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MA Programme: MA in Applied Linguistics and English Language

Teaching

Student number: 1513872

Module title: Linguistic Analysis Phonology
Essay title: What are the main challenges of teaching intonation to
secondary school students? What features would you prioritise for
teaching and why? Illustrate your answer with examples from
groups of learners you are familiar with.
Word count: 3416

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1 Introduction
The teaching of pronunciation has an important purpose of enabling learners to
communicate with clarity. In the teaching of pronunciation, it could be observed that
more resources and teaching are given to the segmental features of speech. Even
though suprasegmental features are important for its communicative value, they are
largely unaddressed by teachers. In particular, teachers find it challenging to teach
intonation systematically such that learners are able to use it successfully on their
own. It has been generally raised (Underhill 2005, Roach 2008) that past attempts by
writers to present a complete set of rules for intonation could not be successfully
adopted for teaching and learning because of its varied possibilities in occurrences.
Recent work by Jenkins (1997) offers an approach to teach relevant components of
intonation to achieve intelligibility in all contexts, which is more crucial in todays
context of interpersonal communication. In this paper I will examine whether
teaching relevant components of intonation is a workable solution to the difficulties
faced by teachers. I will first begin by establishing the key components and functions
of intonation and give an outline of the challenges of teaching intonation. Then I will
move on to a discussion of my teaching practice in the areas of student profile,
syllabus requirements and key challenges. Finally, based on some pedagogical
considerations, I will propose specific components of intonation which could be
taught with the target learners. I will conclude with a recommendation to review the
selection and design of teaching materials to help learners develop the skills to make
appropriate intonation choices.

2 Background
2.1 What is involved in intonation?
2.1.1 Definition of intonation
Intonation is generally referred to as the melody in speech which consists of
different tones. Dalton & Seidlhofer (1994) and Underhill (2005) refer these different
tones to pitch variations which occur in utterances. More specifically, Cruttenden

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(1997) and Wells (2006) describe intonation as involving the use of various pitch
patterns to communicate meaning.
2.1.2 Key components of intonation
In the study of intonation, the following components are used to describe the pitch
patterns that occur in speech:
a) Tonality
In a single utterance, a speaker breaks up the information into intonation
phrases or tone groups. According to writers such as Dalton & Seidlhofer
(1994) and Wells (2006), these chunks are considered as a form of the
speakers organisation of what he says. More significantly, these chunks
reveal the speakers intended focus in his message.

b) Tonicity
Pitch movement in each tone group is centred on one syllable which is
accented and given more prominence. It is generally agreed (Dalton &
Seidlhofer 1994, Wells 2006) that the last accent in an intonation phrase is
known as the nucleus. Tonicity or nucleus placement enables the speaker to
bring out the most important parts of the message and direct the listeners
attention.

c) Tone
In general, the tonic syllable is associated with three basic pitch changes -
fall, rise and fall-rise. Roach (2008) describes a set of generalisations of the
functions of tones used in English in a limited context of the words yes and
no used as a single utterance. For example, he generalises the fall tone as a
neutral response to a question or to convey a sense of finality. (ibid , p.123)
However, he acknowledges that this is an inadequate description of
intonation patterns to convey meaning because in reality, they are complex
and encompasses several other variations of pitch changes.

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2.1.3 Functions of intonation
In this section, I will give an overview of how intonation is used to convey different
kinds of information. Crystal (2010) lists six functions of intonation while Roach
(2008) presents four key functions: attitudinal, grammatical, accentual and
discourse. Although the terms used are different, the functions described are
fundamentally similar. I will thus refer to the four functional categories described by
Roach (2008).

Intonation performs an attitudinal function where pitch movement is used to
express attitudes and emotions in speech. Roach (2008) describes some broad and
common generalisations like the use of the fall tone to express a sense of finality or a
rise tone is usually used to indicate a question or to be encouraging. But writers
(Jenkins 1997, Roach, 2008) generally agree that pitch movement is very subjective
and is dependent on the context. Therefore, it is not recommended for teaching in
the classroom.

The grammatical function of intonation helps the listener to identify grammatical
units like phrases, clauses, sentences or sentence types such as questions or
statements in speech. Roach (2008) points out that the placement on the tonic
stress helps the listener to make sense of the information and interpret the intended
message accurately. For instance, two possible meanings can be derived from the
sentence below when the tonic stress is applied differently.

(a) | I saw |a man on the cliff with a telescope.|
Meaning: The speaker caught sight of a man standing on a cliff holding on to
a telescope.
(b) | I saw a man on the cliff |with a telescope.|
Meaning: Using a telescope, the speaker saw a man on a cliff.

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The accentual function of intonation is used to highlight the part of the utterance
that contains new information or foreground a specific part that is deemed to be
most important for the listener. This is illustrated with the example (c).
(c) |I would like some apple pie.| (instead of cherry pie)

Moving on to a larger context of interaction, the discourse function of intonation is
used to organise information in utterances to bring the key parts of the message into
sharper focus. Writers describe (Underhill 2005, Roach 2008) that typically a falling
or proclaiming tone is used to indicate information that is new to the listener, while
the rising and fall-rise tone, also referred to as the referring tone, indicate
information that is already known to the participants of the conversation.

They also state that the discourse function is used to regulate conversation turn-
taking. Certain tones indicate to participants in a conversation the appropriate
response that is expected. For instance, a rise tone in a question tag generally
indicates a response of agreement from the listener.

Although these functions of intonation are important, it is generally agreed (Dalton
& Seidlhofer 1994, Underhill 2005, Roach 2008) that teachers find it challenging to
teach it systematically so that learners are able to make the appropriate choices. In
the next section, I will discuss the challenges of teaching and learning intonation
generally and the components of intonation that experts argue cannot be taught.

2.2 Challenges of teaching intonation

Criticisms have been raised on the attempts made to come up with a set of
generalisations that adequately describes all aspects of intonation. The attempt at
describing the complexities of intonation raises the question of how practical can the
rules be used for teaching and if the rules are learnable. (Underhill 2005, Roach
2008) Another difficulty posed to teaching intonation is the way it is presented in
textbooks. Cauldwell and Hewings (1996) raise the issue of the inadequacies in
textbooks rules on intonation. They highlight the limitations of the rules in the

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coverage of intonation choices and its use in language as a whole. Furthermore, the
rules do not help learners to be able to relate the choices made in intonation in
actual interaction. Underhill (2005, p.75) aptly sums up teachers difficulty with
teaching intonation that the nature of intonation is somehow less perceptible and
less tangible than other areas of language. This makes it harder for teachers to
confidently provide learners with clear explanations of the use of intonation that
could be generalised for a range of contexts.

The challenges faced by teachers are backed up by the view of writers that some
components of intonation cannot be taught. Jenkins (1987) argues that it is
impossible to teach all aspects of intonation formally and suggests that some
components like the attitudinal, grammatical and discourse functions of grammar
are more likely developed through exposure to the language over time. According to
her, the general consensus among intonation experts is that the expression of
attitude and emotions is subjective and it is closely tied to context. Roach (2008)
provides an additional perspective that paralinguistic features are also a part of the
communication process and thus, a decontextualized teaching of intonation is not
helpful to learners. It is generally recommended that it would be more feasible to
help learners acquire it through exposure to actual authentic interactions. (Jenkins,
1987, Roach, 2008, Rogerson-Revell, 2011)

3 Main challenges of teaching intonation in my teaching

context

In the previous section I have described the main components of intonation and the
challenges of teaching it. I will proceed to discuss the specific concerns of teaching
intonation in my teaching context. These will be examined in the areas of student
profile, syllabus guidelines and assessment criteria, and the shortcomings in current
textbooks and teaching approaches.

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3.1 Description of my teaching context

3.1.1 Students language profile
Although English is the medium of instruction in Singapore, the majority of students
are more familiar with speaking a local variety of colloquial English, commonly
known as Singlish, or Singapore Colloquial English (SCE). In the aspect of prosody,
SCE is recognised by the lack of an apparent nucleus and a clear pattern of
intonation. (Rubdy, 2007) Learners who are not proficient or lack exposure to SE, are
not fully aware of SE intonation patterns. Thus, this is an area of concern to be
addressed for teaching, which will be explored in Section 4.

The next part of the discussion on my teaching context will look at the common
threads found in the English Language syllabus and assessment criteria that are
specific to the teaching of intonation.

3.1.2 Syllabus guidelines and assessment
A common thread in the syllabus guidelines and the assessment criteria is the ability
to apply speaking skills appropriately. The idea of appropriacy is closely tied to
awareness of purpose, audience and context. (Ministry of Education (MOE), 2010,
Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board, 2014) High importance is given to
the learners demonstration of this ability. The top band score in the assessment
criteria in the Reading Aloud component is awarded for evidence of full awareness
of context. (University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate and Ministry of
Education, 2011) There are specific guidelines indicated for teaching intonation and
it is broken down into components like pace, volume, tone and stress (word and
sentence). (MOE, 2010) As articulated in the assessment guidelines, these
components should be used appropriately together to convey the message
meaningfully.

A brief survey of the syllabus guidelines and assessment criteria in this section serves
to highlight the need for learners to develop the ability to understand the context of

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the interaction and then make the necessary choices for meaningful interaction. This
also forms one of the pedagogical considerations which will be discussed in Section
4.1.2.

3.2 Challenge (1): Inadequate coverage of intonation in textbook

In this section, the evaluation of textbook and resource material for teaching
intonation is based on the textbook, All About English (Sandra-Segeram et al. 2010),
adopted for the learners in my teaching context.

The lack of coverage on intonation in the textbook is one factor that accounts for the
difficulties that I have teaching it. Word and sentence stress is briefly addressed
through single word examples and isolated sentences. The only guideline given to
learners on how words are stressed is a brief explanation that content words are
usually stressed in sentence. However, Roach (2008) points out that this is not the
same as giving prominence to the tonic syllable in a tone unit. Key components like
tonality, tonicity and tone are not covered in this textbook.

3.3 Challenge (2): Current teaching approaches for intonation

There is no systematic teaching approach for intonation is put in place in my
teaching context. I avoid teaching it explicitly because there is no usable set of
generalisations on intonation to work with. I rely on my intuitive understanding of
intonation and demonstrate it for my learners, mostly just in passing to get them to
notice it. Instead, I focus on common segmental errors to achieve overall accuracy
and clarity. Even so, when compared with the other language skills, speaking is given
very little focus in the school syllabus. The bulk of the time is devoted to reading and
writing skills. At best, speaking is taught just-in-time for a speaking task or
semestral assessment.

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4 Implications for teaching

4.1 Pedagogical considerations
The recommendations of the features of intonation that would be prioritised for the
learners in my context are done with two points in mind. Firstly, the selected
features can be taught and learnt. Secondly, undergirding the teaching and learning
process must be the deliberate consideration of purpose, audience and context.

4.1.1 Teachability and learnability
Researchers recommend that the selection of items for teaching should be made
with considerations of what could be realistically taught in the classroom and
eventually result in learning. They argue that due to the complex and subjective
nature of some components of intonation, some aspects are not teachable and are
better left to be acquired through exposure out of the classroom. (Dalton &
Seidlhofer, 1994 and Jenkins, 1997) Taylor puts it succinctly that teachers should
focus on aspects that could be presented clearly and understandably. (Taylor,
1993, cited in Jenkins 1997 p. 16) In other words, these selected items should be
teachable and learnable.

4.1.2 Purpose, audience, context undergirding choice of intonation
The importance of considering purpose, audience and context in the learners choice
of intonation was established earlier in the discussion in Section 3 on the students
language profile and syllabus guidelines. It underscores the fact that intonation plays
a communicative role in conveying the intended message accurately and at the same
time, is employed by the speaker to achieve the desired effect on his listener. Hence,
it is vital that explicit teaching of purpose, audience and context should precede the
presentation of the features of intonation. Subsequently, it should be reinforced and
revisited during teaching in the context of the intonation choices made by speaker in
the examples presented for teaching.

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4.2 Features prioritised for my teaching context

Drawing from the considerations of teachability and learnability, and the learning
needs from my context, I will propose to teach two key features: nuclear stress
placement and word grouping. In this section, both features will be discussed with
reference to a sample text (Kranji Secondary School, 2014) used for the Reading
Aloud component in oral skills practice. (Refer to Appendix A)

4.2.1 Nuclear stress placement
Jenkins (1997, 1998) recommends that nuclear stress placement is a component of
intonation that can be taught and learnt is. She agues that it is crucial for mutual
intelligibility. It could be taught systematically through simple rules and there are
fewer exceptions for the learner to consider. Nuclear stress placement or tonicity
plays an important role in highlighting vital parts of the message for the listener.

4.2.1.1 Tonicity for narrow focus
I will explicitly teach learners the function and effect of giving prominence on key
words to direct the listeners attention to specific information based on purpose and
context. When done correctly, it has the effect of engaging and influencing the
listener. On a larger scale of the overall communicate intent, it will achieve the
speakers intended effect on the listener. What will feature constantly in
identification of the word for nuclear placement, will first be the consideration of
audience, purpose and context. For instance in the sample text, the context can be
identified from the preamble of the main text.

Two possible examples from the sample text can be used to illustrate nuclear
placement for a narrow focus:
a) Paragraph 1: |But why exactly | do we commemorate Earth Day?|

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Placing the nuclear stress on the word why in the intonation phrase (IP), signals the
speakers intent to provide the reasons for commemorating Earth Day. It also has
the effect of directing the audience to listen out for the reasons.

b) Paragraph 2: rising sea levels, | intensifying storms | and more violent
hurricanes. |
I
n example (b), accenting the highlighted words serve to convey specifically the
deteriorating state of the earth and it enables the speaker to convey a sense of
urgency to persuade the listener.

4.2.1.2 Tonicity for old and new information
Another aspect of tonicity that I would teach my learners is to accent new
information because it will make clear the new information that the listener needs
to pay attention to. This is important for learners in my context since they do not
have a habit of accenting their utterances.

c) Paragraph 5: take something that isn't useful anymore | and make it into
something new ...

The word make is accented and the rise tone helps to indicate an alternative to the
listener to help save the earth. It is foregrounded as new information as it is
probably not the usual practice that the listener is not accustomed to.

4.2.1.3 Tonicity for contrastive focus
When two ideas are contrasted, speakers need to accent the appropriate words to
draw attention to the contrast. This is key for the message to be conveyed
accurately. It is easy for the learners to understand and apply the straightforward
rule of placing the nucleus on the last content word of the utterance.

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d) Paragraph 7: when you refuse to re use, | its our Earth you a buse.
The example from paragraph 7 can be used to demonstrate how this contrast is
made. It should be reinforced that placing the nucleus on the last content word of
the IP containing the opposing idea emphasises the seriousness of the situation
described by the speaker. This is key to influencing the listener to make a choice to
be more environmentally friendly.

4.2.2 Word grouping
One aspect of intonation that Jenkins (1997) recommends that it should be taught
for productive use is word grouping. She describes word grouping as the manner in
which utterances are grouped into smaller chunks of speech with at least one
nuclear syllable in each chunk. It is useful for my learners because it will enable them
to organise and present their utterances in ways that are accurate to the message
intent and assist the listener to process the information. She also suggests teaching
word grouping receptively because there is a higher probability that the skill is
acquired through exposure. As such, getting learners to notice it through classroom
activities would help them to acquire it more easily.

To help my learners understand word grouping, I will begin with getting them to
notice and describe how it is applied appropriately in some sample utterances like
speeches or presentations made by students. Although their initial observations of
word groups could be associated with grammatical units like a phrase, clause or
sentence, or even marked by punctuation, I will include examples where the tone
unit boundary does not coincide with the syntactic boundary. Instead, I will show
them that word grouping is organised by individual tone units, each containing the
tonic syllable.

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e) Paragraph 1 - Each year, | on A pril 22, | many of us wish each other | Happy
Earth Day without really understanding the reason.
f) Paragraph 2 Experts estimate | that we are losing 137 plant, | animal |and

insect species | every single day.

The examples above illustrates how when nuclear stress placement is applied
correctly together with word grouping, serves to organise information and
meaningfully for the listener.

5 Conclusion
The discussion above explores the challenges of teaching intonation to secondary
school students and proposes some components that can be taught and learned in
the classroom. Until we can find a set of workable and usable set of generalisations
for intonation, it is perhaps practical to adopt a teaching framework that trains
learners to consider purpose, audience and context in relation to intonation choices.
Starting learners off in this direction and then teaching and exposing them to some
simple generalisations of components of intonation will enhance their abilities to
narrow down and make the appropriate choices. For this to be workable, the
selection of resource material in textbooks and for classroom teaching should be
reviewed to present familiar contexts and appropriate communicative purposes that
the target learners can identify with. This will provide a more manageable scope for
teaching simple generalisations and for learners to practise making the appropriate
choices for effective communication.

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References

Cauldwell, R. and Hewings, M. 1996. Intonation rules in ELT textbooks, ELT Journal,
50(4), pp. 327334.

Crystal, D. 2010. The Cambridge encyclopedia of language (3rd edition). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Cruttenden, A. 1997 Intonation (2nd edition). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Dalton, C. & B. Seidlhofer 1994. Pronunciation in Scheme for Teacher Education.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jenkins, J. 1997. Teaching Intonation for English as an International Language:
teachability, learnability and intelligibility. IATEFL Speak Out!, 21, pp.15-25.

Jenkins, J. 1998. Which pronunciation norms and models for English as an
International Language?, ELT journal, 52(2), pp.119-126.

Kranji Secondary School. 2014. Reading aloud text

Ministry of Education (MOE). 2010. English Language syllabus 2010. Singapore:
Curriculum Planning and Development Division, MOE. (accessed: 03/01/2016)
http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/syllabuses/english-language-and-
literature/files/english-primary-secondary-express-normal-academic.pdf

Roach, P. 2008. English Phonetics and Phonology (4th edition). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Rogerson-Revell, P. 2011. English Phonology and Pronunciation Teaching. London:
Continuum.

Rubdy, R. 2007. Singlish in the school: An impediment or a resource?, Journal of
Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 28(4), pp. 308324.

Sandra-Segeram, C., C. C., Tiang & C. L., Peng. 2010. All About English. Singapore:
Pearson/Longman.

Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board. 2014. 1128 English language GCE O
level syllabus for 2016. Available at:
http://www.seab.gov.sg/content/syllabus/olevel/2016Syllabus/1128_2016.pdf
(accessed: 03/01/2016).

Underhill, A. 2005. Sound Foundations Learning and Teaching Pronunciation (2nd
edition). Oxford: Macmillan Education.

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University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate and Ministry of Education.
2011. Generic Band Descriptors for Syllabus 1128/04.

Wells, J.C. 2006. English Intonation: An Introduction. Cambridge, UK; New York:
Cambridge University Press.

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Appendix A
PART 1 READING ALOUD

Earth Day is approaching. As the Chairperson of the Green Club in your

school, you have prepared the following script. You will now present it during
the school weekly assembly to urge your schoolmates to do their part for the
environment.
1) Each year, on April 22, many of us wish each other Happy Earth Day
without really understanding the reason. There are many wonderful things
about the Earth it is unique in the Solar System as the only planet that
supports life: from basic micro-organisms to highly intelligent human
beings. But why exactly do we commemorate Earth Day?
2) Experts estimate that we are losing 137 plant, animal and insect species
every single day. The effects of climate change are evident. Calamities
caused by extreme weather conditions have become more frequent
worldwide rising sea levels, intensifying storms and more violent
hurricanes.
3) This is why Earth Day is important. It educates us about what we have
and what we are losing by acting in ways that arent environmentally
friendly or energy efficient. It reminds us that we need to act now to
protect our environment before its too late.
4) My fellow Kranjians, now is the time for us to fight against climate change.
This is a fight we can win. How? Through recycling of course!
5) Recycling is a pretty simple concept: take something that isn't useful
anymore and make it into something new instead of just throwing it away.
The main reason for recycling is to reduce the amount of garbage sent to
landfills. Looking at the amount of rubbish we generate each year,
inevitably, Singapore will run out of landfill space soon, and well have to
find other ways of dealing with the problem.
6) So take the pledge to recycle today use both sides of the paper, recycle
old newspaper and not discard them, and throw used bottles and cans into
recycling bins.
7) Remember, when you refuse to reuse, its our Earth you abuse. Thank
you.

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