Nonnative speakers of a language are often at a disadvantage in producing extended speech, as they have differing native (L1) phonological systems and rhetorical traditions or little experience in giving talks. Prosody in the form of stress, rhythm, and intonation is a difficult but crucial area needed to master extended speech because prosody…

An ability for a speaker to unite (link) words or to separate (break, juncture) them with a pause in his utterance gives him a special advantage to convey his intended meaning to his audience. If he knows where to unite his words and where to pause between them in speech he is better able to communicate with his listeners, and his words are…

This engaging text clearly presents essential concepts that teachers need to guide their students toward clearly intelligible pronunciation and more effective communication skills. Based on a sound theoretical background, the book presents practical, imaginative ways to teach and practice pronunciation that go beyond simple "Repeat after…

Learning a foreign language is a critical skill in the current context of globalization and multicultural communication. Present secondary and post-secondary foreign language classes admit increasing numbers of students with learning disabilities (LD). Given the particular challenges faced by these students in the area of language processing,…

The greatest difficulty in reading Arabic script for nonnatives has long been considered as the absence of short vowels, however there is more to be dealt with. While the correlation of 28 Arabic consonants pose no great difficulty in deciphering the script, the six vowel phonemes voiced only by three letters even with help of some relevant…

Every language has its own rhythm. Unlike many other languages in the world, English depends on the correct pronunciation of stressed and unstressed or weakened syllables recurring in the same phrase or sentence. Mastering the rhythm of English makes speaking more effective. Experiments have shown that we tend to hear speech as more rhythmical…

Suprasegmental elements such as "stress," "pitch," "juncture" and "linkers" are language universals that are uttered naturally in the mother tongue without prior training but need to be learned systematically in the target language. Among other techniques of "sentential pronunciation teaching" to…

Songs and stories have a strong relationship to each other and have the capacity to boost brain development, increase vocabulary, and promote future academic success. The sounds and foundational structures of reading and singing provide young children with successful pathways for advancing language skills, increasing memory, and promoting emerging…

In second language learning, to possess a perfect pronunciation, the importance of stress and rhythm should not be ignored. This articles explores the nature of sentence and word stress as well as rhythm, thus putting forward some feasible ways of training and acquiring a good English stress and rhythm in EFLT (English as Foreign Language…

The language of sportscasting is analyzed in terms of register variation, first by locating the register by successive approximations to a characterization of occasions of use, then by identifying syntactic characteristics: simplification, inversions, heavy modifiers, result expressions, and routines. Sports announcer talk is described as a…

Presents various activities for use in the foreign language classroom. These include listening to songs to develop an awareness of intonation and rhythm, reading literature to learn the functions of relative pronouns, engaging in conversation to become proficient in a second language, and preparing a weather report to improve one's vocabulary…

After finding that the English Pronunciation course required at Regensburg University reduced errors by only 14 percent, a course was developed in recognizing errors (one's own and others'), with emphasis on vowel reduction, speech rhythm, elementary intonation and liaison. As a result, errors were reduced by 67 percent. (IFS/WGA)