ANSWER: An essential part of English pronunciation is some basic awareness of syllabication and word stress. Our suggestion , "Let's Snap, Clap, Tap, Walk Syllables" is an activity for beginning/elementary level children, yet it can be used with all levels and ages of language learners. Learners can practice saying words and phrases in unison, while indicating on which syllable, within a word or phrase, the stress falls. We provide you with 4 ways to indicate or mark where the stress falls: Snap, Clap, Tap, Walk. Two additional silent options are (1) to move one's extended pointer finger downward in the air or (2) to underline the stressed syllables on a worksheet provided. You choose which way best suits you, your learners and their learning environment.
MATERIALS TO PREPARE:
1. Prepare a list on the board for you and your learners to see and follow. For example, the list could consist of the following words: "cupboard, door, cinema, window, radio, sweater, uniform, garden, forest, village, restaurant, important, expensive, square, farm, zoo."
2. With the same words, prepare and show an augmented version for the second round. Here the same words are contextualized with collocates in phrases or sentences: "our kitchen cupboard, the neighbor's back door, an open-air cinema, open the window, turn off the radio, I'm putting on my sweater., his military uniform, Please water the garden., deep in the forest, my grandfather's village, an Indian restaurant, not very important, a bit expensive, the central square, walk around the farm."
PROCEDURE IN CLASS:
1. Read out the words one by one, indicating by clapping, snapping, tapping a pencil on the desk or walking with exaggerated steps, the syllable which carries the stress. Once modeled, lead the learners to say the word and follow your example.
2. After you have lead them with 3-5 examples, call on pairs of children to «clap» a word’s syllables on their own. Once the pair has succeeded, lead the whole class in repeating and clapping the word again.
3. Follow the same procedure as in 1 and 2, using the phrases/sentences in the second list (the same words together with collocates).
AN ADAPTATION (for upper intermediate teenage or adult learners):
See this list of homographs (those pairs of words --one, an adjective or verb and the other, a noun) which have the same spelling, yet different meanings and pronunciations:
NOUN stress on VERB stress on second syllable
first syllable
content content
decrease decrease
desert desert
export export
insult insult
permit permit
object object
present present
project project
rebel rebel
record record
suspect suspect
transfer transfer
upset upset
First, send the learners on a monolingual dictionary search to look up and practice pronouncing each word of the pairs. As the stress falls on a different syllable for each of the paired words, encourage learners, while they are saying the words to 'mark' the stress by clapping or tapping.
As the next task, ask the learners to write pairs of sentences to illustrate the difference in meaning and parts of speech. Assign individuals or pairs of learners different pairs of words, so that, during report back, they may benefit from a 'peer learning' situation.
RATIONALE: Learners are engaged in sound and movement while working with the selected vocabulary items. Contextualizing these vocabulary items and, at the same time, marking the rhythm of speech, can aid the learner's memory and ease of oral expression.
Suzanne and Lilika
October 2017
