This article describes a simple method to teach pitch, a feature common to both word stress and intonation. The technique can be used by native and nonnative English-speaking teachers and is applicable to students of different levels and language backgrounds. Pronounced as /m/, "mmm" is a sound that should be easy for speakers of any…

Referring to the "vital parts" of speech that do not appear in print, E. B. Huey (1908/1968) described prosody in reading as "the rise and fall of pitch and inflection, the hurrying here and slowing there, what we have called the melody of speech." In this paper, we discuss the role prosody plays in reading, contextualized in…

Fluency is the ability to read words, phrases, sentences, and stories accurately, with enough speed, and expression. It is important to remember that fluency is not an end in itself but a critical gateway to comprehension.

Classroom time is limited, so the priority question in teaching pronunciation is to find an effective sequence of presentation. This article recounts one teacher's path to learning about different approaches to teaching English rhythm and why it is important. For many years, a common way of distinguishing languages has been based on the assumption…

Background: With respect to the clinical criteria for diagnosing "childhood apraxia of speech" (commonly defined as a disorder of speech motor planning and/or programming), research has made important progress in recent years. Three segmental and suprasegmental speech characteristics--error inconsistency, lengthened and disrupted…

Besides numerous positive transformations and unique opportunities in language pedagogy, the post-method era brought with itself several challenges for language teachers. After intensive research and empirical studies, the use of literature was welcomed in ELT classrooms. But the question arises as to what extent and in what ways does literature…

Four scientifically validated approaches to fluency instruction (Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction, Wide Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction, Fluency-Oriented Oral Reading, and Wide Fluency-Oriented Oral Reading) are reviewed. Two for the whole class and two for small groups. Key components of fluency, automaticity, and prosody are defined,…

We review cognitive-linguistic approaches to conveying meaning, sound, and orthographic information across scripts in order to highlight the impact of variability in written and spoken language on learning to read and to write words. With examples of word recognition and word writing from different scripts, including Chinese, Arabic, Persian, and…

What determines consonant doubling in English? This question is pursued by using a large lexical database to establish systematic correlations between spelling, phonology and morphology. The main insights are: Consonant doubling is most regular at morpheme boundaries. It can be described in graphemic terms alone, i.e. without reference to…

Nonnative speakers of a language are often at a disadvantage in producing extended speech, as they have differing native (L1) phonological systems and rhetorical traditions or little experience in giving talks. Prosody in the form of stress, rhythm, and intonation is a difficult but crucial area needed to master extended speech because prosody…

Most of us have read Dale Carnegie's classic "How to make friends and influence people" in which he reveals the secret of human psychology: giving people the "feeling of importance" that they seek. He claims in that work that people feel more friendly toward those who allows them this feeling by caring about them and showing…

This essay describes the struggle to get one second grade reader who was in need of fluency practice to overcome his resistance to rereading familiar texts. This was done through the use of videos which were sent to parents on a weekly basis after the texts had been practiced several time with an eye toward all aspects of fluency--phrasing,…

This paper offers an instructional unit on the response token "achja" in everyday German conversation. The paper first provides a description of "achja" and its distinctive prosodic features based on empirical research in conversation analysis. The goal of the paper is to provide instructors of German with information and…

Bayburt University's English Language Teaching (ELT) department, is starting its courses as of 2016 fall season, using the Turkish sage Dede Korkut's tales as part of its speech training curriculum. The story "Wild Dumrul" presented in this article is famous in world literature for its theme of "marital love and sacrifice."…

The main cause of pronunciation problems faced by EFL learners is their lack of a suprasegmental background. Most of those having oral comprehension and expression difficulties are unaware that their difficulty comes from their negligence of concepts of stress, pitch, juncture and linkers. While remedying stress problems, students should be taught…