ORAL ENGLISH pronunciation and fluency PRONUNCIATION PROBLEMS FOR

ORAL ENGLISH pronunciation and fluency

PRONUNCIATION PROBLEMS FOR CHINESE STUDENTS • • • Intonation stress articulation rhythm consonant clusters linkage

• The beautiful Mountain appeared transfixed in the distance. • He can come on Sundays as long as he doesn't have to do any homework in the evening.

Stress • Often unpredictable in English • Adds emphasis to words • Helps define the tone of a sentence

Basically, stress words are considered CONTENT WORDS such as … - Nouns e. g. kitchen, Peter - (most) principal verbs e. g. visit, construct - Adjectives e. g. beautiful, interesting - Adverbs e. g. often, carefully Non-stressed words are considered FUNCTION WORDS such as … - Prepositions e. g. before, next to, opposite - Auxiliary verbs e. g. don't, am, can, were - Determiners e. g. the, a, some, a few - Conjunctions e. g. but, while, as - Pronouns e. g. they, she, us

Sound Scripting Our school is the BEST in town. The teachers are friendly, and VERY KNOWLEDGEABLE about English. I've studied at the school for two years and my English is becoming VERY GOOD. I hope you will visit our school and try an English class. MAYBE we can become FRIENDS

1. John is coming over tonight. We are going to work on our homework together. 2. We should have visited some more castles while we were traveling through the back roads of France. 3. Would you like to come over and play a game of chess? 4. Shakespeare wrote passionate, moving poetry. 5. As you might have expected, he has just thought of a new approach to the problem.

INTONATION • Definition: the pattern or melody of pitch changes in connected speech, especially the pitch pattern of a sentence, which distinguishes kinds of sentences or speakers of different language cultures.

Intonation continued… • It is used in non-tonal languages to add attitudes to words (attitudinal function) and to differentiate between wh-questions, yes-no questions, declarative statements, commands, requests, etc.

Symbols ‘ = stress on word / = rising tone = falling tone / = fall/rise I = short pause II = long pause Bold capital letters = extra emphasis

1. By the time he /receives this LETTER I, I will have /caught the TRAIN to Paris. 2. Following closely behind the herd was a group of filthy, disgusting vultures. 3. I love /you! 4. I hate English class. 5. I love /Huang /Wei so much!!

Fire and Ice (Robert Frost) /Some 'say the 'world will 'end in FIRE, || 'Some 'say in ICE. || From what I've 'tasted of deSIRE | 'I 'hold with 'those who 'favor FIRE. || 'But | if it had to 'perish TWICE, | I 'think I 'know e'nough of HATE | To 'know that for de/struction | 'ICE Is ALso 'great | 'And would sufFICE. ||

'say - sentence stress on a content word; 'FIRE - stronger sentence stress on the main word of the thought group; 'But - emphatic stress; FIRE - falling intonation on the main word of the thought group or on the last stressed word of the sentence; /TWICE - rising intonation on the main word of the thought group or on the last stressed word of the sentence; TWICE - high fall; /Some, /FIRE - fall-rise; de/struction - midlevel rise within a thought group; | - short pause between thought groups or parts of the sentence; || - longer pause between sentences.

1. Do you think social media is destroying English grammar? Why? 2. Is this article promoting internet slang like 'OMG'? 3. Do you agree with Fritz saying “ it makes you smarter? ” 4. What are the pros and cons of slang? 5. How often do you use incorrect grammar (in Chinese or English)? 6. Find some English slang and tell us what it means + 2 new questions

Articulation - SPEECH ORGANS POINTS OF ARTICULATION METHODS OF ARTICULATION VOICING

CAN YOUR PEERS UNDERSTAND YOU? • 2 LISTS OF 10 WORDS • EACH WORD IS READ TWICE • OTHER STUDENTS MUST WRITE DOWN WHAT THEY THINK THE WORD IS

1 ship 2 mat 3 ball 4 main 5 prize 6 pen 7 tin 8 bed 9 seventy 10 clue 1 sheep 2 mad 3 bowl 4 men 5 price 6 pin 7 teen 8 bet 9 seventeen 10 crew

POINTS OF ARTICULATION • LIPS (together) meat (contact with teeth) fee (open) all (rounded) double (Stretched to corners) eat (slack) hillbilly

• TEETH (against a lip) fever (together) see, ice (apart) reed, deer • TONGUE (between the teeth) thank (just behind the teeth) sank (touching the ridge) tease, ridge

METHODS OF ARTICULATION • FRICATIVES - When the air may stream continuously through the lips EX foam, see • STOPS - When air may be stopped and then let out in a single rush EX boo, go

VOICING • - VOICING Voiced, meaning the vocal cords vibrate Unvoiced, meaning they do not The unvoiced sounds in English are /p/, /t/, /k/, /s/ (everything else is voiced)

• consonants -“th” sound - Confusion between /r/ and /l/ sound - Confusion between /n/ and /l/ sound • vowels - English has 5 vowel letters but 13 vowel sounds EX. ‘ea’ in eat / ‘I’ in ‘it’ / ‘a’ in mate / ‘e’ in met • Consonant clusters - Very rare in Chinese - EX ‘strive’, ‘world’, ‘tackle’, ‘giggle’

Rhyme 1. 2. 3. 4. meat, feet, beat, meet, eat Head, bed, fed, dead Show, glow, slow, blow Yellow, mellow, fellow, bellow 5. Tough, rough, buff, enough 6. Bland, sand, band, demand 7. Tan, man, can, fan 8. Egg, leg 9. Bat, cat, fat, that 10. Rhyme, time, lime, climb

/ei/ and /e/ /l/ - /r/ /I/ - /i: / a. Main b. men a. Clue b. crew a. Mitt b. meet a. Fail b. fell a. Loom b. room a. Still b. steal a. Cane b. Ken a. Ply b. pry a. Bin b. bean a. Sale b. sell a. Link b. rink a. Sin b. seen a. Pain b. pen a. Flight b. fright a. Bid b. bead a. Bait b. bet a. Plow b. prow a. Tin b. teen a. Tale b. tell a. Lake b. rake a. Knit b. neat

Review 1. What does OMG Meiyu (Jessica) want to accomplish with her videos? 2. Which words are stressed in English? 3. What symbols do you put at the end of a sentence to indicate a long pause? 4. What symbol usually goes on the word before the question mark? 5. How do you make thank sound?

6. How many vowel sounds are there in English? 7. What words rhyme with bed? 8. What words have the same sound as the “a” in bat? 9. What words rhyme with orange? 10. What words have the same sound as the “ue” in true?

FLUENCY • Definition: Fluency is the property of a person or of a system that delivers information quickly and with expertise. • fluency is necessary but not sufficient for language proficiency: fluent language users (particularly uneducated native speakers) may have narrow vocabularies, limited discourse strategies, and inaccurate word use

TONGUE TWISTERS Say this sharply, say this sweetly; Say this shortly, say this softly; Say this sixteen times in succession. Thankfully, the three thousand thirty-three thoughtful thinkers thoroughly thought their three thousand three thoughts through, through Thursday's thunderous night.

She sells seashells down by the seashore. The shells she sells are seashells I’m sure.