AD-+ESSAY

If you are in a restaurant and the waiter asks you: “Would you like fish or red meat?”, what would you answer? Would you choose one of the options or would you say simply “yes” or “no”? Whether your answer is appropriate or not, it depends on the waiter’s intonation. This is an example of a common situation in which intonation influences the flow of a conversation. The meaning of an utterance and the intention of the speaker, for instance, also suffer influence of suprasegmetal features. That is why we as teachers should be more concerned about the intonation skills usually neglected by the traditional teaching. Although teaching intonation has its own difficulties, teachers should approach it as extensively as learners’ goals require and using various techniques, since the effectiveness of communication depends on a large scale on the appropriate use of this feature. As Dorothy Chun (1988) states, although some linguists and teachers have neglected intonation, this feature of the language is fundamental to language communication and it is a powerful tool for negotiating meaning, managing interaction and achieving discourse coherence. Communicative competence is not only the ability to formulate grammatically correct utterances, but also the ability to express interactional strategies and consider the social situation, the interaction between the speakers and the effect of an utterance on the interlocutor. Intonation is closely related to these last abilities mentioned. It can be used to highlight important elements, to express emotions or attitudes, mark role relationships of interlocutors and control their interaction, to distinguish syntactic type (statements vs. questions, for instance) and so on. This feature of the language cannot be forgotten while learning a new language mainly if having great oral skills is, for example, one of the learner’s objectives. Studying intonation is important and it makes the process of learning another language less frustrating for the students mainly in relation to oral communication. Not understanding, not being understood, or misunderstanding something a person says are very uncomfortable situations. If intonation is not taught or even considered while learning a language, learners may have difficulties in communication. One of the reasons for that is that they do not know that each language has established its particular social and intonational cues and they will probably use the intonation of their own native language which can rely on different set of cues of the target language. Even the meaning of an utterance can change if it is pronounced with different intonation. So, this feature of the language should be taught and its importance should be shown so that the students will be able to avoid communication problems. In addition to that, teachers should have a thorough knowledge of the English sound system in order to effectively address the oral skill needs of their students. Teaching any oral or suprasegmental characteristics of a language is not a simple task; teaching intonation is not different. Many teachers agree that intonation is important to be taught, but they do not teach it either because they do not know how they will teach it (appropriate techniques and exercises) or because they do not have enough knowledge of English intonation to teach it. Therefore, knowing how important this feature is, teachers should always try to look for information, take courses about it in order to learn, have ideas of good exercises and improve their knowledge. By doing that, teachers will be more proficient in the language and be prepared help their students in a more effective way. In order to present common intonation patterns to students, teachers must establish their own set of pedagogical priorities according to learner’s needs, and then develop activities for listening discrimination. Some variations in intonation and prominence are especially remarkable because of their extensive use in daily situations and the meaning they carry, or miscarry if the rhythm is misused. The most common examples are the specific intonation of tag-questions, and alternative questions, which can lead the learner to interpret closed-choice questions as open-choice. Celce-Murcia (1986, p. 192) gives a typical situation in which this can happen: “In restaurants, when asked if they would like blue cheese, ranch, or house vinaigrette dressing, learners may answer ‘yes’ instead of selecting from among the three options.” Evidently, how extensively a teacher may consider this sort of intonation patterns depend on the curriculum goals, the focus of the course, and student’s proficiency level. It is believed that in order to provide students with the basis to start practicing intonation, the concept of thought group must be highlighted, since each thought group has each specific intonation pattern. A thought group can be characterized by four main points: it is set off by pauses before and after, it contains one prominent element, it has an intonation contour of its own, and it has a grammatically coherent internal structure. Aiming the development of students’ listening discrimination, one suggested activity is eliciting the difference between two intonation patterns, e.g. rising intonation for yes/no question and raising-falling intonation for statements, and providing a set of sentences without punctuation, which they should complete after listening the teacher pronouncing the sentences. A very useful technique to teach stress, intonation and timing is by reading or reciting texts aloud, which can consist of passages or scripts that allow students to practice or memorize before reading them aloud. Tasks that involve controlled, guided and communicative practice, as highlighted by Celce-Murcia (1986), are commonly used for that purpose in a progressive row of activities. For a controlled practice, choral reading of simple dialogues can be very useful if the teacher guides the rhythm, stress and intonation, either by superimposing the contours over the written text on the board, or by using gestures to elicit the intonation during the oral modeling. A good example of guided practice involves “dramatic reading of literature excerpts” such as poems. For communicative practice the teacher may build up an activity that permits the students to be creative, for example making yes/no questions about their own house, paying attention to the usual intonation for that kind of question and its answer. This set of steps would give the student the opportunity of growing his own awareness of intonation patterns as the teacher moves from listening discrimination to communicative practice. Another strategy to encourage students to enhance their intonation patterns is to make recordings of their own production, which can elicit motivation as the students see their progress in this area. It can start with an activity named mirroring, or shadowing. After understanding a speech sample, e.g. a dialogue or monologue, and accompanying a fluent speaker reading the excerpt (maybe the material record), the learner record their voices reading along with the speaker trying to maintain the same rhythm, speed, stress, and intonation, assessing their own recording afterwards. A long term process that is also useful is recording the learner reading a passage from a book, poem, etc., or his authentic speech as he speaks about something that he is interested in. After a month, he may record a similar speech again, and after another month, do it again, and so on. At the final of a determined period, the student can observe his own progress as he compares the various recordings. This kind of practice is largely used in order to develop autonomy and self-confidence in the student – qualities that will be useful throughout his life. There are some new directions in the teaching of pronunciation, and one of them is the use of authentic material that can include children’s rhyme, advertisement slogans, and comic strips, which may give the teacher the opportunity to approximate the learner's reality to the learning in classroom. Advertisements usually use linguistic devices as alliteration and contrastive stress, which can be useful if the teacher is attentive to these opportunities of highlighting the importance of suprasegmental features. Some activities involving the reading of a poem, or other literary passage, can be largely used, especially if the teacher allows the students to choose from a list of preselected works, so that the student may identify himself with the passage that he will read out loud in front of the class. That kind of activity, if well planned, will give the student the opportunity to listen an audiotaped recording of the selected passage, or even to predict the intonation pattern of the excerpt. This is another kind of practice that enhances the possibility of acquiring the English rhythm as the student plays an active role developing his skills. Among the new directions in the teaching of pronunciation we also find the use of multisensory modes, namely visual and auditory reinforcement, tactile reinforcement, and kinesthetic reinforcement, all of which creating significant opportunities to decrease students’ inhibition and reluctance when practicing the target-language. The visual reinforcement is largely used in the traditional method and in the Silent Way, for example, and consists of charts, diagrams, flashcards, wall charts, and so on. The auditory reinforcement, or aural mode, can be a tool for expanding the simple “listen and repeat” drills, being used as a memory peg. A memory peg is a mnemonic device when the sound of a moving train (choo, choo, choo, choo) is used to remember the student the sound of /tʃ/, for instance; a set phrase can also be used as a peg. The tactile reinforcement is made through the sense of touch, for example, when the student puts his hand on the throat in order to perceive if it is vibrating or not. Among the items that can be creatively used by the teacher are matches for demonstrating the puff of aspirated consonants, rubber bands for differences in vowel length, and mirrors for making possible the awareness of mouth and tongue position while the students produce sounds. Body movements and hand signals are used in the kinesthetic reinforcement if the students trace intonation contours with arms and fingers extended in front of them as they pronounce an utterance. Acton (1991) suggests a more radical kinesthetic activity: the “poetry in motion” makes the students use their bodies according to the thought groups as they recite a poem. The use of jazz chants is particularly suited to the practice of suprasegmental features of English, since they need the right rhythm to be sung. If the teacher is attentive to the opportunities to use different reinforcements with the students the possibilities are innumerable, being the teacher responsible for expanding his horizons and applying his knowledge to his own reality inside each specific group of learners. The teaching of English language is often divided into the four skills. The interaction between these skills is what will ensure a better learning and development of a second language. Since intonation takes an important role on communication, educators may teach this English feature not only in pronunciation classes, but also in reading, listening and grammar classes. It is undeniable that students try to follow their teacher stile of pronunciation, which means teachers must be attentive to how they use intonation. Educators who teach this feature only in pronunciation classes can miss the opportunity to improve student´s self correction of pronunciation. As intonation interferes on the meaning of what is said, it may be taught on the first levels of the English learning.Some specialists on this area believe that intonation is not as essential to communication as other aspects of the language, so this feature, in some cases, is not well taught. We must be aware that it is at the beginning when learners are acquiring the main rules of the language. It means that on this level, it is easier to make changes on their perception of the sounds and how it affects the real purpose of what is intended to be transmitted. Moreover, intonation is closely related to speakers’ attitudes; it can prove for example if he is telling the truth or not. Having all these points in mind, it is easy to come to the conclusion that teachers should be concerned about the importance of intonation in order to enhance students’ communicative abilities, and also be able to intertwine this feature of the language with the four main skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. As to approach the teaching of intonation appropriately, teachers should know the learners’ needs, goals and difficulties. Getting better acquainted to what motivates the student and showing them the functions of intonation with dynamic techniques is a way to make the learning process more effective. Only by studying deeply the English sound system can teachers learn and use the techniques aforementioned, in a way that they improve their own performance while the learners are given the essential tools for an effective communication.