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Letter of intentions

Dear reader,

The topic chosen by our group is teaching English intonation. We chose this topic in the essay because we agree that in general this aspect of the language is not well developed in English courses. In our opinion, intonation is a very important feature to be taught to foreign students but it depends what is the goal of the learner. Although this may be most of the times not intended, it might cause confusion in the meaning of the sentences produced and also it sounds strange not only to native speakers’ ears, but to speakers from other languages.  The essay will be directed to non-native teachers, and it will address why they should learn more about English intonation, the importance of this feature, and different ways to approach it in the classroom. By this means, the teachers will be encouraged to give more attention to this significant feature that is usually forgotten. We have already read some texts about intonation for our previous subjects, one example is the book //Teaching Pronunciation// by Celce-Murcia (1996). However, we feel that there is a lot more reasearch to be done. We intend to research academic sources as well as online sources in order to, not only expand our knowledge on this subject, but also to have more arguments to support our opinion. Our intended outline for the essay is to introduce the topic with a brief explanation of what intonation is and the main theories related to it. While developing the essay, we will try to answer three questions: Why should we teach intonation? When should learners start to learn it? How should teachers approach it? We hope that this letter of intentions encourages you to read our essay and that our essay achieves our objectives in an effective way.

Yours sincerely,

Andredina Dathalo

Another option:

Dear reader, The following essay you are about to read will cover the teaching of English Intonation to foreign learners. The intention of this text is to bring awareness of a topic that, in spite its great importance, is not well covered.

The use of a good intonation is necessary as it plays a great role on comprehension and, therefore, it facilitates communication. However, many teachers of English as a second language (ESL) are not well prepared to teach or even use it properly.

The essay will cover three main topics of the teaching process: Why, when and how it should be taught. It will be directed to non-native teachers, and it will address why they should learn more about English intonation, the importance of this feature, and different ways to approach it in the classroom. By this means, the teachers will be encouraged to give more attention to this significant feature that is usually forgotten.

To write the essays, many academic sources were used. Researches have been done and some of the references used are Celce-Murcia’s book - //Teaching Pronunciation////, and articles written by Ufomata, Ranalli, Chun, Atoye, among others.// We hope that this letter of intentions encourages you to read our essay and that our essay achieves our objectives in an effective way. Yours sincerely,

Andredina Dathalo