Intonation

Sentence stress is one element of intonation. Intonation is crucial for

communication. It's also a largely unconscious mechanism, and so, a complex aspect
of pronunciation. It's no surprise that many teachers don't feel confident about
tackling it in the classroom. When teaching grammar or vocabulary, we find ways of
making the language accessible to our learners. How then to do this with intonation?
Intonation is about how we say things, rather than what we say. Without intonation,
it's impossible to understand the expressions and thoughts that go with words.
Listen to somebody speaking without paying attention to the words: the 'melody'
you hear is the intonation. It has the following features:
1.

It's divided into phrases, also known as 'tone-units'.

2.

The pitch moves up and down, within a 'pitch range'. Everybody has their
own pitch range. Languages, too, differ in pitch range. English has a
particularly wide pitch range.

3.

In each tone unit, the pitch movement (a rise or fall in tone, or a combination
of the two) takes place on the most important syllable known as the
'tonic-syllable'. The tonic-syllable is usually a high-content word, near the
end of the unit.

4.

These patterns of pitch variation are essential to a phrase's meaning.

Changing the intonation can completely change the meaning. Example:
Say: 'It's raining'.

Now say it again using the same words, but giving it different meanings. You could
say it to mean 'What a surprise!' or 'How annoying!', or 'That's great!'. There are
many possibilities.
Intonation exists in every language, so the concept isn't new. However, language
learners are often so busy finding their words that intonation suffers. Yet intonation
can be as important as word choice - we don't always realise how much difference
intonation makes: awareness of intonation aids communication; incorrect intonation
can result in misunderstandings, speakers losing interest or even taking offence!
Though it's unlikely non-native teachers and learners will need native speaker-level
pronunciation, what they do need is greater awareness of intonation to facilitate
their speaking and listening.