exercise class? √ Too easy for you? √ So?(Transcript will be provided at the 2nd playing)

Your new exercise class?

Too easy for you?

So?

Justification

● Shift from word level to sentence level. ● Intonation varies in different situations, we prefer to start from the easiest and most stable situations and then guide students to explore other exceptions. ● Focus more on rising tone.● Adapted materials. (mp3)● Praat --- visual aids

Engagement (18 mins)

● At a restaurant Topic: ‘eating in a restaurant’. One of them would be the

waiter/waitress, and the other would be the customer. The waiter/waitress should use at least 8 sentences in raising tone.

● Practice and then switch roles.

● Act it out & Check!

Sample Sentences

(Some sample sentences will be shown on screen for students to choose and practice, but they are more welcomed to create their own. )

1. Do you have a chance to make a reservation ahead?2. Are you ready to order?3. Would you like to have a starter?4. Would you like some drinks?5. And for you?6. Can I bring you anything else?7. How was everything going?8. Would you like anything for dessert?

Justification

● This communicative activity will give student an opportunity to apply knowledge into real use.● Role playing and mistake checking can engage every learner in class.● Eating in a restaurant is a common topic and learners can apply as many questions/answers as possible naturally from ordering to asking for bill.● As mentioned earlier, these students' speaking ability is lower than reading and writing. So sample sentences might be needed for some of them to complete this task in our time frame better.

Evaluation (6 mins)

● At a restaurantThe setting remains same and students are still working in pairs. Students

are given the following sentences and one of the answers, they need to read the sentences in an appropriate intonation according to the answer(A or B) that provided by the teacher.

1. Do you want coffee or tea?A: No thanks. B: Coffee, please.

1. Do you want coffee or tea?A: No thanks. B: Coffee, please.

2. Han doesn't like pizza?/!A: No he doesn't. B: I know.

3. We need a better waiter?/!A: I don't think so. B: Yes we do. 4. Tom recommends the shrimps here?/!A: Let's have a try. B: Cannot trust him again.

Justification

● This controlled practice is functioning as a evaluation of the workshop.

● It gives students more chance to practice sentence intonation and examine their progress in sentence intonation.

● It raises students' awareness that sentences with different intonations have different meanings.

Expansion (8 mins)

● Recording & Praat Tutorial Teacher will give a brief tutorial about how to record their own utterance,

how to install and use pitch contours developed by Praat to analyze their intonation and stress in speech.

● Ask students to choose one of the 3 sentences analyzed earlier in class by themselves after class, print their pitch contour out, compare and analyze their pitch contour with native speaker’s.

√ Your new exercise class? √ Too easy for you? √ So?

Justification

● Students are usually very curious about computer things, this tutorial will keep their attention at the end of this class.

● Praat is a user-friendly and free software to analyze intonation and stress in speech. By introducing this software, we hope students can benefit from it and improve their speech continuously in the future outside of class.