Importance of Teaching Intonation

Pattern at Secondary Level

Objectives

The main objectives of this study are to

know the opinion of English Language

teachers about:

The importance of teaching intonation

patterns at secondary level

To discuss the functions of Intonation

To investigate the effective ways to

teach intonation patterns to our teachers.

Intonation

• A pattern of changing pitch during an utterance (a phrase, clause, sentence) to convey linguistic

information. The variations taking place in the pitch of the voice in connected speech.

• The pattern of changing pitch is perceived as the melody - falling or rising intonation.

Intonation Pattern

• The change of pitch starts on the tonic syllable and continues till the end of the Intonation unit.

You must be *VERY brave

Functions of Intonation1- Intonation can reflect the grammatical function of an utterance (i.e.

it is a syntactic marker: it may signal a phrase boundary, differentiae declarative statements from questions.

- She’s gone - She’s gone?" you want me to do it NOW?" “Do it now”

2- Convey an attitude or emotion or a mental state. That is, intonation signals speaker’s attitude toward what she is saying, i.e. to show excitement, enthusiasm, frustration, doubt, surprise, etc.

Great! Great! I didn't marry her because of her money.

"thank you“What? What? What?

Types of Intonation

• Falling Intonation: The pitch begins to fall on the accented syllable and it continues to fall till the end of the tone unit.

assertions, matter-of-fact statements

• Rising Intonation: The pitch begins to rise on the

accented syllable and it continues to fall rise till the end of the tone unit.

questioning, uncertain statements, continuation.

Falling Intonation

• Declarative statements I am going home • wh- questions Who will help?

Where are you going?

• Exclamations How beautiful! What a nice day!

• Imperatives Get out1

Turn the lights on!• Question tags when you expect an answer “Yes”.

The car is ready, isn’t it?

Rising Intonation

• Yes/no questions Are you feeling better? • Tag questions when we expect a negative answer or tags

intended as a genuine Yes/No answer. You like chocolate, don't you?

You have left the door open, haven't you? He usually arrives at NOON, DOESn't he?

• Statements to encourage the listener: Come on! You can make it. Come On! It won't take a minute.

• Yes-no questions in statement formhe is gone?

• Incomplete sentences (speaker intends to continue) If you wait here,…. Well if you are going to play,….

Suggestions for Teaching Intonation

1. T. must make sure that their students understand the stress patterns and weak forms.

2. T. must show learners the relationships between grammatical patterns and intonation (questions, statements), e.g. falling intonation for affirmative or WH. questions; Rising intonation for yes –no questions

3. Attitudinal intonation should be introduced contextually so that the learner can associate between the type of intonation and the spoken attitude.

4. It is necessary to produce intonation after native speakers model, tape recorder, computer and radio.