This article is based on materials originally used on our Delta Modules One and Two courses and discusses the following issues:
a) why intonation is often given less focus in courses than other aspects of phonology
b) why it is important for learners
c) how it can best be taught.
You'll notice that the first point made is that teachers often don't fully understand it themselves, and therefore don't feel confident teaching it. If you feel this describes you, you might want to improve your understanding by looking at the following post: An Introduction to Stress and Intonation. This explains the features stated below in more detail and provides further reading and practice activities to test your understanding. All technical terms are also explained in the ELT Glossary: Terms Connected with Phonology
Section a – Reasons for minimal focus
1. Intonation is a complex area which very few people completely understand – and that includes the majority of teachers. It is rarely included in basic training courses (and often given minimal emphasis in higher level ones). Various accounts of intonation have taken different standpoints (eg grammatical vs attitudinal analyses), adding to the confusion. Obviously, if you don’t understand an area you can’t teach it.
2. Many teachers and learners also have problems “hearing” intonational features. Learners may be unaware of the intonation used in their own language and, even if they can hear that there are differences from English, will have trouble analysing what those differences are. Whilst Ls can be shown with demonstration, mouth diagrams etc how to produce individual phonemes, it is impossible to “show” someone how to produce eg a rising tone. This means that teaching intonation can be time-consuming, and often more confusing than useful.
3. Many of our Ls will be learning English
as an international language, and their interlocutors may not use native
speaker intonation patterns either. Jenkins Lingua Franca Core suggests that
while tonic placement is important for intelligibility in EIL, features like
word stress and the exact pitch movement on the tonic syllable are not. This
suggests that intonational features can be downplayed for this type of learner.
Section b – Why it is important for learners
4. Some learners, however, are not learning for EIL purposes
but will need to speak to native speakers and therefore need to understand
how intonation is used to express meaning – for example to pick up on clues to
meaning given by contrastive and emphatic stress, as in
i)
A: Why did John say XXX? / B: JOHN
didn’t say that - which implies that someone else did, as
opposed to…
ii)
John DIDn’t say that, which implies the speaker is wrong or
possibly even lying, and…
iii) John didn’t say THAT which implies that the speaker is mistaken and John said something different
5. Learners who again need to communicate with native speakers and whose L1 intonation is very different from English intonation may risk being misinterpreted. This is true of eg Finnish speakers. Finnish uses mainly falling and level tones and this (combined with a general lack of facial expression) may lead to them sounding bored and uninterested when speaking English).
Section c – How it can be taught
6. The traditional method of teaching intonation productively is by repetition drilling of model sentences when the target language is introduced. Learners (like the Finnish speakers mentioned above) whose attitude may be misinterpreted due to their intonation patterns can be asked to say the sentences as if they are happy, sad, angry, bored etc. If they have problems the attitudinal intonation can be modelled by the T. possibly exaggerating it until they improve.
7. Similarly, if the T. hears a learner using intonation which is liable to cause misunderstanding during a PW/GW discussion, roleplay etc, this can be focused on in the follow up stage just as any other error might be. The problem can be explained, the difference in meaning or interpersonal effect of the appropriate intonation can be focused on, and this can again be practised by repletion drilling.
8. However, I would also suggest that Ls’ receptive competence in understanding NS intonational features can be taken to a higher level than their productive competence by incorporating focus on various features as subskills development when teaching listening. Brazil, Coulthard and Johns have proposed a discourse model of intonation which I find the clearest both for my own understanding and as a model to use when teaching. One element from their model which I have used in my teaching is to point out to Ls how a rise in pitch will indicate a change in topic. This would be useful for eg BE learners who need to listen to business presentations, but also all learners who want to listen to news broadcasts in English as they frequently start with a summarising list of all the items to be included in the broadcast. As the announcer changes to each subsequent item, the pitch of their speech will rise. For many learners this will not happen in their own language, they may miss the “clue” and it is therefore useful to draw their attention to it. As an English speaker listening to Italian news broadcasts (where it does not happen) I have frequently been misled into thinking a piece of information related to a previous one when, in fact, the announcer had changed topic. For example…
“Wild fires continue to rage in the area around Athens and 300 people have been evacuated from their homes. Two firefighters have died….”
Compare this with the same text, but which continues Two firefighters have died after a crash on the M1 involving an oil tanker and a...
The first version, with no pitch change on the second sentence, indicates that the firefighters died in the wildfires. In the second version, a rise in pitch on Two firefighters have died... shows that the speaker in no longer talking about the wildfires but has moved to a new topic. With my Italian learners, I therefore often use news broadcasts to bring their attention to this feature
9. The Brazil et al model is also useful for teaching tonic
movements. They explain the use of the four main tones as determined by whether
the information is new or shared, stated or queried. Thus:
New, stated = falling tone New, queried = rising tone
Shared, stated = fall rise tone Shared,
queried = rise fall tone
The tones can
be explained one at a time, then contrasted with another known tone and finally
brought together, using dialogues that exemplify them. These can be used
for presentation and repetition practice, or if the Ls have met them already,
they can be asked to predict the tones on underlined syllables and then listen
to check. The T can help with the “hearing” problem by using hand movements to
indicate the tonic movement as the recording is played.
For example, to
focus on the difference between fall (new, stated information) and fall rise
(shared stated information) a dialogue like the following can be used :
A: I’m going to PAris (fall) tomorrow.
B: Oh - I thought you were going to ROME. (fall)
A: No, I’m going to ROME (fall rise) next week
10. Although Ls can’t be shown how to make
the tones, visual help can be given – like the hand movements mentioned
above but also the capitalisation and underlining of the tonic syllable, and
arrows to indicate the pitch direction.
References
Brazil D, Coulthard M, and Johns C. 1980 Discourse Intonation and Language Teaching Longman
Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Further Reading
See here, here, here, here, here, and here.
