Teaching Word
Stress
… and how to not stress out about
it. Quick Tips for Teaching Word Stress
1. Emphasize the length of stressed vowels
2. Present sets of words with the same stress patterns
3. Pronounce new vocabulary so students can hear which syllables
are stressed
4. Use pronunciation spellings to develop students’ awareness of
how stressed/unstressed vowels are pronounced
5. Point out that unstressed vowels have a short, indistinct sound
regardless of spelling
6. Teach classes of words that have predictable stress patternsPrimary/Heavy Stress
What is it?
Why is it important?
“In a study comparing the length of stressed and
unstressed vowels, it was found that native-English
speaker’s stressed syllables were about four times
longer than their unstressed syllables, a large
difference.”
Anderson-Hseih and Venkatagiri, 1994, 809Primary/Heavy Stress
Matching or comparing stresssyllable patterns of words is
effective for building sensitivity to
patterns of stressed/unstressed
OcTOber
NoVEMber
DeCEMber
Rubber bands for a visualPrimary/Heavy Stress: Month Activity
What are the names of the
months? Seasons?
How many syllables are in
each name?
Which syllable is stressed in
each month?Primary/Heavy Stress: Month Activity
1. Which words have a stress pattern like September?
2. Which word has a stress pattern like January?
3. Which words have a stress pattern like April?
4. How many words have a stress pattern like July?
5. Which words have only one syllable?Primary/Heavy Stress:
Travel Trivia Activity
Where would you like to travel?
When would you like to go?
What’s the best time to travel? Why?
High season? Low season? Shoulder season?
When is the best time to travel? Why?
Practice stressing those long vowels!Primary/Heavy Stress:
Travel Trivia Activity
1. You want to go to South Africa. When is the shoulder season?
a. January to April c. October and November
b. Summer d. Winter
2. You want to go to Australia. When is the shoulder season?
a. Summer c. Spring
b. May to July d. OctoberPrimary/Heavy Stress:
Travel Trivia Activity
3. You want to go to Turkey. When is the shoulder season?
a. Winter c. July and August
b. March d. Fall
4. You want to go to Rio de Janerio in Brazil. When is the shoulder season?
a. February c. Summer
b. Winter d. September to DecemberPrimary/Heavy Stress:
Travel Trivia Activity
5. You want to go to Italy. When is the shoulder season?
a. Summer c. June and July
b. Fall d. January to March
6. You want to go to Mexico. When is the shoulder season?
a. June and July c. Fall
b. February and March d. WinterPrimary/Heavy Stress:
Travel Trivia Activity
7. You want to go on safari (a trip to see wild animals) in Kenya. When is the
shoulder season?
a. Spring c. June to September
b. February and March d. Winter
8. You want to go to Costa Rica. When is the shoulder season?
a. Summer c. Winter
b. July and August d. Mid-October to mid-DecemberFrom “Timeline of Lindberg’s Life” in Northstar Reading
and Writing: Introductory (Beaumont 2009, 135)Primary/Heavy Stress:
Reading and Vocabulary Activity
Welcome
Artificial
Animal
President
Protect
Environmentalist
Receive
Media
Kidnap
Factory
Invent
Cancer
In pairs:
• Group together the words that have
the same stress patterns.
• Syllables and stress
• Create sentences!Secondary Stress
What is the difference between
primary and secondary stress?
Pitch is lower with secondary
Secondary is often (but not
always) predictableSecondary Stress
- second word of compounds
EX: airport, office building (red– primary, blue– secondary)
- on the preposition in prepositional prefixes
EX: overlook, understand
- on some suffixes
EX: realize, childhood, attitude
- polysyllabic words with primary stress toward the end of the word (usually two
syllables in front of the primary stress to make it even)
EX: contribution, Japanese, capabilitySecondary Stress: Numbers “teens”
- before a pause, primary stress on –teen and secondary stress on the number
EX: He is sixteen. (red– primary, blue– secondary)
- before a word whose first syllable is stressed, primary stress on the number
and secondary stress on –teen
EX: Her cake has thirteen candles on it.
- when counting, primary stress on the number and secondary stress on –teen
EX: thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteenSecondary Stress: Numbers “tens”
- with –ty numbers, primary stress is always on the number and secondary
stress is always on the –ty
EX: sixty (primary – red, secondary – blue)
- the letter t: in –ty numbers, t is a fast d
EX: sixDy
- the letter t: in –teen numbers, t is a t
EX: sixTeenSecondary Stress:
Numbers Activity
• After having gone over the rules
for stress
• Don’t forget the d and t difference!
• Information gap in pairs with
turned backs
• Competition
• Switch for gradingTwo-Syllable Nouns and Verbs
- over 90% of two-syllable nouns are stressed on the first syllable
EX: MOther, KITchen, HUSband, TAble
- about 60% of two-syllable verbs are stressed on the second syllable
EX: rePEAT, oCCUR, adMIT, anNOUNCE
- a useful rule: stress is placed on the root syllable, or the last syllable of the verb is
stressed if it contains a long vowel or consonant cluster (has more letters)
EX: decIDE, contAIN, eleCT, distuRBTwo-Syllable Nouns and Verbs:
What’s in your bag?
3 column headings: Things in the
Room, Things in Your Pocket, Things
in Your Bag
Circle all two-syllable words
Nouns or verbs?
Where is the stress?
Can be turned into a guessing
game for pairsStress with Compounds
Compound nouns and
adjective/noun compounds have
primary stress (red) on the first
word and secondary stress (blue)
on the second
EX: graduate students, the White
House, railroad, hot dog
Phrasal verbs have the same stresspitch pattern
EX: the takeoff, my makeupStress with Compounds:
Which came first? Activity
Cell phones – iPods
Computer games – web sites
Laptops – desktops
Email – podcasts
Hard drives – flash drives
YouTube – Google
Conference calls – webcams
Heart transplants – liver
transplants
Fingerprinting – blood typingAbbreviations (and articles)
last letter always has the heaviest stress and highest pitch
EX: ATM (automated teller machine)
the – refers to a specific or known referent (the UN)
a/an – used with a nonspecific or unknown referent (an ATM)
No article – used when the abbreviation is a proper name (IBM)
Possessives – used when the referent “belongs” to an individual (his DOB)Abbreviations: Pronunciation and
Grammar Activity
1. _____ US is
2. _____ UK is
3. _____ FBI is
4. _____ CIA is
5. _____ IRS is
6. _____ IBM is
A. The tax collecting agency of the United
States government
B. The country located between Canada and
Mexico
C. The police force of the United States
government
D. A sovereign state that includes England,
Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland
E. The intelligence gathering agency of the
United States government
F. A large producer of computers and other
technologyAbbreviations: Pronunciation and
Grammar Activity
1. _____ UN is
2. _____ ETA is
3. _____ DOB is
4. _____ MO is
5. _____ ATM is
6. _____ VIP is
A. The time a flight is expected to arrive
B. “modus operandi,” a Latin term used in
police work for the method a particular
criminal uses in his crimes
C. An international organization that aims to
maintain world peace and solve world
problems
D. A machine that gives cash
E. The date and year a person was born
F. A very important personUnstressed Vowels
What are they?
Why are they important?
Dauer “argues that it is difficult to speak English at a natural speed without
reducing either the length or quality of unstressed vowels” (2005).
“Flege and Gohn suggest that learning to make a length difference between
stressed and unstressed vowels is a necessary precursor to vowel reduction”
(1989).Unstressed Vowels
•Shorter, softer (less loud), and pronounced at a lower pitch than
stressed vowels
•Most vowels in unstressed syllables are reduced to a centralized
vowel, usually an uh sound (most common sound in English);
sometimes i
•Emphasize and remind students that unstressed vowels can be
spelled with any letter in English but are still pronounced with an
uh or i soundUnstressed Vowels:
Disappearing Syllables
Which syllables are dropped or disappear as the unstressed syllables?
Aspirin Chocolate Evening Family
Temperature Vegetable Federal General
Interest Miserable Separate (adj) Every
Laboratory Beverages Favorite Comfortable
Naturally Practically Accidentally AwfullyUnstressed Vowels:
Disappearing Syllables
1. What are coffee, tea, sodas, and juice?
2. What’s a singular adjective that means “all”?
3. What do you take to get rid of a headache?
4. Where to scientists work?
5. What’s a word for “early night”?
6. Your mother, father, brothers, and sisters, - what are they?
7. What’s a word that means “the thing you like best”?
8. Broccoli, peas, carrots – what are they?
9. What’s a word that means “very”?
10. What’s a word that means “almost”?Unstressed Vowels:
Disappearing Syllables
1. State government is one level of government. What’s the highest level?
2. What’s a word that means “very unhappy”?
3. What’s a word for the money you earn on your savings?
4. What’s an adjective that means the opposite of “together”?
5. What’s a word that means the opposite of “on purpose”?
6. The weather report tells you about this.
7. What’s the opposite of “artificially”?
8. What’s the opposite of “specific”?
9. This is the traditional candy of Valentine’s Day.
10. This is how your favorite chair feels.Quick Tips for Teaching Word Stress
1. Emphasize the length of stressed vowels
2. Present sets of words with the same stress patterns
3. Pronounce new vocabulary so students can hear which syllables
are stressed
4. Use pronunciation spellings to develop students’ awareness of
how stressed/unstressed vowels are pronounced
5. Point out that unstressed vowels have a short, indistinct sound
regardless of spelling
6. Teach classes of words that have predictable stress patternsConclusion
Lengthened vowels in stressed syllables and shortened vowels
in unstressed syllables
Leads to clearer pronunciation
Next step is easier – natural English rhythm (alternation of
long and short or stressed and unstressed words)
Using words like compounds, where stress is predictable,
helps students avoid the serious pronunciation error of
misplaced word stress (leading to unintelligibility)Bibliography
Lane, Linda. Tips for Teaching Pronunciation: A Practical Approach. Edited by
H. Douglas Brown, Pearson Education, Inc., 2010.