Amir is a Civil Engineer

Hello, students of the seniors' class!

We have a new student whom you all have not yet met. His name is Amir and he is a recently retired civil engineer.

He enjoys participating in the Facebook groups for Y students. He is not on WeChat. The other day he told me about civil engineering. I took notes and created a text from his story.

Here is his story AFTER I marked it up with areas for focus of revision.

I read the story to Amir, he listened to the recording and practiced it, then we met again for him to read it to me. After he read it to me and we talked about phrasing and some difficult words, I made the following video lesson for him. I hope it's helpful to everyone. Please notice the focus on remembering to pronounce final -S and -ES on the ends of plural nouns and also perhaps on third person singular verbs. Enjoy!

Question Tags

Hello!

Today we did a little reviewing of what we learned last week, then I introduced a third type of question. Some books call it the tag question and some books call it the question tag. Either way, this is a little question at the end of a statement.

First we looked at how to form the question tag. Here are some examples we worked out together:

It isn't cold, is it?

You're from Jordan, aren't you?

You like chocolate, don't you?

Wen wasn't in class Thursday, was she?

We turn left here, don't we?

One use of question tags is in initiating small talk with a stranger or acquaintance, such as while waiting for a bus or riding the elevator with a neighbour, coworker or colleague. I asked you what Canadians talk about with strangers and Husnieh gave us the answer: the weather! Sometimes we might also talk about last night's hockey game, but mostly we stick to the safest subject... the weather.

We practiced matching statements with their question tags. We also talked about what it means if we say the question tag with rising intonation versus falling intonation. To sum up, we use rising intonation when we are surprised, doubtful or really need to know the answer. For example, "It's not snowing, is it?" If you say this with rising intonation, you really want to know if it is snowing outside.

We use falling intonation when we are just making conversation or commenting on something. We are just being friendly and we are looking for agreement. Also, we are pretty sure that what we are saying is true. For example: "You're not from Canada, are you?"

If someone says this to you with falling intonation, they are just trying to start a conversation.

We practiced asking and answering the tag questions with our partners.

Finally, we tried to remember some of the things we learned about each other last week. We learned each other's favourite foods, favourite colours, where we're from, when we came to Canada, where we live, etc.

So we were able to practice question tags by saying things like:

• "Your favourite colour is white, isn't it?"
• "You came to Canada three months ago, didn't you?"
• "Bashar's favourite food is chicken, isn't it?"

Tomorrow we will add one more question tag to our arsenal: the Canadian "eh?" Then we'll practice all of them in the same activity.

Oh, please remind me to get out our new name cards every day, ok? Oh, hey! There's another question tag: "OK?"

Intonation in Wh- Questions

Hello!

Most of you showed up for computer lab day yesterday. Many of you seem to be getting a lot out of Ellis Intro and the accompanying pronunciation quizzes. That's great.

Today we reviewed intonation and had fun with a few exercises to loosen us up. We took a question such as "Would you like some juice or pop?" and practiced saying it with two different types of intonation. If you go to a friend's house and they ask that question with rising yes/no question intonation, they are just asking if you are thirsty. It means, "Would you like something to drink?" But if they ask the question with intonation that rises on juice and then, after a little pause, falls on "pop," you are being given a choice between juice and pop. Right?

You divided into groups of three to take turns practicing similar questions. One person was the host and the other two were visitors.

Then we practiced falling intonation in WH- questions. I gave you a list of questions and explained that we would be playing a little game. We divided the class into two teams. Each team was given 15 minutes to find out all the answers to all the wh- questions from each team member. You were supposed to memorize all your teammates' answers to the best of your ability. The questions were things such as:

• What's your favourite colour?
• What's your favourite season?
• What's your favourite food?
• Where do you live?
• When did you come to Canada?
• etc.

After 15 minutes, we put a score table on the white board. Team one won the coin toss and got to ask anyone on Team Two a question about a team mate. For example, Husnieh on Team One could ask Angela on Team Two: "What is Bashar's favourite food?" When Angela correctly answered "chicken," she won a point for her team.

At 12:30 both teams were tied at 8 to 8. It was fun, eh?

I hope you enjoyed the game and practicing the falling intonation of wh- questions.

Intonation in Yes / No Questions

Hello!

Today we continued talking about rising, falling and level intonation. I asked you which intonation we use in questions. You said rising. I asked you if we use rising in all questions or just certain questions. Together we figured out that we use rising intonation in Yes / No questions, but not in Wh- questions.

I asked if any of you had ever played the game "Twenty Questions." None of you had. I explained the game and showed you some cards I had made up with names of some famous people, some places, objects and jobs. On one side of the cards was the category, such as JOB. On the other side was the name of the job or person or place, etc.

I demonstrated the game for you and then we brainstormed some good questions to ask the person who has the secret. For a person, we came up with questions such as:

• Is the person dead?
• Is the person a celebrity?
• Is the person a man?
• Is the person in politics?

For the category THINGS, one question we often start with is: "Is it bigger than a bread box?" Click here to see a picture of a bread box.

For a job, we can ask things such as:

• Does it pay well?
• Is it a dangerous job?
• Is it an outdoor job?
• Is it physical work?
• etc.

Next we practiced rising intonation while practicing these questions orally. Then we got into groups of three to play Twenty Questions.

I hope you enjoyed the class. See you in the lab tomorrow!

Intonation in Lists and Choices

Hello!

I began the class today by giving you some news about the pronunciation class. Nick has told me that I (we) do not have to cover all our pronunciation points (vowels, consonants, stress, linking, intonation, etc.) in three months and then start over. We can take four months or five months or six months to cover all the aspects of pronunciation.

This is very good news! This means we can go as slowly or as quickly as you want me to. We can spend three days on a difficult sound if you want, or even a week. We can go to the computer lab more often than twice a month. We can even have one day of conversation per week if you want that. So I told you all to begin thinking about what you want to change. I will give you each a questionnaire on the last day of this term to gather your ideas and opinions.

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Today we reviewed yesterday, then continued learning about intonation / pitch. Chris had written on the whiteboard what we need to bring with us to the orchard tomorrow. I asked you what are three things we need to bring. You said, "good shoes, a lunch, and an umbrella." What do you notice about the intonation of that list? You're right. The pitch falls on the last item in the list. That's how you know the list is finished.

We practiced the intonation of lists with seven statements about tomorrow's field trip.

Next we practiced the intonation of choices. "Do you want your cider hot or cold?" "What do you want on your sausage: mustard, onions or relish?"

On the back of the worksheet, there was a table. I asked you three things this table tell you about the apples at Thiessen's. Tania said, "description, uses and availability." That's right. I gave you a chance to study the table for a while, and then we asked each other some questions such as:

• Name three apples that are red
• Tell me two apples that are tart
• Name three apples that are hard and crisp
• Name three apples that are good in salads
• Name two apples that are green
• Tell me the names of three apples that keep well
• Name two apples that are good in pies
• Name three ingredients you need to bake an apple pie

And so on! You all did a great job with listing intonation and seemed excited about the information. Wen said she would carry the table with her tomorrow into the orchard.

See you at 9:00 in front of the building!

Introduction to Intonation

Hello!

Today we learned about pitch and intonation. Bashar told us that pitch is the way the voice goes up and down, high and low. It's like the notes in music, isn't it?

I asked you if you thought intonation was important for learners of English, and you said yes. You are right! If you don't learn the natural intonation of English, people might think you are rude or bored when you are not. I told you about my own story of learning Spanish. I had to learn to control my intonation because if I speak Spanish with American intonation, I sound sarcastic or condescending.

We took some words and tried to say them as many ways as we could think of. We started with the word "hello." How many ways can you say "hello?"

Say "hello" to:

• someone you haven't seen in a year
• someone you are angry with
• your boss
• your teacher
• a little baby

We talked about how intonation can change some words. Take, for example, the word "hey." How would you say it if someone cut in front of you in line? Use it to greet your friend. Use it to show disappointment in what your child just did.

We practiced saying some words three ways: with rising, falling and level intonation. For example, if you are answering a question, "fifty" has falling pitch. If you are asking a question, use rising pitch to say "fifty?" And if you are counting "forty, fifty, sixty...," then "fifty" will have level pitch.

Next we practiced falling pitch in declarative statements and commands. It was all about our field trip to Thiessen's Apple Orchard this week. And we practiced rising pitch in statements that express doubt. "I THINK we turn left here."

The next part was kind of fun, although some of you found it a bit confusing. We had three dialogues and for each dialogue we had three situations to read about so we would know which kind of intonation to use when performing the dialogues. Isn't it amazing what a difference intonation can make?

See you tomorrow!

The Focus Word

Hello!

Before everyone arrived in class, I polled a few of you to find out how you liked using the pronunciation quizzes in Ellis Intro. Many of you told me you wish you could access Ellis from home. I'm sorry to say that it isn't available via the Internet, but I'm glad so many of you like using it and feel that it's very helpful to you. Some of you chose to use Ellis Intro and some of you chose to stick with Master Pronunciation Course to work on your consonant and vowel sounds. That's fine.

Earlier this week we learned that content words are usually stressed and function words are usually reduced. That is a good foundation for training ourselves in the music of English, but it's not the whole story.

We started the class by talking about the meaning of the words "focus" and "pitch." You gave me lots of good definitions for focus, and Florin made us all laugh when he came up with "I have a Ford Focus." He always comes up with higher level nuances of words for us to learn and think about. Bashar gave us a good definition for pitch. It's how your voice goes higher and lower while you're talking. It's different from volume, which means how loud your voice is. A change in volume is also part of the music of English, though.

Today we learned that every clause or sentence has one word that receives the biggest focus. (In the case of choices, there can be two words that share the main focus.) That means we stress them the most. We repeated some sentences; you told me which word in each sentence sounded most stressed. There was a pattern. When you only have one sentence, or when you are beginning a conversation, the last content word is the main focus word.

Examples: The car hit a pedestrian. My dog likes water. What are you doing?

We practiced the intonation of some more sentences by humming them. Then we practiced them orally, making sure to make our stressed vowels longer and clearer.

Then we looked at a dialogue between two people. We saw that after the first sentence, the focus word is no longer always the last content word in the clause or sentence. The focus shifts! What is the rule governing how the focus shifts? We discovered one situation where focus shifts: the introduction of NEW INFORMATION.

Example:

A: What do you want to do after class?

B: Let's go to the AGW.

A: I've already seen the AGW.

B: [etc.]

In line two, AGW is the new information. But in line three, AGW is old news. Now seen is the new information.

With this new rule under our belts, we worked in pairs to identify the focus words in a series of short dialogues. We took each one up and then practiced them with our partners. We took turns performing them for the class, too.

Ghadeer said today's lesson was too easy. Well, don't worry. We are building a firm foundation for mastery over the music of English. If you can do this, you are well on your way to sounding very natural in English.

Have a good weekend, and I'll see you Monday.