Lesson Plan of Patterns of Rhythm, and Intonation
English Grade V
Students’ Learning Outcomes
· Produce in speech, appropriate patterns of rhythm, stress and intonation of English language by listening to stories and poems read aloud in class.
Information for Teachers
· Intonation Patterns:
o The description of an intonation pattern is the manner a person’s voice raises and lowers dependent on what they are speaking about. An example of an intonation pattern is raising your voice at the close of a question.
o It is the variation in the pitch of the speaker’s voice used to convey information or alter meaning.
· There are three basic pitches in English – normal, high, and low.
o The normal pitch is where the voice usually is.
o High is where the voice rises to specify information focus.
o Low is where the voice falls, usually at the end of sentences.
· Stress: some syllables are in some sense stronger than other syllables and have the potential to be called stressed.
· When we put when we put emphasis on a word or sentence it becomes a stressed word or stressed sentence.
· Importance of stress is that the position of stress can change the meaning of the word.
· Imperative Statement: I can’t do my work!
· Informative Statement: I can’t do my work.
· Syllable: is a group of letters that has one vowel sound in it.
Material / Resources
Chalk/marker, colored chalk, board, duster, textbook
Worm up activity
· Say the following sentences aloud (words in bold must be accented i.e. spoken with stress)
1. Ali can work well if he tries.
2. Sara is from Pakistan.
· Write these sentences on the board also and read them again with students focusing on accented words.
· You can underline the accented words with colored chalk.
· Inform the students that the words ‘can’, ‘from’ and ‘is’ are unaccented / not stressed / and the vowel is very weak.
· Ask students which words in a sentence are stressed and which remain unstressed.
· Encourage them to explore reading the same sentence in different ways to see how the meaning changes: don’t insist that they read it the ‘right’ way immediately.
Development
Activity 1
· Teach the students that while speaking in any language, we give stress to certain words in a sentence while other words are quickly spoken or swallowed up.
· Select a story from the textbook or make your own story.
· If possible you can call some other teacher in class who comes and shares a story with the students.
· Story must have common and proper nouns, adjectives, adverbs, some dialogues, characters and off course verbs.
· The story must be read with proper stress on content word and with intonation patterns to make it interesting.
· Inform students that they must listen carefully as you will do any activity with them after the story narration is complete.
· All students listen to the story carefully.
Activity 2
· For example, if someone runs away with your bag, you will scream, ‘Hey, bring my bag back!’
· Tell the students that when speaking simple sentences the voice starts at a normal pitch; raises at the intonation focus word i.e. the content words; falls back to normal after the intonation focus word, and then falls to low at the end of the sentence. The intonation focus words can be at the end of the word too.
· For example:
1. What is wrong with you?
2. I left the scissors right here.
· Students are paired up with their partner.
· They recall the story they had listened and repeat it to their partner laying stress on the Content words.
Sum up / Conclusion
· Brainstorm to create a dialogue between two children, arguing ever a sharpener: each child says it is his sharpener.
Or
· An argument between two friends about whether they should play Lodi or Carom board.
· For example: But we always play Ludo and it’s so boring.
Assessment
· Assess students through their responses in the class during the lessons by checking their pronunciation.
· Teacher is also required to involve the student in solving the problems given in the exercise at end of the unit/ chapter.
Follow up
· Ask students to listen to a radio or TV program me or watch children’s play. Listen carefully to know about the words which are stressed and how they are pronounced.
