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Date Posted: 25th June 2018
Pronunciation is often overlooked by English as a Foreign Language teachers, to the detriment of their students. Pronunciation is a vital element of speaking a language in terms of comprehension on the part of the speaker and the listener. Teachers often only consider sounds and accent when it comes to pronunciation. Just as important, though, is stress – both word stress and sentence stress.
When speaking, utilizing word stress incorrectly can lead to the listener mishearing or misunderstanding certain words – desert versus dessert, for example. As you can imagine, this can change the meaning of a sentence entirely. Even if the speaker is understood correctly, listeners may attach judgement to their consideration of the speaker as a result of their pronunciation. (As much as we like to give the benefit of the doubt to people, we have to accept this to be a sad fact of the world today.)
It follows that it is important to incorporate activities which deal with pronunciation, and stress in particular, in the EFL classroom. However, as a result of their reluctance to teach pronunciation, many teachers are not familiar with appropriate activities to teach word stress.
Here, then, are three activities to teach word stress.
Word stress tables
When dealing with word stress, it is beneficial to draw attention to the differences in stress patterns in word families. When dealing with a topic, choose a group of words which can easily be categorized according to their stress. For example, if you are teaching occupations, you can choose the following word families and their stress patterns:
Oo Ooo oOoo
photo photograph photographer
The students can complete the table in their notebooks or it can be done as a class activity by sticking the words on the whiteboard.
Stress Bingo
You are probably familiar with Bingo, so there should be no need to explain this simple game. For this version, the words in the Bingo grids can either be stress patterns (oO or oOo) or words which correspond to the same stress patterns as the words chosen by the teacher. In other words, the teacher calls out happiness, the students tick off Ooo or teenager.
Revision Extra
This activity works well to revise vocabulary that has been learnt recently in class. Write the vocabulary words you would like to revise on the board in a grid. Divide the class into teams. The teams take turns to choose a word. Then they have 2 minutes (or whatever time limit you want) to write the number of syllables and stress pattern of the word. They also need to pronounce the word correctly. To up the difficulty level, you can ask them to provide another word with the same stress pattern.
Word stress may seem like a simple, and even insignificant, aspect of pronunciation but it is crucial for accurate pronunciation and effective communication. When planning your lessons, don’t forget to include activities like these to practise word stress in the EFL classroom.
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Improve Word Stress – Exercises with Videos & Voice Recorders
Word Stress in English is one of the most challenging areas for many non-native speakers.
But there’s good news. This is mostly because people simply haven’t learnt what they need to know to master good word stress in English.
This page explains everything you need to know about English word stress. It will give you clear steps to follow to improve your word stress in the RIGHT WAY, starting from right now!
If you approach improving English word stress in the right way you will see your English clarity, stress and rhythm improve over a matter of weeks.
What is Word Stress in English? Every multi-syllable word in English has one stressed syllable. This syllable is slightly higher and stronger than other syllables. Word stress makes the rhythm of English. To speak clearly in English you need to use correct word stress.
Here are some word stress examples:
rePORT – the ‘PORT’ is the stressed syllable.
MEdical – the ME is the stressed syllable.
eXAMple – the XAM is the stressed syllable.
Let’s look at that more closely.
What Is English Word Stress (definition)?
In English, not every syllable of a word has the same amount of emphasis or stress. In every English multi-syllable word there are stressed syllables and unstressed syllables.
So, what do you need to know about stressed syllables?
There is one stressed syllable in every multi-syllable word in English.
The stressed syllable:
- is slightly higher in pitch (or tone)
- has a full vowel (in unstressed syllables the vowel is often weaker)
- does not change – it is always the same for that particular word (there are a few exceptions to this. Read more further down the page).
- gives a beat when it’s in a sentence.
Listen To Word Stress Examples
It’s likely you are already quite good at hearing word stress in English. You’ll be better at it than you think! You just probably haven’t paid much attention to it before. It’s time to start developing your ability to hear word stress.
The tricky part is hearing it in real speaking AND of course, making it in your own speaking. But it starts with listening!
Practise listening to word stress examples below.
It’s very important that you can hear the word stress, the up and down of the voice to mark the stressed syllable in English.
Listen below and then record your own stress with the voice recorder.
Listen to Word Stress Examples.
Click to listen to the native speaker.
Listen carefully to the pitch of the voice.
Can you hear that the pitch is slightly higher for the stressed syllable in each word?
You might need to play and listen a few times.
Why Is English Word Stress Important? VERY IMPORTANT : )
English speakers use the word stress you make to recognise the words you say.
Research shows that listeners rely A LOT on the pitch and rhythm of a word to recognise it.
So, when you make word stress that is different to what they are expecting, it can mean that they don’t understand it.
In other words if you aren’t using good word stress it gives your listener more work to do and it can result in them not understanding what you say easily.
So, “why is English word stress so important?”. Using good word stress in English is very important because listeners use it to recognise the words you say. To speak clear English that people understand easily, you need to use good word stress. This means putting stress on the correct syllable and using enough stress so your pitch is not too flat.
Better English word stress makes a person’s spoken English clearer and more engaging to listeners.
In English, the position of the stress can change the meaning of a word.
For example, ‘PROject’ with the stress on the first syllable is a noun, for example you might say “I FInished my PROject’.
If you put the stress on the 2nd syllable of ‘proJECT’ it is a verb. So you might say “This is our proJECted OUTcome”.
If you use flat stress, so a similar amount of stress on each syllable, it will be difficult for listeners to instantly recognise. Especially when there is background noise or other pronunciation differences too.
How To Improve Your Word Stress
Here are some clear steps to follow for improving your English word stress.
1] LISTEN FOR WORD STRESS.
The first step in all this is becoming better at hearing word stress. If you can’t hear it – you won’t be able to make it.
Pay attention to the up and down, or the pitch or tone of native speakers voices when they are speaking. The more you listen, the more you’ll pick up that they don’t use a flat tone or an even rhythm.
Their pitch rises slightly to mark the stressed syllables and this is what makes the rhythm of English. This takes some practise to hear.
Be patient but listen carefully and you’ll start to hear it more easily over time.
2] USE THE WORD STRESS EXERCISES & VIDEOS BELOW
Use the Word Stress Videos and Voice Recorders below. These videos will help you learn to hear English word stress and practise making better word stress. Hearing word stress can take time and practise – be patient and keep focusing on it. The more you practise and actively listen for word stress, the better you will get at hearing it.
With these word stress exercises and English word stress videos you’ll correct many commonly mispronounced words. Non-native speakers often put the stress on the wrong syllable in the words that are covered in these word stress videos.
3] KEEP ACTIVELY LISTENING AND PRACTISING
Keep thinking about and focusing on word stress in multi-syllable words and your word stress will keep improving. Each time you learn a new multi-syllable word, make sure you look at the IPA to check where the word stress is. See more on that below.
Some tips as you go through these English Word Stress exercises:
– DO focus on pitch.
– Do not aim to make the stressed syllable louder. This results in unnatural sounds speech.
– DO NOT look for short cuts. Develop your ability to hear it and then practise making it. Through building these skills and actively working on it and listening for it you will get a feel for the ‘music’ of English.
Word Stress Exercise & Video 1
occur, maintain, maintenance, strategy, strategic
Watch the video and practise out loud while focusing on the pitch / tone of your voice.
Pay careful attention to the one stressed syllable in each word. It’s higher and the other syllables are lower and weaker.
Then record your own word stress with the voice recorder on the right.
Watch the video on the left to practise: occur, maintain, maintenance, strategy, strategic.
Record the words while focusing on your pitch. It should rise slightly to mark the stressed syllable.
Word Stress Exercise & Video 2
capable, capacity, initiate, initiative and entrepreneur
Watch the video and practise out loud while focusing on the pitch / tone of your voice.
Pay careful attention to the one stressed syllable in each word. It’s higher and the other syllables are lower and weaker.
Then record your own word stress with the voice recorder on the right.
Watch the video to practise the words: capable, capacity, initiate, initiative and entrepreneur
Record the words while focusing on making good word stress. Your pitch should rise slightly to mark the stressed syllable.
Word Stress Exercise & Video 3:
purchase, promise, technical, technique, technology
These words are OFTEN mispronounced by non-native speakers. Watch the video and say the words out loud focusing on pitch / tone.
Pay careful attention to the one stressed syllable in each word. It’s higher and the other syllables are lower and weaker.
Then record your own word stress with the voice recorder on the right.
Watch the video to practise: purchase, promise, technical, technique, technology
Record the words while focusing on making good word stress.
Word Stress Exercise & Video 4:
establish, specific, stable, politics, political, politician
Many non-native speakers mispronounce these words. Check your stress and vowel sounds with this word stress video.
Pay careful attention to the one stressed syllable in each word. It’s higher and the other syllables are lower and weaker.
Then record your own word stress with the voice recorder on the right.
Watch the video on the left to practise the target words: establish, specific, stable, politics, political, politician
Record the words while focusing on making good word stress.
Why Is Word Stress So Challenging?
If you speak English as a 2nd language, English word stress can be challenging because:
1] it’s different to the stress and rhythm of your first language
and
2] you can’t tell where the word stress is by looking at an English word (by the spelling)
Here are some ways that English word stress is different to the word stress and rhythm of other languages.
In some languages, each syllable gets the same amount of stress. So they don’t have stressed and unstressed syllables like English does.
In some languages, there are stressed syllables but they aren’t important and don’t change the meaning of a word.
Some languages have stressed syllables but the stressed syllables are simply made longer, instead of higher in pitch like they are in English.
Many languages don’t have weak vowels like in English. English has stressed and unstressed syllables and the vowels in the unstressed syllables often become weak.
All these variations make word stress challenging for non-native speakers to master.
The word stress exercises and word stress videos above will help you improve and develop your English word stress.
English Word Stress Rules
Some teachers will try and teach you word stress rules. This is dangerous! While it will make you feel like things are easier it will simply result in mispronunciations.
I spend a lot of time correcting students that have learnt rules with a previous teacher – and those rules are resulting in mispronunciations.
Do not follow rules for word stress. Why?
Because the word stress is so variable in English. English has borrowed words from many other languages – that’s why our spelling and word stress is so variable. Trying to follow word stress rules is a bad idea.
There are literally thousands of exceptions and I have worked with countless professionals who are making mistakes because they are following a rule that they learnt at school.
The most common rule that people have learnt that leads to so many mispronunciations is that “the word stress is on the long vowel”.
No! English word stress is not always on the long vowel in English words. Here are just a few of the many exceptions – suburb, colleague, purchase. There are LOTS or exceptions and these are important, common words that you need to be pronouncing correctly.
If you try and follow rules – you’ll make mistakes.
I can see why people teaching beginner level English want to teach rules, but teachers who are teaching advanced level pronunciation to professionals should not be teaching word stress rules.
There is one way forward and that is to start to LISTEN! You are hearing the correct word stress around you all day, every day. You just need to start to pay attention to it and start to tune into it.
Trying to follow rules is a short cut to a dead end! Spending a week or so actively listening and really tuning in to word stress will give you the skills you need to improve and keep improving in the future.
Mastering word stress in English is an ongoing project. It takes time. The quicker you start to build your listening skills and paying attention to the stress around you and your own stress the better. That is what will help you improve word stress.
How do you find the Stress of a Word?
There are some important Dos and Don’t’s for checking which syllable should be stressed in a word.
Dos
Here are the best, easy ways to find out which syllable in a word is stressed.
1. Do Use Google Chrome Search.
Google Chrome Pronunciation Tool is another fantastic way to see and hear which syllable is stressed in English.
At the moment this feature is only available on your mobile phone (not on your computer browser yet).
To see this feature in Google on your phone, simply type “How to pronounce (word)” and enter the word you want to hear pronounced.
For example, if you type in ‘How to pronounce carrot’, you’ll see a screen like this.
On the right hand side you can choose between British English and American English. You can also choose to hear it in slow motion. While the mouth movements aren’t very helpful, the pronunciation is clear and the stressed syllable is clearly marked in bold type.
The downsides of the Google pronunciation tool is that it doesn’t use the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet).
2. Use The Cambridge Online Dictionary with the IPA
If you want to see the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) or if Google Chrome is not your preferred browser, you should use the Cambridge Online Dictionary. Here you can also hear the word pronounced in British and American English.
The word stress will be marked with /ˈ/ before the stressed syllable. See more on how word stress is marked in the IPA.
3. Do Use Your Ears and Do Repeat
The best way you can start to develop your English word stress is to use your ears. If you live in an English speaking country, you are hearing correct word stress all around you. Start to listen to it! One of the best and most important tool to improve your word stress is your ears.
Each time you look up a new word in a dictionary check, if it is a multi-syllable word you should pay attention to the word stress. Say it out loud 3 times using good word stress on the correct syllable.
DON’Ts
1] Don’t Ask Your Friends
Don’t ask your friends and expect the right answer. I’ve heard lots of non-native speakers ask other non-native speakers for help with word stress. This is risky business : )
Even if your friend has been speaking English for many years, many non-native speakers have problems with word stress.
Asking a native speaker is also risky. Unless they are an ESL teacher or English teacher most native speaker simply won’t know what you are talking about. Word stress is something that we just do, we don’t realise we do it and we don’t learn about it. Because of this, if you ask a native speaker they will likely guess and that can result in mistakes!
2] Don’t Use An Unreliable Dictionary.
I see SO many students using their Chinese dictionaries that have incorrect English pronunciation and word stress. This is a big problem!
I have even heard incorrect word stress on dictionary.com. So, please check the dictionary you are using to check it is reliable and correct. As mentioned, the google pronunciation tool or Cambridge Online Dictionary are both great free reliable tools to check your word stress.
Is Word Stress Always The Same? What Are Exceptions?
You might be wondering “Is English word stress the same in British English, American English, Australian English?”.
The answer is mostly yes.
In 99% of words, the word stress is the same in English spoken in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and so on.
That’s explains why it’s such a problem for listeners when you use word stress that’s different or too flat. They just don’t recognise it because for most words, we only ever hear it with one type of stress.
There are a handful of words where different stresses are used depending on what type of English you speak.
Here are some examples of these:
adVERtisement vs adverTISEment
PROtest proTEST
aluMINium aLUminum
GArage gaRAGE
The good news is that it’s OK to use either stress pattern as either way will be clear to most native speakers. Do you don’t really need to worry about too much about the variations across different types of English for word stress.
What is English Stress?
Stress in English is often called ‘syllable stress’ in English.
‘Syllable Stress is what makes the ‘music’ of English – it makes its rhythm.
English syllable stress is made up of two levels of stress – word stress and sentence stress. Word Stress happens in words (multi-syllable words) and Sentence Stress happens over a sentence. They work together to make syllable stress.
Summary – Why You Need to Think About Word Stress
Research shows that the emphasis and rhythm you use in English has a HUGE effect on how clear your English is to listeners.
Every English multi-syllable word has one stressed syllable. That syllable is slightly higher in pitch and has more emphasis than the other syllables.
When you put the emphasis on the right part of words in English, it means that your listener can instantly recognise it. Good word stress is essential for clear English.
Flat or incorrect word stress means that your English is very likely to be unclear.
Many non-native English speakers use word stress and rhythm in English that’s flatter than a native speaker or they put the stress in some words on the wrong syllable.
For many people, learning word stress and rhythm in English is very challenging.
It’s challenging too because you can’t tell by looking at an English word, where the stress should be. It can be on any syllable. Many non-native speakers bring the rhythm and stress pattern of their first language into their English.
We hope this article has been helpful to put you on the right path with improving your word stress and spoken English.
If you would like to speak to us about how our online courses can assist you with mastering word stress in English, please contact us using the form below, email at info@speechactive.com or call us on +61 411 295 828. Also you can chat with us on our website using our chat widget.
We look forward to hearing from you and helping you achieve clearer, more confident spoken English.
xx
Georgie
This course has made me realise the importance of awareness of how English should be spoken and which can be improved.
Awareness of the mouth and tongue movement, stresses on words and sentences are important elements in order to have clear English communication.
I have developed more confidence and improved fluency which further enhance my professionalism in my job and communication with all stakeholders.
I am very glad with my achievement with this course.
Cantonese Speaker , Admission Coordinator Australia
The best part about this course for me is that I think the information that is covered in this course is very detailed and, in particular, the contents are valuable and rarely available from other materials.
It gave valuable information that I did not know and that no one else could teach as clearly.
One example of this is word stress and the weak vowel schwa.
Hyun H
Korean Speaker , Perth Australia
I highly recommend this course because it explains in a very easy way the common mistakes of Spanish speakers – how to correct them and stress the words correctly.
This gives me more confidence and fluency.
I am now enjoying any conversation.
Mateo
Spanish Speaker , New York US
I really love all of this course. It covers all areas which are important but difficult for Japanese speakers.
In the past I acknowledged that I had problems but had no idea how to improve. This course showed me exactly how I need to pronounce these and gave me the right practice.
My English word stress was very flat. The course shows me how to change this and I still improve this everyday. I speak clearly now and people understand me more easy.
I highly recommend this course.
Masumi K
Nurse
Japanese Speaker, Perth Australia
English Pronunciation – Word Stress Exercises & Videos
by Georgie
Georgie Harding has assisted thousands of people from all over the world with improving their clarity and spoken English skills. A Speech Pathology degree (BAppSc(SpPath) and CELTA qualifications and over 15 years of experience providing 1:1, group and online training make Georgie a leader in her field.
Georgie is the creator the world’s leading English Pronunciation online courses that are tailored to the language background of the student and presents regularly at Universities.
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So the past few months, I have been focusing more and more on pronunciation for all levels of learners, no matter whether they are young learners or adult learners of English. Anyhow, I tried out a new lesson idea today which was partly inspired from the wonderful book, “Pronunciation Practice Activities“, written by Martin Hewings. I would recommend any teacher worth their salt to purchase this book, as it offers some great pronunciation lesson ideas which could be incorporated into class immediately.
Most teachers would identify word stress with the teaching of new vocabulary or as a technique to support pronunciation for problematic lexical items. This is all well and good but it reminds me of a teacher reacting to issues rather than proactively focusing on areas of language learning. Personally, if a teacher is able to develop a lesson based around pronunciation and developing learners’ awareness of pronunciation, so much the better. There is by no means anything wrong by reacting to pronunciation issues as they arise but I think it would be a nice change of focus when we remind learners that there are some basic principles that they can learn no matter how large or small the lexical item. Nevertheless, lets look at one lesson idea which is published in “Pronunciation Practice Activities“.
The key aim for the lesson it to identify words by their stress patterns and I first introduced this by writing the following on the whiteboard:
- photograph (Ooo)
- photography (oOoo)
I asked learners to tell me how many syllables there were in each word and I broke it down by underlining each syllable. Afterwards, I drew small circles above each to illustrate the syllable and then I elicited from students the stress location within the word, rubbed out the corresponding small circle and replaced it with a large circle – look at the stress patterns in brackets next to the words.
The next stage of the lesson was to draw a person, and I named this lady Sarah. I told the students that she travels a lot for business and that she has been several countries over the past few months on business. I wrote up a list of countries in random order on the whiteboard: Estonia, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, and Venezuela. I told students that they need to determine which countries she visited in order by matching it with the corresponding stress pattern. I then drew stress patterns numbered 1-8:
- Oo
- ooOo
- oOoo
- oO
- O
- ooO
- Ooo
- oOo
I put students into pairs and asked them to match the words to the stress patterns. I monitored the learners and afterwards elicited from the groups each country from 1-8. As I mentioned before, it was the first time that I tried this activity. It worked really well and the students enjoyed the change of pace.
What words related to ‘countries’ or ‘jobs’ could you write in the table?
As an extension, I decided to draw up a table on the whiteboard, asked learners to work again in pairs and write down some country names within the table (see the image of the table above). I elicited different country names and expected word stress patterns from the class and we all were drilling the pronunciation of country names. As a final activity, we looked at jobs and using the same word stress patterns. It was successful and the learners left the class with a smile on their face.
Finally, I had this idea which I will use in the very future: you could create a flashcard activity whereby students have to match vocabulary with the corresponding stress patterns such as with a flashcard game (pelmanism), calling out a word and having the stress patterns up on the whiteboard and students run up to the whiteboard and then try to grab it before the other team or just using different stress pattern cards and you call out a topic and go round the class, eliciting vocabulary related to the corresponding stress pattern. I could record a future lesson using some of these ideas, so you get a better idea on how you could use these ideas in a future lesson. Food for thought, hey?
Anyhow, over to you now! How do you incorporate word stress in the classroom? Do you have any favourite activities? How do you get learners more aware of word stress?
Updated on February 01, 2018
It is often surprising at how focusing on the «stress — timed» quality of English helps students improve their pronunciation skills. Students often focus on pronouncing each word correctly and therefore tend to pronounce in an unnatural manner. By focusing on the stress — timed factor in English — the fact that only content words such as proper nouns, principle verbs, adjectives, and adverbs receive the «stress» — students soon begin sounding much more «authentic» as the cadence of the language begins to ring true. The following lesson focuses on raising awareness of this issue and includes practice exercises.
Aim: Improving pronunciation by focusing on the stress — time nature of spoken English
Activity: Awareness raising followed by practical application exercises
Level: Pre — intermediate to upper intermediate depending on student needs and awareness
Lesson Outline
- Begin awareness raising activities by reading an example sentence aloud to the students (for example: The boys didn’t have time to finish their homework before the lesson began). Read the sentence the first time pronouncing each word carefully. Read the sentence a second time in natural speech.
- Ask students which reading seemed more natural and why it seemed more natural.
- Using the ideas students come up with, explain the idea of English being a «stress — timed» language. If the students speak a syllabic language (such as Italian or Spanish), point out the difference between their own native language and English (theirs being syllabic, English stress — timed). Just this awareness raising can make a dramatic difference in such students abilities.
- Talk about the differences between stressed words and non-stressed words (i.e. principle verbs are stressed, auxiliary verbs are not).
- Write the following two sentences on the board:
- 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.
- Underline the stressed words in both sentences. Ask students to try reading aloud. Point out how each sentence seems to be approximately the same length in «stress — time».
- Ask students to look through the example sentences and underline the words that should be stressed in the worksheet.
- Circulate about the room asking students to read the sentences aloud once they have decided which words should receive stresses.
- Review activity as a class — ask students to first read any given sentence with each word pronounced followed by the «stress — timed» version. Expect a surprise at the quick improvement students make in pronunciation (I am every time I do this exercise)!!
Another approach can help students improve their stress and intonation skills is sound scripting. Sound scripting has students highlight content words using a word processor. You can take it one step further with this lesson helping students learn how to choose the focus word to improve pronunciation.
This quiz on Content or Function Words can be used to help students test their knowledge of which words are function or content words.
Pronunciation Help — Sentence Stress
Take a look at the following list of stressed and non-stressed word types.
Basically, stress words are considered CONTENT WORDS such as
- Nouns e.g. kitchen, Peter
- (most) principle verbs e.g. visit, construct
- Adjectives e.g. beautiful, interesting
- Adverbs e.g. often, carefully
Non-stressed words are considered FUNCTION WORDS such as
- Determiners e.g. the, a, some, a few
- Auxiliary verbs e.g. don’t, am, can, were
- Prepositions e.g. before, next to, opposite
- Conjunctions e.g. but, while, as
- Pronouns e.g. they, she, us
Mark the stressed words in the following sentences. After you have found the stressed words, practice reading the sentences aloud.
- John is coming over tonight. We are going to work on our homework together.
- Ecstasy is an extremely dangerous drug.
- We should have visited some more castles while we were traveling through the back roads of France.
- Jack bought a new car last Friday.
- They are looking forward to your visiting them next January.
- Exciting discoveries lie in Tom’s future.
- Would you like to come over and play a game of chess?
- They have been having to work hard these last few months on their challenging experiment.
- Shakespeare wrote passionate, moving poetry.
- As you might have expected, he has just thought of a new approach to the problem.