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!

Describing People for Police

Hello, students!

This week we are learning to describe people.

In this video, we hear two people discussing the physical descriptions of escaped prisoners.



This week we talked  about linking. Watch Rachel's lesson on linking.

You can also practice spelling and sentences with games.

Stress and Vowel Quality

Hello, students of the seniors' class!

Since we had only a four-day school week and Fridays are special, we didn't tackle a new topic. Rather, we focused this week on making our stressed vowels longer, louder / higher in pitch, and clearer.

We reviewed the difference between CONTENT WORDS and FUNCTION WORDS.

English is a stress-timed language.  We practiced the rhythm of many sentences.

Here is a great video on this topic.

Our Listening / Speaking Strategies

We have begun Listening Boot Camp!

What is a boot camp?

It is intensive training for new military recruits with a strict drill sergeant. Sometimes health clubs also offer boot camps for people who want to get in good shape fast. The personal trainer is there to motivate people to work hard for quick results. The personal trainer doesn't let you make excuses or take the easy way.

I am here to motivate you to awaken and strengthen different areas of your brains. We have agreed to close our bilingual dictionaries during listening lessons. The dictionaries can distract us from the main goal: improving listening and speaking skills.

This week we started building our tool box of L / S strategies. We can:

• Guess an unknown word from context. (Remember the Shillybog!)
• Listen for the gist.
• Use repair strategies. (Communication is a two-way street.)
• Talk around a word we do not know by explaining to the listener what we mean.
• Tune into CONTENT words.
• Practice good linking and prosody so your brain is prepared for the way native speakers really talk.

Here Rachel teaches you about consonant sound to vowel sound LINKING.

Watch this video about HOW TO GUESS A WORD FROM CONTEXT.  Here is another video about the same thing. There are many!

This is a great video on keys to improve your listening comprehension.

If you want to print the words to one of the 265 Short Stories on Mr. Zhang's Listening Page, call me over and we can do that together.

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.

====

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!

Linking C to Same C

Hello!

While we were waiting for everyone to get to class, some of us talked about how the weather is starting to get a bit cooler. Those of us without air conditioning are finding it easier to sleep these past few days. I asked each of you if this will be your first fall in Ontario. Most of you said yes, this will be your first fall here. Those who were here last fall told the newcomers what they can expect to see this fall: lots of colour!

Before starting the lesson, we had a miniature side lesson about "a" and "an." An exception to the rule came up in her class, and I wanted to explain it. Two of the students from that class are in pronunciation with us.

I asked you for the rule and you told me that we use "an" before a count noun when it starts with a vowel. But that's not really true. We use "an" when the next word starts with a vowel SOUND. As usual, there I go stressing the fact that it's the SOUND that matters more than the spelling.

Consider: an umbrella, a unit, a uniform

We talked about why this is so. It has to do with the sound that the letter "u" makes in unit and uniform. It starts with a /y/ sound, doesn't it?

We also talked about how some native speakers say "herb garden" with silent "h" while others pronounce the "h." Those who pronounce the "h" would say "a herb garden." Those who don't pronounce the "h" say "an herb garden."

It's good to have that out of the way!

Today we looked at another type of linking. When you have the same consonant sound at the end of one word and the beginning of the next word within the same thought group, you say the sound only once, but hold it slightly longer. Examples: call Laura, phone number, big girl, bad dog. This also occurs between the two parts of a compound noun, such as bookcase. However, when a consonant is doubled inside a normal word, we say the consonant sound only once: carrot, bullet, simmer.

We practiced this chorally and individually in words. Then we found the links in sentences, wrote them in, then practiced those sentences aloud.

Next we read a passage about what makes leaves turn orange, yellow, red, purple and brown in autumn. We practiced pausing, keeping thought groups together, and all three types of linking that we've learned so far.

After a brief interruption so we could learn about an upcoming session for the Men's Group, we asked each other some questions while paying attention to linking. We asked our partners things such as:

• Will this be your first fall in Ontario?
• Do the leaves change colour in your first country?
• Are you looking forward to seeing the changing colours?
• Have you ever been to the Muskoka area of Ontario?
• Have you ever been to Quebec?

Have a nice weekend! I'll see you on Monday. Oh, and click here if you want to see some beautiful photos of northern Ontario in the fall.

Linking C to V

Hello!

Today we started our unit on linking, but before that, we finished Wednesday's worksheet on pausing and thought groups.

Then we began our unit on linking by learning about one kind of linking: the linking of a final consonant sound to an initial vowel sound. Why do I say "sound?" Because it doesn't matter what LETTER the word ends in or starts with. What matters is the sound, right?

An example of C to V linking:

We write "North America," but we say "Nor thamerica."

We practiced some pairs of phrases that sound exactly alike when said naturally at a normal conversational speed, such as "made a mistake" and "made him a steak."

Next we practiced some phrases that had the link lines drawn on them for you.

On the next exercise I gave you a couple of minutes to draw the link lines on some sentences. While you were working, I wrote them all on the board. To take them up, I said them and we repeated them and said how many C to V links there were and where they were.

We didn't get to the dialogue, so we'll do that on Monday. We'll be going to the computer lab this coming week, and you'll be able to practice linking with the Ellis software.

I was very happy to see such a big class! Pretty soon we will run out of chairs, eh?

Pausing and Thought Groups

Hello!

Oh, my goodness, what a big class we had today! Our little group is really growing, eh? Pretty soon there will be a waiting list for a spot in the class.

Today we started by taking up yesterday's homework. It was a puzzle about the pronunciation of "can" and "can't." You all told me yesterday that it looked difficult, but you did pretty well with it. I was amazed that Husnieh did the puzzle in about 3 minutes before class started, even though she wasn't here yesterday. Wow.

Today we started talking about thought groups and pausing. We said that English speakers seem to be speaking very quickly. Actually, they are linking together the words within thought groups. We need to learn to do that, too. But before we learn to link, we have to learn where not to link. There are places where we need to pause.

There are three reasons for pausing:

1. It gives your listener time to process information.

2. It helps break the language into chunks of meaning.

3. Sometimes where you pause changes the entire meaning of a sentence!

We read a passage about a couple's camping trip in Algonquin Park, which is in the Muskokas in northern Ontario. First you read it and predicted where the pauses would be. Then you listened to me and checked your predictions. Then we all took turns reading parts of it.

Next we looked at the rules governing what we should keep together. Some examples were noun phrases, verb phrases, prepositional phrases, and clauses. We saw examples of each of these from the passage. Also, there is no need to pause in short phrases or sentences such as "Nice to meet you."

Having reviewed these rules, we returned to our passage to read it again. I wanted to see if your phrasing was better the second time through. Again we took turns and I think your phrasing did improve.

Tomorrow we will learn how you can change the meaning of a sentence if you don't put your pause in the right place.

Here are some links you can follow to learn more about our vocabulary from today:

Algonquin Park - pictures

Algonquin Provincial Park official site

chipmunk

birch trees - pictures

deer

rabbit

clover

Canon 5D

Cheers!

Can and Can't

Hello!

Today I started class with a bit of silliness. I said, "I can raise one eyebrow at a time. Can you?" I said, "My mother can wiggle her ears. Can you?" I said, "My friend can touch his tongue to his nose. Can you?"

We found out that Federico can touch his nose with his tongue.

Today's lesson was about the pronunciation of can and can't. Yesterday we learned about when function words can be stressed. When a function word is stressed, we call that its strong form. When we reduce it, which we do in normal speech, that is called its weak form.

Together we built the table of strong and weak forms for can, will, have, he and some other function words.

We practiced saying some sentences with can and can't. We said that can't is always stressed. Why? I heard two people say, "because it's negative." That's right. Negatives are content words. We said that can is usually reduced, but not always. When do we use the strong form of can? We will see if you know the answer to that tomorrow when we take up the homework!

Next we did a listening exercise. You were to circle the word you heard me say: can or can't. We took those up, then you practiced choosing one or the other to see if the rest of the class and I could tell which one you were saying. There were many things we needed to do to make ourselves clearly understood:

1. Except at the end of a sentence, can needs to be short with a schwa sound.
2. With regard to rhythm, can doesn't get a full beat.
3. When you say can't, I need to hear a nice clear vowel sound.
4. Can't does get a full beat.
5. Also, Federico noticed that you can often hear a little pause at the end of the word can't. That's the unreleased /t/. He has a good ear!

Next we practiced those with our partners.

Finally we played a little game. It was a contest. Each person had to come up with five things they can do and five they can't do. Points were awarded for anything you came up with that you could do but nobody else in the class could do. Points were also awarded for anything you could NOT do that everyone else in the class could do. Bashar got a point for being able to play the guitar, Florin got a point for being able to drive a boat, Ina got a point for being able to speak Russian, Tania got a point for being able to play the flute, Federico got a point for being able to extract a molar, and I got a point for being able to speak some Japanese.

I wish we'd had time to play all the rounds of that game, but we ran out of time.

For homework, I gave you a challenging word game and gap-fill. You have nine words to unscramble. Those words go in the blanks in the paragraph. The paragraph is about the rules of pronouncing can and can't. Also, some of the squares where you will write the unscrambled words have little numbers on them. I showed you how to build a phrase at the bottom of the page using the numbered letters in unscrambled words.

Good luck with that. I can't wait to take it up tomorrow!

Stress for Correcting and Contrasting

Hello, students!

We have a new student. Welcome, Morgan! That's a pretty name, isn't it?

Today we started class by looking at some comic strips from the Windsor Star. I asked you to notice the bold type and underlining. The cartoonist used bold and underlining to show you which words are most stressed.

Then I asked you about two of the cartoons. What was going on there? Ghadeer said, "They stressed a function word!"

Oh, my goodness. I thought we said that content words are stressed and function words are reduced. We did say that, right? Yes, we did. The characters in the cartoon are breaking that rule. I asked you to think about why we might sometimes break that rule.

Ghadeer said we can break the rule if the function word is important. Exactly! I asked you to think about some situations where a function word might be important. We talked about some of those.

Next we looked at the following sentence written six different ways:

His book is in her desk.
His book is in her desk.
His book is in her desk.
His book is in her desk.
His book is in her desk.
His book is in her desk.

We practiced saying the sentence the six different ways and talked about the nuance of each. They answer different questions. Whose book? His what? Really? On her desk? In whose desk? In her what?

I told you that I am in a situation similar to yours. You often have to ask native speakers to repeat themselves. I also have a situation like that because my boyfriend is a low talker. He mumbles. When you don't understand someone, you don't have to ask for the whole sentence to be repeated. You can just ask for the part you didn't hear. Example: "You're going WHERE?" "Your mother said WHAT?"

Next we practiced some sentence pairs. Speaker A was making a false statement and speaker B was correcting him or her. How did speaker B choose the focus word? The focus word was the word that corrected the false imformation, right? We practiced those orally and then with a partner.

After that we had some more sentence pairs where a function word was sometimes stressed. For example, a store clerk says, "We have the Windsor Star and the National Post." The customer says, "I'll take a Windsor Star AND a National Post."

For our final activity, we were supposed to go around the room and say some statements for each other to see what the response would be. For example: Wen is from Japan. The response would be, as you know, "No, Wen is from CHINA. However, I found that you were all feeling shy today and didn't want to work with anyone but your first partner. That was okay, because we were able to do the homework assignment in class.

The homework was a gap-fill exercise. It was a list of the seven focus rules. When you finished the gap-fill, you had all seven focus rules!

Tomorrow we will finish sentence stress and then start a new unit. See you then!

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.

Reducing Function Words

Hello!

Today we looked at what happens to function words in connected speech.

We practiced saying some sentences and phrases and noticed the pronunciation of words like the, a, to, for and as. We talked about the schwa sound.

We listened to some more sentences and talked about what happens to the initial consonant in he, her, him, his, and them. The "h" sound often drops out, doesn't it? The sound of "th" also sometimes drops out in a sentence like "Give them a break." But we keep the "h" or "th" sound if the pronoun begins the sentence. He is a teacher.

We practiced the sentences aloud.

Then we looked at what happens to the final consonant sound in of and and in phrases like "cream and sugar," "men and women," "a cup of coffee," and so on. You don't hear the /d/ in and or the /v/ in of, do you?

Next we had a gap-fill exercise to see if you could recognize and supply the correct function words in some sentences. Some of them proved very challenging. But I reminded you that you don't have to strain all day long trying to understand every single word native speakers say. Listen for the content words. They will be stressed, which means longer, clearer, a bit louder and said with slightly higher pitch. Remember our telegram exercise? We took out all the function words, but we still understood the meaning. Relax and just listen for the content words. Later you will develop a good ear and will begin to catch even the function words.

Finally we practiced a short dialogue with a partner.

We ran out of time before we could create our own short dialogues to practice.

In the Computer Lab

Hello, students!

Are you done using Ellis?

You may use any of the websites in my sidebar (the links on the right). Have fun!

High intermediate students, you might want to try "Listen and Read Along." You can stop the audio whenever you want. You can click a line of text to play it again. Please notice which words the speaker stresses. Also notice which syllables are stressed in the words. Call me if you need help.

Very advanced students, you might want to try watching a TED Talk. Many of them have been translated into your language. You can read the text in your first language, then you can watch the lecture while reading the English text. This is good practice in listening, but it is very advanced. If you decide to try this, call me and I can help you learn your way around the website.

Introduction to Sentence Stress

Hello!

Over the past two weeks we have been learning to count syllables, identify the stressed syllable, and pronounce the schwa sound. We now know that the stressed syllable is longer, clearer, maybe a bit louder, and has a slightly higher pitch. Now we have a good foundation for the rhythm and music of English.

Today I told you that most of the languages of the world can be divided into two main categories. Spanish, French, Cantonese Chinese, and Romanian are syllable-timed languages. That means that a sentence with 12 syllables takes four times as long to say as a sentence with three syllables.

English, Arabic, Russian, Swedish and Mandarin Chinese are in a different category. Before telling you what we call that category, I had you play a little game. I gave you each a telegram that was too long, too expensive. Your job was to make it cheaper. Each word was $1 and we started with 28 words. I only had $13, so you had to eliminate 15 unnecessary words without losing the meaning.

After we finished cutting out the unnecessary words, we made two lists: words we kept and words we threw out. I told you that the words we kept are called content words. These are the words that carry meaning. The words we discarded are called function words or grammar words. You need them for good English, but you don't really need them for meaning.

We talk to animals and very small babies using content words. Think about these:

"Bad dog!"

"Stove hot!"

"Good girl!"

In the next activity, we practiced saying a short sentence: Cows eat grass. I asked you how many beats there are in this sentence. You said three. That's correct. And how many content words? Three.

Then we looked at "The cows eat grass." We counted the content words (still three). And we counted the big beats. It's still three, isn't it? We barely say the word "the." It gets squeezed in and almost sounds like part of the word cows, doesn't it? What about the vowel sound in "the?" You're right; it's schwa!

We kept adding more and more function words to the sentence, but we still only had three big beats when we said it! It takes the same amount of time to say "The cows will have eaten the grass" as it takes to say "Cows eat grass." Isn't that amazing?

English is a stress-timed language.

In the next activity, we practiced saying some sentences. We drummed on our desks and tried to keep the same time between content words. "Dogs chase cats." "A dog has chased the cat." Each of those sentences should take the same amount of time for you to say. They have three big beats.

We then talked about the parts of speech that we usually stress in English and the parts of speech that we usually don't stress. I gave you a handout with the lists. We usually stress nouns, main verbs, adjectives, numbers, question words, negatives, helping verbs when they are alone (e.g., "Yes, I am."), etc. We quickly came up with examples for each category.

Finally we looked at some sentences and underlined the words that get the stress (all the content words). We took turns saying those sentences while stressing the content words.

Good work! See you Tuesday in the lab!