TESOL Videos - TESOL review from Will

Unit 13 involved a close study of phonetics and its use in teaching pronunciation to students. While there is some debate within the ESL community as to the prioritization of appropriate pronunciation at varying levels of study (specifically the use of the Phonemic alphabet ? most useful to advanced students), all English language students will benefit from study of appropriate pronunciation. While the Phonemic alphabet is potentially confusing and frustrating for early language learners it is something useful to students as their grasp of basic language features grows. All students can benefit from the study of the specific tools the voice and nonverbal cues have in relating the wholly formed content of a sentence (meaning, more than just the vocabulary, but the communication of emotion and indicating questions, statements etcetera) As to the specifics of this unit, intonation is where you place changes in sound and ?tone? (using voice, volume, pitch) to place emphasis on specific words or parts of words within a sentence to convey more than the vocabulary does on its own. Intonation conveys the message within the sentence. Intonation is accomplished by placing stress on individual words or on individual syllables of larger words. Three basic rules for intonation that are key to predicting the information that will follow are listed here: ? Normal intonation (statement)