Warming up

Introduction

1   Warming up as means of teaching phonetics

1.1 The role of phonetics in the teaching process

1.2 A brief description of lesson procedure

1.3 Different approaches to warming up technique

1.4 The importance of warming up as a part of English lesson

1.5 Types of phonetic warming up

2 Phonetic skills acquiring through warming up

2.1 Developing sound pronunciation

2.2 Teaching correct pronunciation of words, with special attention to stress

2.3 Teaching right intonation in sentences

Conclusion

Appendix

 

INTRODUCTION

 

«In the 21st century, a nation that is not able to develop knowledge is doomed to failure. We should create a depth of talent for the high-technology and research-based industry of the future. The republic Kazakhstan is recognized by the world community as the state with market economy. For the short historical period of independence the country has reached considerable growth in economy, being integrated with the world community.

The role and value of educational system, human resources increase in the context as criteria of level of social development, economic power and national safety of the country. Changes in system of public relations influence formation, demanding from it the mobility, the adequate answer to realities of a new historical stage and conformity to requirements of the development of economy. [33] Nowadays Kazakhstan suffers rapid changes in every sphere of political, cultural and social activity. Due to the new course of our President N. A. Nazarbayev, the education is being restructured; juvenile forms of instruction are involved in the teaching process. According to the new educational paradigm teacher should try to motivate students, arouse their interest to the lesson. Warming up is a powerful means of involving students in the classroom interaction, way of “tuning” students up in the beginning of a lesson. A warm up to prepare students for a period of concentration may involve physical movement with activities that keep them active by standing up, walking, jumping, matching pictures with sentences or vocabulary, drawing or writing personal experiences or stories, and singing or listening to familiar songs and chants. These are, among others, enjoyable and motivating warms ups.

The use of warming up has the next advantages: creating a positive feeling for language learning, awakening interest during the lesson, stimulating students to greater oral participation, and breaking the monotony of the day.

Especially warming up is useful for developing phonetic skill since phonetic exercises are usually regarded as one of the most tiresome part of a lesson due to numerous number of mechanical repetitions. In the given course paper we investigate the ways of teaching phonetics and arousing motivation at the same time.

The course paper aims to investigate the phonetic skills’ acquirement during the initial lesson stage.

We settle down a number of objectives:

1. to define the maim features of the phonetics as a science
2. to describe the peculiarities of the phonetic skills
3. to figure out the distinctive features of the warming up stage
4. to classify the different means of a phonetic warming up

During our work we applied the following methods: analysis of a theoretical literature, synthesis.

Urgency is determined by the following factors: warming up stage is an important part of English lesson as it increases students’  motivation, helps them to concentrate their attention and get new skills. Young children tend to change their mood every other minute, and they find it extremely difficult to sit still. On the other hand, they show the great motivation to do things that appeal to them. Since it is almost impossible to cater to the interests of about 25 young individuals, the teacher has to be inventive in selecting interesting activities, and must provide a great variety of them. Warming up activities can foster motivation and this is, in turn, an essential component when planning warming up.

Novelty lies in the field of investigation - warming up stage – thus it wasn’t carefully examined through the prism of phonetic skills development.

The subject can be defined as the influence of warming up on the development of phonetic skills: thus the object is the process of English language teaching..

During our research we employed the working hypothesis about great importance of warming up in the process of the phonetic skills development.

 

1   WARMING UP AS MEANS OF TEACHING PHONETICS

1.1 The role of phonetics in the teaching process

 

 

Phonetics is one of the fundamental branches of linguistic. It’s very important in the study of a language, because neither grammar nor lexics can exist without the phonetic form. All these phenomena are expressed phonetically. Neither linguistic theory nor the linguistic description can do without phonetics. Phonetics is an independent branch of linguistics like lexicology or grammar. These linguistic sciences study language from three different points of view. Lexicology deals with the vocabulary of language, with the origin and development of words, with their meaning and word building. Grammar defines the rules governing the modification of words and the combination of words into sentences. Phonetics studies the outer form of language; its sound matter [13,7].

Phonetics was known to ancient Greeks, where the theory of public speech and phonetic delivery were important.

The main thing pupils should acquire during their study is how to pronounce sounds. It's a big mistake to underestimate the importance of pronunciation. Pronunciation is the only way to deliver the  knowledge of English to the listener. Speaking to people is the only way to communicate. Correct, standard English pronunciation is necessary to acquire if students want to understand English speakers and want to be understood. Standard pronunciation consists of:

1. Correct pronunciation of sounds;

2. Correct pronunciation of words, with special attention to stress;

3. Standard intonation in sentences, which includes such notions as sentence stress, rhythm, and rising and falling intonation.

Much has been said about the importance of paying due attention to intonation when studying a foreign language. The process of communication cannot be performed without intonation as it has its own functions in a sentence.

English pronunciation is very different from Russian pronunciation. The number of letters and the sounds they represent are not the same in English and Russian, and some English sounds do not have corresponding sounds in Russian [2, 99].

English  phonetics  is  idiosyncratic,  including  various characteristics  that  are  unusual  from  the  point  of  view  of universals:  an  large  and  elaborate  vowel  system,  including complex  processes  of  length  alternation  and  weakening (compete-competitive-competition);  a  consonant  system  that includes  dental  fricatives   and  voiced  sibilants,  which  are  problematic  for many  learners; words  stress placement  that  is  free,  i.e.  arbitrary and  frequently unpredictable; and an intonation system that seems to be more complex and  to have a much higher functional  load  than  that of most other languages.   
The objects of teaching English phonetics are the following: 
1. Pronunciation training (II кл., V -VI кл.);

2. drilling of auditory, articulatory, rhythmic, intonation skills (Ш grade, VI-IX grade.);

3. correction and  improvement of articulatory skills [23]. 
The material for teaching phonetics must be sorted out according to the following principles: 
1. correspondence to the needs of communication

2.stylistic principle

3.standards of pronunciation

4. taking into account the peculiarities of students’ native language  
Phonetics is the study of the way humans make, transmit, and receive speech sounds. Phonetics occupies itself with the study of the ways in which the sounds are organized into a system of units and the variation of the units in all types and styles of spoken language [1, 112].

Phonetics is a basic branch of linguistics. Neither linguistic theory nor linguistic practice can do without phonetics. No kind of linguistic study can be made without constant consideration of the material on the expression level.

 

2. A brief description of lesson procedure

 

Teachers need more than a vague, or even a precise, notion of educational goals and objectives to be able to sequence these objectives or to be proficient in the skills and knowledge of a particular discipline. The effective teacher also needs to develop a plan to provide direction toward the attainment of the selected objectives.

There are many different methods of writing a lesson plan, such as the Herbartean method or Madeline Hunter's method. The Madeline Hunter method is a kind of direct instruction model and method mostly applied to lesson planning. Madeline Hunter developed the Instructional Theory into Practice teaching model. It is a direct instruction program that was implemented in thousands of schools throughout the United States. Hunter identified seven components for teaching:

1 knowledge of human growth and development;

2 content;

3 classroom management;

4 materials;

5 planning;

6 human relations;

7 instructional skills [1, 8].

She believed that teachers were foremost teaching decisions makers. That each teacher makes thousands of decisions each day. All of the decisions a teacher makes can be put into one of three categories;

1 what you are going to teach - content category;

2 what the students are going to learn and let you know that they've learned it - learning behavior category;

3 what you as the teacher will do facilitate and escalate that learning - teaching behavior category.

The second global educational theory was named Herbartian. One of the two areas of concern for the professors was to find a scientific approach to lesson planning which would not only be useful to their students but also be academic enough to merit scholarly study.  They found their answer in 1892 when students of the German Philosopher Herbart introduced his ideas to American professors [4, 111].

Based on the Herbartian concept of the mind as an appreciative mass, his students developed a five-step lesson plan appropriate for all teachers.  It included:

1.    Preparation

2.    Presentation

3.    Association

4.    Generalization

5.    Application

Teacher manuals, plan books, and evaluation instruments can be all organized around the five-step lesson plan.

Nowadays lesson planning has undergone some essential changes. Common stages of an ordinary English lesson are:

1. Warming-up
2. The main part of lesson (Teaching new material)
3. Revision/ Control
4. Feedback

Three stages of lesson planning follow:

Stage 1: Pre-Lesson Preparation

1. Goals
2. Content
3. Student entry level

Stage 2: Lesson Planning and Implementation

1. Unit title
2. Instructional goals
3. Objectives
4. Rationale
5. Content
6. Instructional procedures
7. Evaluation procedures
8. Materials

Stage 3: Post-Lesson Activities

1. Lesson evaluation and revision
2. Feedback [12, 93]

Thoroughly following these steps teacher can easily compose his own lesson adequately fitting all the methodical rules and regulations.

 

3. Different approaches to warming up technique

 

Warm up - he act or procedure of warming up, phonetic warming up we define as the initial lesson stage, in which the process of preparation of student to the lesson is held.

There exist several approaches to using warming-up technique during the English lesson.

It is logical to mention in the first place such points of view as necessity and uselessness of conducting warming-up.

Those teachers who are against warming-up usually spend a lot of time preparing explanations and worksheets to introduce and practice the target language. But commonly students who came from a math or a ph class demand some time for “tuning on” for English lesson and preparing for the intensive forty-five minutes of learning grammar, vocabulary, etc., and consequently an immediate more or less difficult activity (such as for example confusing grammar exercises) that students must complete, results in a disinterested and distracted class. Thus in this practice the warm up of a lesson often receives unfairly less attention than it should which is obviously contributes to the less efficiency in learning language.

On the other hand those teachers who approach warming-up as a necessary and regular activity greatly success in teaching English. According to them, an effective warming-up serves as a springboard into the topic or target language of the lesson. A fun warm up raises energy levels. Fun activities also produce relaxed, less inhibited students. With the right warm up, you'll have created a positive atmosphere to practice and experiment with the language. If the lesson focuses on a definite theme, then a few lower-intermediate questions will get the students thinking about the topic. The warm up activates already held information. There's the chance, too, that students may even inadvertently produce some of the key language, which can be made a note of and used to present the target material [18, 105].

Because the warm up opens the class session, it sets the atmosphere and expectations of the lesson. It also allows important assessment opportunities, which will later determine the type of activities, who will partner with whom, and the scope of the lesson. Always give equal consideration to the warm up as to other steps of the lesson. The result will be a more focused and positive group of students performing to teacher’s expectations.

Without enough time to get warmed up, though, students will continue to make mistakes during the early stages of the lesson - important time needed to present and drill the new material. Students may be slow to understand, too, again because their minds are still far away from lesson.

Further on, warming-up can be classified into a teacher-focused or a student-focused type, as a whole process of teaching. As mentioned, the warm up sets the tone for the lesson. If teacher participates in the activity, especially in a small-sized class, it turns the focus towards him.

Obviously, teacher will succeed more establishing himself as a participant rather than a guide. The students will not be as quick to volunteer information or participate in conversations unless teacher initiates and runs them. This steals valuable talk time from the students, and creates more hesitant speakers inside and outside the classroom. In comparison, an activity in which teacher writes three questions on the board, and instructs the students to pair up and sustain the conversation for at least five minutes the first one always strives for an atmosphere in which the students take responsibility for the language they produce.

Another approach consists in the question whether to correct students’ mistakes during the first five minutes of the lesson or not. Some teachers suppose corrections are necessary during every step of the lesson, including warming-up, other teachers are strictly against any corrections during the warming-up.

By all means, teacher’s assistance is important, especially if some students have difficulty participating in the activity. But every teacher should remember: students still are not in thinking in English, so they are tend to make mistakes even with familiar material. Besides, correction interrupts the flow of the activity, and generates a teacher-centered lesson [4, 114] [27].

One more approach is in thematically or randomly chosen warming-up. It is up to the teacher to decide whether to associate warming-up with the main course of the lesson or to pick up warming-up disregarding the topic.

The last approach comprises dividing into grammar, vocabulary, phonetic, etc. warming-ups. Such warming-ups give teachers a dynamic way of delivering stimulating and effective grammar, phonetic and so on exercises to get students motivated at the start of class and develop their skills.

It is obvious that integrating approaches regarding students’ interests and capability is a way to successful teaching English as a foreign language.

 

1.4 The importance of warming up as a part of English lesson

 

In order to understand the importance of warming-up during the lesson, we must apply to the aims it refers.

1) To create a positive atmosphere for learning

When students arrive in the lesson at perhaps the end of a busy working day or in the middle of a study day, they can be easily distracted from the purpose of learning. It is widely recognized that we learn best when we are comfortable and relaxed – Maslow’s theory on the hierarchy of needs suggests that we need to be physically comfortable, not too hungry or cold, and importantly that we need to feel safe, loved even. No that people cannot learn when the conditions are not ideal, but that they learn best when their physical and emotional needs are satisfied. So a warm up activity that promotes relaxation and fun, that does not stress students or demand too much of them, is a good place to start [5, 255].

Students can leave behind the stresses of their real lives when they are working together People learn best when they are comfortable, and a warm up activity is about making them feel comfortable. Basically, if you are stressed, anxious or self-conscious, you are unlikely to learn anything. This is most particularly a feature with adult learners, as  self-consciousness is not something that children generally have a problem with until a certain age.

2) Activating schemes

If we look at the place of ‘warmers’ in a lesson, a teacher will often use a warm up activity at the start, in order to lead in to skills work. In this case the purpose could be linked to a cognitivist viewpoint, where learning is not passive but an active process of making sense of things. The teacher who warms up to the reading by introducing the topic and inviting students to discuss is activating schemata – alerting the student to any prior information, knowledge or experience of the topic of the text so that they can access the lesson most effectively. A schema can be said to be a kind of memory, based on students’ expectations of what normally happens. When people look at texts in our own language, for example, they unconsciously recall previous knowledge of a topic or skill area. They look at the pictures, the font, the page layout and make certain judgements about what they see. A warm up activity is a way for a teacher to enable students to make these links in an additional language and thus transfer skills across – creating the memories in another language. So in terms of learning theory, the warm up plays a very important part.

3) Revision and recycling

Many teachers use the warm up stage to recap on the previous lesson. They can see how much has been retained and decide where to go next. This is good for the learner too, who can measure his or her own progress through homework and revision tasks. Some learners will be able to access material successfully second time around, when it is presented in a manner that they find more appealing – visually, kinesthetically etc.

It has been well documented that students find it difficult to retain new language unless they see it again within 24 hours, and then again within a week, a month and so on. So many good teachers do in practice – perhaps unwittingly – things which are underpinned by solid rationale [14, 11].

4) Language and communication

Communicative approaches recognize the fact that a good learner needs to have ownership of language. It is now understood that restricted written or spoken exercises, where a student can manipulate language in a very controlled manner seem to have little effect outside the classroom. Many students have studied ‘the theory’ for years and years, but when it comes to it, just can’t quite bring themselves to speak. The warm up stage, however, where students have the chance to be playful with language and create their own communication, is an important step to effective language ownership. Errors are tolerated in this stage, because the main purpose is conversational interaction. While some learners express doubts about unstructured pairwork, ‘We might learn each others’ mistakes’, there is evidence to suggest that the successful language learner does in fact improve communicative competence through such exercises.

 

5. Types of phonetic warming up

 

Warm-up activities, which are considered a valuable component of interactive classes, were included as interactive activities in the methodology. It is useful to begin each class with a warm-up activity. For example, students can be shown cartoons about English language teaching and asked to comment on them, or students can be given phonetic riddles or puzzles to solve. Other warm-up tasks included contests such as sound review games, cloze completions, and problem-solving tasks. We can define a number of types of phonetic warming up.

1. sound pronunciation

The task is divided into three parts: initial (comprised of words that begin with the same sound), final (with words that end with the same sound), and medial (containing words that share the same vowel sound). For each condition children listen as a series of four words are spoken. They asked to identify the ‘odd one out’ of the four words (the word that does not share a common sound component with the other three words). After that children are trying to pronounce “odd” sounds as clearly as they can.

One of the most difficult barriers to overcome in learning to speak English is clear pronunciation. Sounds such as "R," "L," "th," "V," and "Z" are especially difficult for English language learners. So it is useful to include these sounds in the task as often as possible.

2. Mouth Exercises

English pronunciation is difficult for many English language learners because English requires the use of oral muscles that some other languages do not use. Therefore, in the same way that it's important to warm up the voice before lesson, it's important to activate and strengthen the muscles of the mouth to pronounce English sounds correctly. Smiling, frowning, yawning, and laughing are all actions that stretch and work the muscles of the mouth. Children can mime various actions and emphasize exaggeration. For example, they can pretend to bite into a large apple and chew it up.

3. Tongue twisters and rhymes

Tongue twisters are useful for practicing specific target sounds, plus they're fun. Even native speakers practice with tongue twisters to improve their enunciation Tongue twisters are great to relax the palate, throat, lips and tongue, which are instrumental in the articulation of words and notes. Tongue twisters are useful for improving pronunciation as well, as students give proper exercise to the tongue and it can be twisted as they want. Many tongue-twisters use a combination of alliteration and rhyme. They have two or more sequences of sounds that require repositioning the tongue between syllables, then the same sounds are repeated in a different sequence.

4. Spelling

Having identified some problem areas for the class, the teacher makes a list of instructions containing these. Below is such a list.

Draw a sheep on the board. (Teacher can draw a ship if the word is mispronounced).

Write the letter "P" above the sheep. (Teacher can write " B").

Use the "P" as the start of the word "pleasant" and write the word (Children often pronounce the word "present ").

Draw a mouse next to the word "light". (Teacher often draw a mouth)

Draw a pear next to the mouse. (The word can be mispronounced as “a bear”)

Other examples can be added.

According to the theme of lesson, level of children and their interest, teacher can choose an appropriate type of warming up in order to practice the phonetic skills of students and create friendly atmosphere in the classroom.

 

 

2 PHONETIC SKILLS ACQUIRING THROUGH WARMING UP

2.1 Developing sound pronunciation

 

An important aim of the course - paper is to enable students to appreciate how native and non-native speakers of a language produce speech sounds under varying phonetic conditions, and to note how they relate to standard phonetic descriptions of English. It is vital for students to reduce their accent and improve their pronouncing skills. We offer different kinds of warm-up which serve the above-mentioned aim.

The purpose of this kind of warm up is to focus the students’  attention on the sound at the different parts of words. Modern English is exceptionally rich in homonymous words and word-forms. In linguistics, a homonym is, in the strict sense, one of a group of words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings. Some of them have slightly differentiation in pronunciation, others have not. it is always useful for student to try and guess the meaning of a word according to its spelling. Thus we consider appropriate using homophones (which are allocated to the pure lexicology) as a part of teaching phonetics.

1. Many jams are made from ___.

a. buries

b. berries

2. Let's ___ the hatchet and be friends.

a. bury

b. berry

3. The children were brown as ___ after playing outside all summer.

a. buries

b. berries

4. A small forest is called a ___.

a. would

b. wood

5. I ___ do it if I got the chance.

a. would

b. wood

6. The family was in ___ after their son died.

a. morning

b. mourning

7. What are you going to ___ to the party?

a. wear

b. where

8. Could I have my ___ well done?

a. stake

b. steak

9. The ___ is very clean in the country.

a. air

b. heir

           10. I went ___ hunting in October.

a. dear

b. deer

For additional exercises see Appendix A.

During the first 10 minutes of the lesson it can be useful to offer students the following exercise. In this training, students select 5 words that are not related and don't rhyme. As an example we can take hat, book, beat, low, ride. At this point students want to find four words that rhyme with each of your words. Students may use a rhyming dictionary, or they could come up with their very own. In our opinion it is better to try on their own first to test rhyming skill of students. If they get stuck, then they will use the rhyming dictionary. Students can do whatever is easiest for them. So here are example rhyming words:

Hat: bat, rat, sat, and mat

Book: look, took, cook, and rook

Beat: heat, treat, eat, and meat

Low: mow, tow, bow, and row

Ride: hide, tide, guide, and fried

Now students need to take these words and make a verse for about a minute. They should apply each of these rhymes. What they are doing as they are practicing is memorizing these rhyming words. The more students practice with these words, the more they will be part their vocabulary luggage. Students will find that they don't need to think about them. They will naturally become part of their rhyming vocabulary.

It is better to practice this exercise several times each day. Each time that they practice they can add 5 new words. At the end of each day, if students practice 5 or 6 times a day, they are adding a lot of rhyming words to their vocabulary. [Appendix F]

It is impossible to teach students the whole phonetic alphabet at once, but it can be useful to look at one or two sounds in turn. Teacher asks the group to look up cup and put in their dictionaries and find the phonetic symbol for each of the vowel sounds. First the two sounds are practiced then the students are asked to find the other words on the worksheet and put them in the correct box. When they have finished, they say the words alternately from each box.

For example: cup – butter, tub, puzzle

put – bull, cushion, butcher, pull, pudding, full

One more short exercise for practicing vowels indicates the way sound quantity may have impact on meaning. For example: feet (ноги) — fit (вмещаться), steel (сталь) — still (все еще).

Exercise A: lead — lid, mill — meal, pill — peel, keel — kill, sit — seat

Exercise B: been — bean, did — deed, pit — peat,  fit — feet, it — eat, lid —  lead

Exercise С: bin — bean, meet — meat, see — seat — seed,  meal — seal — mean  pea — Pete — peat sea — see    meet bee — been — feet mean — lean — keen

This type of work is called “minimal pairs”.  These  are  pairs  of words/sentences  which differ  by only  one  sound. For additional exercises see Appendix E.

This work  sometimes  helps  students  to hear  - and  then  pronounce  - sounds that are  difficult for them.  Practice  of minimal pairs  may be conducted during the warming-up through  playing  the following games.

Card  games 

Teacher photocopies  and cuts out cards  of  minimal  pairs. These pairs may be invented by the teacher or taken from other recources.

Ear – air

The  ear  isn't  good. - The  air  isn't  good.

Beer – bear

It's  a sweet  beer. - lt's  a sweet  bear.

Pier – pear

That's  an  old  pier. - That's  an  old  pear.

Hear – hair

How  do  you spell  “hear”? - How  do  you spell  “hair”?

Teacher shuffles the cards and deals them  face down  to make a pile  of cards in  front of each  player.

Students take  turns  to quickly  turn  top  card face up and put  it on top  of a new pile in the middle of the table.  When  they see  two cards  together that are a minimal  pair, they quickly say 'Snap!' and put hand on the pile. Then they can add all those cards  to their pile.

They should collect as many cards as  they can in a  time limit,  e.g.  ten minutes.

“Fingers” 

For  each  pair,  teacher says words  rapidly at  random,  e.g.  sheep  sheep sheep  ship  ship  sheep  ship.  Students  show  with one  or two  fingers  if they  hear  sound  I or sound  2.  Students  practice  in pairs  and  then  back to back.

“Mingling”

Each  student  has  one  of  the minimal pair cards.  Students mingle (move  around  randomly),  not showing  their cards  but repeating  their word to find the others  with the same  sound.  They form a group, which checks correct membership.  The  first group  to complete  their  set  of words  with  the  same  sound  wins.  Students  swap cards  within  their  group  and  check  pronunciation  of new  words before  all mingling again  to find the person  in the other group with the other  half of  their minimal pair. Students  change  cards  with that person  and  check  each  other's  pronunciation.  Then  start  the mingling game  from  the beginning  so  both  sounds  are  used.

“The mask”

The  purpose  of  the mask  is twofold:

1. to allow  students  to listen  to and  practice  the minimal pair sounds first  in words  and  then  in sentences  without being  distracted  by  the written word
2. for extra  practice  of sounds  they  find difficult.

“Mask” means covering minimal pairs in order  not to see them thus practicing sounds.

Another way of practicing sounds is representing short funny dialogues, e.g.:

- Tell me about  your  Uncle Phil, Carol.

-Well,  he's  small. And he's  old and wrinkled  ... and he smiles  ... and he travels all  round  the world  with  his  twelve animals. And he sells beautiful  jewellery.

-What  a very unusual  uncle!

This dialogue serves as the example of practicing final  ll and  ll belore  a consonant.

Sound [l] is a  little different  when  it comes at the end of a word or before a consonant. To make this  [l] sound, one should move the back of the tongue up towards the roof of the mouth.

First students practice  this sound in words from  the dialogue. They should read  the words aloud.

[l] at  the end  of a word:

Bill  tell  I'll  Paul  fall  pull  small

[l] before  a consonant:

help  difficult  fault  spoilt  child  holding  salesman myself always

Syllabic  [l]  -  each  [l]  sound  is  a syllable:

little  uncle  careful  special  bicycle  sensible  beautiful gentleman

Tongue Twisters

Students work to improve their enunciation skills and to communicate effectively by pronouncing tongue-twisters. Later on they can write their own tongue twisters. Students practice effective communication skills by using proper enunciation, identify and correct errors when repeating several tongue twisters, have fun with language as they write tongue twisters.

It is necessary to explain that tongue twisters get their name because they are hard to pronounce. Tongue twisters are difficult to say quickly because they require one's mouth to move in different positions for each word.

We can take the famous tongue twister as an example.

Betty Botter's Better Batter

Betty Botter had some butter,

"But," she said, "this butter's bitter.

If I bake this bitter butter,

It would make my batter bitter.

But a bit of better butter,

That would make my batter better."

So she bought a bit of butter –

Better than her bitter butter –

And she baked it in her batter;

And the batter was not bitter.

So 'twas better Betty Botter

Bought a bit of better butter. [28]

This famous tongue twister is loaded with potential teaching opportunities. Not only is the obvious "b" sound used here (which can be used to emphasize the minimal pairs b/p), but tons of vowels sounds are used, as well.

It is usually useful to give the text of the tongue twister to the students before the class. This gives them an opportunity to read it over and become familiar with the text.

During class, students read the tongue twister once or twice aloud. Teacher doesn't make any corrections at this time. He points out anything that is particularly off or possibly a new term. In "Betty Botter," most students are not familiar with the contraction " 'twas."

Then students read line by line with teacher reading the line and the student repeating the line. They might do one or two lines at a time. It depends on how well the student is pronouncing everything.

This activity is good practice to achieve proper enunciation. The students should have fun with tongue twisters and improve their phonetic skills. For additional exercises see Appendix B.

This tongue twister activity can be used quarterly to assess individual student progress in proper enunciation.

Another type of this kind of work is developing pronunciation skills through set phrases, idioms, sayings and proverbs. For example, for practicing sound [au] the following set of proverbs and sayings can be used:

When in doubt, leave it out.

To make a mountain put of a molehill.

To be out and about.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Students should read these sentences, pay attention to the sounds, trying to articulate them properly, and try to memorize them.

One more kind of warming-up is called “steps”  due to its appearance and step-by-step character:

Bob

Bob’s dog

Bob’s dog got

Bob’s dog got a pot

Bob’s dog got a hot pot

Bob’s dog got a hot pot of porridge.

Bob’s dog got a hot pot of porridge and some chops.

The task is to read these sentences as quickly as possible. This warming-up allows work through such sounds as [b], [d], [g], [p].

The following game aims to developing students’  pronunciation of sounds in the context of a single word.

Teacher writes a word on the board or computer projection screen and students call out a word that begins with the last letter of the 1st word, then using the last letter of the 2nd word, call out a new word. This is the variant of the game Chain Spelling. For example: cat, tomato, open, nose, elephant, etc... Students try to pronounce correctly the first/last sound paying special attention to their surroundings. Then the teacher writes these words on the board, review the list with the students when they are finished.

For elementary age students teacher can start daily lesson plan with a verse of  some easy song. The first verse is at a slow / regular pace and the second verse, same as the first, students sing much faster, like a speed round, so children can see the sounds’  change in a rapid speech.

So, on the English Lesson, beginning-of-class warm up is a great way to start class and get students in an English-learning frame of mind.

 

2.2 Teaching correct pronunciation of words, with special attention to stress

 

A multi-syllable word has a prominent syllable. This is called a stressed syllable.

Stressed syllable is longer in duration, higher in pitch, and louder in volume [14, 30].

Duration is the primary attribute to the prominence of a syllable.

In English, multisyllabic words are most often stressed on one syllable only. There are exceptions like "blackboard" in which both syllables are stressed. Also, there are a few conventions. For most two-syllable nouns (approximately 90 percent), the stress is on the first syllable. For two-syllable verbs, the convention is (60 percent of the time) to stress the second syllable. However, in English, the stress can move on words that all come from the same basis. For instance, in photograph, photographer and photographic, the stress moves. Word-stress exercises can help students learn the rules. When a syllable is stressed, it is pronounced:

1. longer in duration
2. higher in pitch, and
3. louder in volume [1, 125]

The warming-up exercises can be devoted to the word stress training.

These exercises have a variety of forms. In one, a word is broken into syllables and the student must select the correct syllable to stress. In another, several words are provided as choices and the student might be directed to select the word that sounds different from the rest or might be asked which of the words does not rhyme.

 

two syllables design about          after

three syllables vanilla Canada graffiti

four syllables indifferent Arizona available

five syllables university cafeteria laboratory

Teachers can make up their own crosswords and mazes, putting them on paper to be handed out. In class, these can be done as assignments or, for fun, teacher can institute them as races where the first student to complete the crossword or maze correctly wins a small token prize. Teachers should be prepared to have several of these as handouts, as students will likely want a rematch to try again. To ensure other kids can win, perhaps winners should be excluded from following races.

As an additional assignment, it is useful to have a printout that comes from a passage in a book. The students should have room to mark the stresses on each word. For additional difficultly, teacher can add in lines from poems in which the stresses might be artificially altered.

In this test students mark the stressed syllable. Students should read aloud a lot to practice word stress.

photograph

• pho
• to
• graph