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Tutorial Stress and Intonation

This document provides instructions and exercises for students to practice identifying word stress patterns in English. It includes activities where students must underline the stressed syllable in multisyllabic words, categorize words by stress pattern into two-syllable word lists, identify the stress pattern of words from number options, and mark the stressed words in sample sentences. The document explains that focusing on word stress helps students improve their pronunciation by making it sound more natural and "stress-timed" like English.

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TSL10621 NUR ADLEEN HUSNA BINTI AZMI
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191 views5 pages

Tutorial Stress and Intonation

This document provides instructions and exercises for students to practice identifying word stress patterns in English. It includes activities where students must underline the stressed syllable in multisyllabic words, categorize words by stress pattern into two-syllable word lists, identify the stress pattern of words from number options, and mark the stressed words in sample sentences. The document explains that focusing on word stress helps students improve their pronunciation by making it sound more natural and "stress-timed" like English.

Uploaded by

TSL10621 NUR ADLEEN HUSNA BINTI AZMI
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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TUTORIAL TASK - Word Stress Placement Exercise

ACTIVITY 1: Can you highlight, underline, or circle the syllable that will receive
the primary stress for each word of this list?

1. accessible 26. competitive 51. historical 76. potential


2. accomplish 27. conclusion 52. homogeneous 77. precious
3. accuracy 28. courageous 53. horrible 78. pregnancy
4. activity 29. courteous 54. impression 79. primitive
5. actual 30. criticize 55. likely 80. punish
6. actually 31. currency 56. likelyhood 81. quality
7. advantageous 32. democracy 57. majority 82. radical
8. ambitious 33. discussion 58. material 83. realize
9. analogy 34. efficiency 59. maximize 84. recognize
10. apologize 35. emergency 60. meaning 85. regard
11. apology 36. emphasize 61. meaningless 86. regardless
12. authority 37. essential 62. methodology 87. responsibility
13. authorize 38. event 63. militia 88. security
14. aware 39. eventually 64. minimize 89. sensible
15. awareness 40. expression 65. musical 90. sensitive
16. bacteria 41. finance 66. nostalgia 91. session
17. bibliography 42. financial 67. occasion 92. shampoo
18. biography 43. flexible 68. official 93. social
19. biology 44. frequency 69. opportunity 94. sociology
20. brother 45. furnish 70. organize 95. special
21. brotherhood 46. geography 71. person 96. specialize
22. characterize 47. happiness 72. personal 97. summarize
23. cigarette 48. happy 73. philosophy 98. suspicious
24. classical 49. heterogeneous 74. photography 99. television
25. community 50. hideous 75. positive
Activity 2: Put the words into the correct columns. Look at the examples first.
Add another 10 two-syllabled words of your own in each column.

( = stress on first syllable, = stress on second syllable)

autumn advice alone annoy attack cartoon

climate complains couple crazy Egypt employ

exam females final habit mirror police

rarely repair report revise useful witness

Column 1 Column 2

autumn advice
Activity 2: Practise saying the words in Column 1 and Column 2.

Activity 3: Pronunciation – Word Stress Activity

Identify the stress pattern that matches each word given below and write
the number in each blank.

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

7.

Word Pattern No. Word Pattern No.


object 1 export 1
opearte 5 character 5
systematic 6 conditional 7
geography 7 openness 5
friendly 2 tolerant 5
referee 3 refrigerate 7
ambitious 4 chemical 5
economic 7 scientific 5
science 2 reward 1
defence 1 technique 1
solution 4 malicious 4

Activity 4: Practise saying these phrases.

1. crazy habit 6. humid afternoon 11. employ females


2. cartoon network 7. rarely complains 12. attack Egypt
3. police witness 8. final exam 13. autumn alone
4. repair mirrors 9. crazy cartoon 14. rarely revise
5. climate report 10. useful advice 15. beautiful woman

Which word do you stress? Why?

It is often surprising at how focusing on the "stress - timed" quality of


English helps students improve their pronunciation skills. Students often
focus on pronouncing each word correctly and therefore tend to pronounce in
an unnatural manner. By focusing on the stress - timed factor in English - the
fact that only content words such as proper nouns, principle verbs, adjectives,
and adverbs receive the "stress" - students soon begin sounding much more
"authentic" as the cadence of the language begins to ring true.

Take a look at the following list of stressed and non-stressed word


types.

Basically, stress words are considered CONTENT WORDS such as

● Nouns e.g. kitchen, Peter


● (most) principle verbs e.g. visit, construct
● Adjectives e.g. beautiful, interesting
● Adverbs e.g. often, carefully

Non-stressed words are considered FUNCTION WORDS such as

● Determiners e.g. the, a, some, a few


● Auxiliary verbs e.g. don't, am, can, were
● Prepositions e.g. before, next to, opposite
● Conjunctions e.g. but, while, as
● Pronouns e.g. they, she, us

Mark the stressed words in the following sentences. After you have
found the stressed words, practice reading the sentences aloud.

● John is coming over tonight. We are going to work on our homework


together.
● Ecstasy is an extremely dangerous drug.
● We should have visited some more castles while we were traveling
through the back roads of France.
● Jack bought a new car last Friday.
● They are looking forward to your visiting them next January.
● Exciting discoveries lie in Tom's future.
● Would you like to come over and play a game of chess?
● They have been having to work hard these last few months on their
challenging experiment.
● Shakespeare wrote passionate, moving poetry.
● As you might have expected, he has just thought of a new approach to
the problem.

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