Practicing prominence
Make models: Many of the methods that we used for word
stress can also be adapted to draw attention to prominent
syllables. Have students use beads, beans, or glass shapes
again, but this time each one will represent a whole word
instead of a syllable. Use a larger shape to represent each
prominent word. The picture below uses large and small
magnets to represent the sentence “We’re planning a picnic in
the park,” with one magnet for each word.
We’re planning a picnic in the PARK.
For a simpler exercise, have students place a marker only on
the prominent word in each thought group in written
sentences.
Rubber bands. While saying a sentence, have students
stretch a thick rubber band vertically on prominent syllables.
This emphasizes that the intonation (usually) goes up on that
syllable. If you’d rather not use rubber bands, substitute a
di"erent movement, like raising their hands on the
prominent syllable.)
Corrections: To practice using contrastive stress in
correcting false information have students work in pairs. One
student says a false statement, and the partner gives the
correct information, using appropriate contrastive stress. For
example:A: Sydney is in Austria.
B: No, it’s not in AUStria. It’s in AuSTRALia.B: There are eight days in a week.
A: No, not EIGHT days. There are only SEVen days in
a week.“Find the difference” pictures: This is another activity to
practice contrastive stress. Find or make two pictures that are
almost the same except for some details. The di"erences
should be easy to see—if you look at both pictures, the
di"erences should be obvious. Put students in pairs and give
a di"erent picture to each partner. Without looking at their
partner’s picture, students try to discover the di"erences
between the two pictures by telling each other about their
picture and asking each other questions. As they talk about
the di"erences, they should emphasize words that are being
contrasted or information that is a correction to a mistake.
(Celce-Murcia et al. 2010)166