English Stress and Intonation Abr 2018

U N I V E R S I D A D P E D A G Ó G I C A N A C I O N A L
English Stress
and Intonation: Words,
Phrasal Verbs, and Discourse
For Beginners Only Collection
Terrence Nevin Siders Vogt
1
Abstract
There are several matters that would provide beginners of english
with a solid basis for advancement to intermediate and advanced
studies, yet they are no addressed in any beginners textbook and only
rarely in intermediate and advanced textbooks. The for Beginners
only collection deals with a range of issues that fill a series of gaps
which can pave the road for the teacher to overcome unnecessary
stumbling blocks to further advancement.
This first handbook is made up of three chapters that provide
an introduction to one of the more slippery matters in language
teaching, intonation. This linguistic feature is critical at all levels
of the english language, from the single syllable, through words,
and up to sentences and whole discourse. The first chapter takes
up words that change form, and sometimes meaning too, when
the stress changes. The second chapter delves into how stressis a
major component of a certain kind of word, the famous phrasal
verb. The third chapter the moves into analyzing stress in a holistic
manner at the level of full discourse. All examples are accompanied
by recordings.
Sinopsis
Hay varios aspectos clave que, a los principiantes de inglés,
les proporcionarían una base sólida para avanzar a los estudios
intermedios y avanzados, sin embargo, éstos no se abordan en
los libros de texto para principiantes y sólo excepcionalmente
en libros de texto para niveles intermedio y avanzado. La colección
de manuales Sólo para principiantes se ocupa de estas temáticas que
pueden allanar el camino del docente en pos de que sus estudiantes
superen los obstáculos innecesarios hacia un mayor avance.
Este primer manual se compone de tres capítulos que
proporcionan una introducción a uno de los temas más resbaladizos
en la enseñanza de idiomas, la entonación. Esta característica
lingüística es crítica en todos los niveles del idioma inglés, desde
la sílaba única, pasando por las palabras y hasta las oraciones y
el discurso completo. El primer capítulo retoma las palabras que
cambian de forma e, incluso, de significado. El segundo capítulo
ahonda en cómo la entonación es un componente principal en cierto
tipo de palabra: el famoso verbo en frase. En el tercer capítulo se
analiza la entonación de una óptica holística en el discurso integral.
Todos los ejemplos están acompañados de audios.
English Stress
and Intonation: Words,
Phrasal Verbs, and
Discourse

1
Universidad Pedagógica NacionaL
Volume 1
English Stress and Intonation: Words, Phrasal Verbs, and Discourse
Primera edición, febrero de 2018

© Derechos reservados por la Universidad Pedagógica Nacional.
Esta edición es propiedad de la Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, Carretera al Ajusco, núm. 24,
col. Héroes de Padierna, Tlalpan, cp 14200, México, df www.upn.mx
Esta obra fue dictaminada por pares académicos
isbn 978-607-413-280-9
PE2815
S5.3
Siders Vogt, Terrence Nevin
English stress and intonation : words, phrasal verbs,
and discourse : for beginners only collection 1 / Terrence
Nevin Siders Vogt. - México : UPN, 2017.
1 texto electrónico (47p.):12.4 Mb. ; archivo PDF---
(Polvo de gis)
isbn 978-607-413-280-9
1. Inglés-Estados Unidos-Pronunciación I. t. II. Ser.
Queda prohibida la reproducción parcial o total de esta obra, por cualquier medio, sin la autorización expresa
de la Universidad Pedagógica Nacional.
Hecho en México.
index
Preface to the For Beginners Only Collection......................... 7

This volume.......................................................................... 8
Chapter 1
Intonation Patterns in Two Syllable Nouns,
Verbs, and Adjectives............................................................. 11
A Bit of History................................................................. 11
The First Group: Nouns and Verbs..................................... 13
The Second Group: Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives.............. 14
Cases Apart........................................................................ 16
Suggestions for Teaching these Lexical Items...................... 16
Two Sample Lessons........................................................... 17
Conclusions....................................................................... 21
Chapter 2
Intonation of Phrasal Verbs.............................................. 23
What a Phrasal Verb Is............................................................ 23
Not the Same as Idioms...................................................... 26
Teaching Principles............................................................. 26
A Lesson for the Very First Week of Classes........................ 27
Keys to Success................................................................... 30
Recycling at Intermediate and Advanced Levels.................. 31
International Exams........................................................... 32
Conclusions....................................................................... 33
5
Chapter 3
Four Levels of Intonation................................................. 35
What Is Intonation?........................................................... 35
What Is Rhythm?............................................................... 36
Teacher Training Books on Intonation............................... 37
Make Your Own Examples................................................. 39
Adaptation for Prereading Children.................................... 42
How Students can Draw their own Conclusions................ 43
Sample Lesson.................................................................... 43
Closing Remarks................................................................ 44
Reference List.......................................................................... 45
Index to Illustrations
Table 1.1: Nouns and Verbs............................................... 13
Table 1.2: Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives............................ 15
Table 1.3: Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives............................ 16
Illustration 2.1: Phrasal Verbs............................................ 24
Illustration 2.2: Phrasal Verbs with Pronouns.................... 25
Illustration 3.1: Colored Musical Staff............................... 40
Illustration 3.2: Text of a Question.................................... 40
Illustration 3.3: Question with Arrows.............................. 41
Illustration 3.4: Bad News................................................. 41
Illustration 3.5: Story Ending............................................ 42
6
Preface to the For Beginners
Only Collection
There are several matters that would provide beginners of English

with a solid basis for advancement to intermediate and advanced
studies, yet they are not addressed in any beginner’s textbook —
and only rarely in intermediate and advanced textbooks. This
For Beginners Only Collection deals with a range of issues that, in
the author’s opinion, endeavor to fill a series of gaps that, taken
together, can pave the road for the teacher to overcome stumbling
blocks to further advancement.
This volume is the first in a series of handbooks that address these
issues. The series projects topical volumes on prepositions, irregular
verbs, affixes, and a novel way of employing songs. A central source
of information is the author’s master’s thesis in Applied Linguistics
(Siders 2011) which centered on researching the teaching of English
intonation, a topic that necessarily touched on these related concerns.
This thesis highlighted deficiencies and gaps in the teacher training
texts by Celce-Murcia et al. (1996) and Dalton and Seidlhofer
(1994). Briefly, the findings were that the graphic solutions they offer
are unclear — not incorrect but undidactic and painfully unludic.
Another principal font of inspiration is the author’s professional
practice, especially those daily questions from students and fellow
teachers. Many of the topics and activities were presented previously
in workshops and articles during the author’s 15 year stint in the
Mexican Association of Teachers of English, mextesol, and feedback
from these over the years has enriched the presentation in this volume.
Given that “teachers are busy people” as Mario Rinvolucri so
often reminds us, this series is intended as a resource for classroom
teachers and textbook writers and so written in “teacherese,” but
the sample exercises are designed to be comprehensible for their
students with a mere smattering of English. And when this is not the
case, then the student’s first language may be used to great economy
and effect. For instance, word stress and discursive intonation may
be brought together since they are the same mechanism acting in
the same manner, and represented via the same graphic.
So a word is in order before the reader takes any of these topics
into the classroom. While for efficiency’s sake they are presented
7
here for teachers and textbook writers from a grammatical outlook,

this by no means should be taken to indicate that the author is
partial to a Structuralist approach to language teaching. Rather,
task-based education with its problem-solving approach to the
construction of knowledge is the guiding principle. More in-depth
analysis of the task-based approach can be found in Littlejohn’s
An A to Z of Methodology (undated) which is available online.
A more demanding argument, one that presents the underlying
philosophical issues, is Challenge and Change by Willis and Willis
(1998), as are the works of Skehan (1998).
Along the same line of thought are the arguments of the
Lexical Approach, and its logic is frankly impeccable. You can study
the Lexical Approach in the books by Lewis (1993), which is also a
popular topic online.
This volume
This first handbook is made up of three chapters that, together,
provide an introduction to one of the more slippery matters in
language teaching, intonation. This linguistic feature is critical at
all levels of the English language, from the single syllable, through
words, and up to sentences and whole discourse. The first chapter
takes up words that change form, and sometimes meaning too,
when the stress changes. The second chapter delves into how stress
is a major component of a certain kind of word, the famous phrasal
verb. The third chapter the moves into analyzing stress in a holistic
manner at the level of full discourse. Each chapter’s examples are
accompanied by a recording.
Students find intonation difficult to comprehend, while
teachers find it complicated to teach. That is why the chapters
include examples of activities which facilitate its learning at all of
these levels, including sample lessons.
The greater part of theory in the second chapter is derived
from a workshop by Shea (1993) on phrasal verbs that renewed
my linguistic curiosity, piqued by his description of the mechanism
in which intonation plays a key role. The manner of presentation
in the model lesson making extensive use of yes/no questions on
intentionally incorrect factual questions is a cornerstone of the
Direct Method with which Berlitz has great commercial success
(Richards and Rogers, 1998) and I learned there during my first job
in Mexico in 1990. A previous version of Chapter 2 was published
8
as an article in the MEXTESOL Journal (1995) and mextesol

workshops of my own around the country.
Warm acknowledgements go to Areopagita Yésyka Bustillos
Gómez and Óscar Fernando Velasco Romero for lending their voice
talents in the recordings.
I hope you find this handbook to be as enjoyable to read and
apply as it was to write.
9
Chapter 1
Intonation Patterns in Two Syllable
Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives
To make any real progress, we’ll have to progress slowly

but surely.
The bold words in this example are pronounced differently.

Why is that so, and how can we help our beginner students to hear,
read, and say them correctly?
A phenomenon that is particularly troublesome for beginners
has to do with how nouns so easily become verbs by merely adding
the famous –ing suffix to transform a thing into an action.
Yet even more peculiar, even exotic, for Spanish speakers is
another mechanism, having to do with a shift in the word’s stress.
This latter is the one clarified in this article, rounded out at the end
with a handful of suggestions on how to teach it to beginners.
A Bit of History
Nearly all of the words analyzed in this section are borrowings from
French and Latin from the 1300s through 1600s — during the pe-
riod now known as Middle English. The words of interest in which
this stress-shift mechanism operate are compounds assembled from
Latinate roots and prefixes. The Oxford English Dictionary online
has the following exposition on Middle English. Toward the end of
that period, English was resurging to displace Norman French as
the language of law and academia.
From the later fourteenth century our records become more plentiful,
especially for London, as the use of English increased in literary contexts
and in a variety of different technical and official functions.… Thus
the vocabulary of such fields as law, government, business, and religion
(among many others) became filled with words of Latin or French
origin, as people began using English to express technical matters which
had previously been the domain of Latin or French. (OED, 2013)
11
When we turn to the charts further down, there is a further

aspect they have in common. In their verb forms, the great majority
of them are both transitive and intransitive, (as reported by the
Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2013).
In English words, the stress typically falls on the first syllable.
So when these were borrowed, that standard pattern for English
intonation on the first syllable formed nouns and adjectives. Yet
when that strong syllable moved over onto the second syllable, they
became verbs or, on occasion, adjectives.
One of the most widely and easily recognized ones is record, as
in these imaginary examples from the time when it was the everyday
word for those big black disks called LPs.
I want to buy the Beatles record, Let It Be.

I want to record myself singing Let It Be.
Another word that is easily recognizable is present.
Well, I have no idea what we might do next time

around, but for the present let’s present the visiting
dignitary with a present!
So let us move on to the explanation.
12
The First Group: Nouns and Verbs

Here is a fairly complete list of everyday words that follow the
stress-change pattern in which stress on the first syllable makes it a
noun and on the second constitutes a verb. Listen to the recording
while you read the list.
Table 1.1: Nouns and Verbs

nouns verbs
1 syllable
st
2 syllable
nd
ally ally
combine combine
compress compress
conduct conduct
conflict conflict
console console
contrast contrast
converse converse
convert convert
discard discard
incline incline
invite invite
increase increase
insert insert
insult insult
pervert pervert
progress progress
regress regress
relapse relapse
torment torment
A few of these words change meanings between the two forms,

thus deserving brief treatment. The verb compress refers to applying
a great amount of pressure, but the noun is only one particular
medical item of cloth and a tight bandage to stop bleeding. Address
has two meanings, the number and street name for a building versus
13
a thematic speech, and both appear in both forms. Console changes

meaning entirely: the verb signifies giving comfort to someone who
feels sad, while the noun is a set of controls and gauges. The verb
contract has two meanings, to enter a legal agreement and to shrink.
But the noun form of the latter ads a suffix to form contraction.
Finally, the noun and verb subject are only related to each other
when referring to royalty, when the verb signifies repression and the
noun designates those inferior to the crown — a situation which we
like to believe lies in a distant past. The other meaning of the noun
we teachers know all too well, the actor who carries out an action,
that is, the “subject of a sentence.”
The Second Group: Nouns, Verbs,

and Adjectives
The next group has a third form, an adjective. In fact it is no more

complex than the preceding table, provided that we keep in mind
that nouns become adjectives merely by placing them before other
nouns, and these adjective forms are furthermore pronounced the
same way as the nouns they are derived from, with the stress on the
first syllable. Listen to the recording that accentuates the distinction.
14
Table 1.2: Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives

nouns verbs adjectives
1st syllable 2nd syllable 1st syllable
address address address
compact compact compact
compound compound compound
conscript conscript conscript
contract contract contract
convict convict convict
discount discount discount
dispatch dispatch dispatch
object object object
perfect perfect perfect
permit permit permit
present present present
produce produce produce
project project project
protest protest protest
rebel rebel rebel
recall recall recall
record record record
refund refund refund
reject reject reject
relay relay relay
survey survey survey
transfer transfer transfer
One of the few in this group that changes meaning is contract:

while the noun and adjective only have one meaning referring to a
legal agreement, the verb has an additional medical concept about
becoming infected. Object is another in which the verb has an
additional significance which means the same thing as protest. The
noun perfect refers to the compound past tense. The noun recall is a
synonym of return, dissimilar to the verb which means “remember.”
15
Cases Apart
Finally, we have two words that operate in the same manner, where
a stress shift signifies a change in grammatical form. Both differ
from the second group because the stress on their second syllables
transform their nouns into adjectives. The final word is even more
different, in that it has no verb. The recording for these two also
emphasizes the distinct stresses.
Table 1.3: Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives

nouns verbs adjectives adjectives
1st syllable 2nd syllable 1st syllable 2nd syllable
control control — control
complex — — complex
An example with these two words can be found in so many

stereotypical action movies. “We’re facing a pretty complex situation
here, lieutenant! A control freak has taken over the control room.”
Suggestions for Teaching these Lexical Items

One technique for teaching these is in the same manner as the
examples in this article, which linguists call the “minimal pair,”
which is where the two are juxtaposed as a way to draw attention to
the fine distinctions. There are many ways of making minimal pair
exercises; here are a handful that personal experience has shown to
be enjoyable.
• Place them side-by-side and pay careful attention to a recording,
as could be done with the example at the top of the chapter on the
word record.
• Play a recording. Students raise their left hands with a yellow card
when they hear the stress on the first syllable and their right hands
with a blue card when they hear the stress on the last syllable.
• Leave a blank in a recording and ask the students to fill it in
aloud.
• In writing, the students could mark the stress in any number of ways.
Exercises in workbooks typically write the stressed syllable in capital
letters, highlight it in one way or another, or place a mark above it.
• With the words that change meaning, they could match a whole
sentence to the proper synonym or antonym.
16
• Make a joke, like the one in the epigraph about the progress.
• Provide immediate feedback on student pronunciation. With the
words written on the board, students say them aloud, and the
teacher points at which syllable was stressed.
• A variation of the previous one is to have the nouns on cards of one
color and the verbs on another, and when the students say them
aloud, hold up the card that was said.
Two Sample Lessons

Many of the words from Charts 1.2 and 1.3 above have been strung
together into imaginary debates to create these sample lessons with
nearly identical tasks. The first one, for beginner students, features a
novice singer who is not doing well following instructions in her first
time in the recording studio. The second lesson, for intermediate
students, portrays a debate among mid-level managers.
In both lessons, crucial to the task design is that instructions
are given at two levels which are mutually reinforcing: a personal
reaction and a comprehension aspect. Also, so as to lower anxiety, the
instructions include the warning that it will take several repetitions
to understand all the words. Evaluation afterward is derivative from
successful completion of the instructions: to use at least three of
the new words in an opinion on the debate and suggestion for a
solution. The Answer Key is shown afterward, with the syllables
highlighted in the appropriate colors.
In the Recording Studio

Instructions
When you hear the words from the Nouns, Verbs, and
Adjectives list, hold up your yellow card with your left hand when
it is a noun or adjective, and hold up your blue card with your right
hand when it is a verb. You will probably have to listen two or three
times to catch all the words.
After the recording is finished, give your opinion on the
problem and the best solution. Use at least two of the new words to
explain your opinion and your solution.
17
manager Well! You finally made it! In the recording studio!

singer Wow! I can’t believe it!
manager Remember that you have a contract to make
fifty new songs every year.
singer Well, relax. I am ready to record ten of them in
this session. But fifty is a lot, isn’t it?
sound engineer Are you ready? We have a long day. This is not
easy! First, you must address the microphone.
Stand very close to it and speak directly into it.
I handle the control panel, over there, behind
the window.
singer Look at all those buttons on those panels! It
looks very complex.
sound engineer Actually the control panel is not so complicated,
but I have to pay attention! It is the work
afterward that is complex. Excuse me, but, are
you really going to record fifty songs every
year? Nobody writes that many, not even the
Beatles!
Now give your opinion on the problem and the best solution. Use at
least two of the new words to explain your opinion and your solution.
Answer Key
manager Well! You finally made it! In the recording studio!

singer Wow! I can’t believe it!
manager Remember that you have a contract to make
twenty new songs every year.
singer Well, relax. I am ready to record ten of them in this
session.
sound engineer Are you ready? We have a long day. This is not easy!
First, you must address the microphone. Stand
very close to it and speak directly into it. I handle
the control panel, over there, behind the window.
singer Look at all those buttons on those panels! It looks
very complex.
sound engineer Actually the control panel is not so complicated,
but I have to pay attention! It is the work afterward
that is complex. Excuse me, but, are you really
going to record fifty songs every year? Nobody
writes that many, not even the Beatles!
18
In the Business World

Instructions
Listen to this imaginary conversation from the 21st century business
world. It is late in the year, and executives at a large company are
trying to decide what to do in a shrinking market.
When you hear the words from the Nouns, Verbs, and
Adjectives list, hold up your yellow card with your left hand when
you hear a noun or adjective, with the stress on the first syllable,
and hold up your blue card with your right hand when you hear a
verb. You will probably have to listen two or three times to catch all
the words.
After the recording is finished, give your opinion on the debate
and the best solution. Use at least three of the new words to explain
your opinion and your solution.
A) Our plan for this year projected three percent growth! But
after that product recall our sales fell. Our market contracted
almost five percent!
B) Well, keep in mind that everyone else in our sector is having
a hard time too. The competition’s market compacted even
more, almost ten percent! So if you look at it that way, we’re
actually doing fairly well.
C) The big discount we offered our customers in June helped
some in the autumn quarter.
A) Maybe so, but it only compounds the problem of trying to
win back our old customers. When prices went back up, they
started going to the competition.
C) So what about a refund? You know, an advertising campaign
that says, “If you buy a hundred pieces, we’ll refund you a
hundred pesos.”
A) Oh please! Everybody rejects that! Nobody believes that kind
of advertisement.
B) Well, how about a survey? Do you guys think we could
propose to the executive board surveying both our old
customers and our new ones?
A) Don’t you think they will just say we are trying to transfer the
problem to the Marketing Department?
B) Hmmm…
C) That is the risk!
19
Now give your opinion on the debate and the best solution. Use
at least three of the new words to explain your opinion and your
solution.
Answer Key
Our plan for this year projected three percent growth! But after
that product recall our sales fell. Our market contracted almost five
percent!
A) Our plan for this year projected three percent growth! But after
that product recall our sales fell. Our market contracted almost
five percent!
B) Well, keep in mind that everyone else in our sector is having
a hard time too. The competition’s market compacted even
more, almost ten percent! So if you look at it that way, we’re
actually doing fairly well.
C) The big discount we offered our customers in June helped
some in the autumn quarter.
A) Maybe so, but it only compounds the problem of trying to
win back our old customers. When prices went back up, they
started going to the competition.
C) So what about a refund? You know, an advertising campaign
that says, “If you buy a hundred pieces, we’ll refund you a
hundred pesos.”
A) Oh please! Everybody rejects that! Nobody believes that kind
of advertisement.
B) Well, how about a survey? Do you guys think we could propose
to the executive board surveying both our old customers and
our new ones?
A) Don’t you think they will just say we are trying to transfer the
problem to the Marketing Department?
B) Hmmm…
C) That is the risk!
20
Conclusions
This first chapter has analyzed intonation at its most fundamental
level, word stress. The specific characteristics of word stress in
English have been drawn out and analyzed, starting with that
language’s strong tendency toward stress on the initial syllable and
ending with grammatical changes that alternation in stress produces
in Latinate borrowings. After a summary of teaching ideas, one was
expanded into two specific model lessons.
The next chapter will delve yet further into the interaction
between intonation and meaning that triggers another important
transformation in the English language: how a verb and a preposition
combine to create phrasal verbs.
21
Chapter 2
22
Intonation of Phrasal Verbs
Many of my fellow English teachers are of the opinion that phrasal

verbs are very complicated and so only advanced students can
study them. I strongly disagree, mostly, I believe, because I have
a different view of what constitutes “complicated” and “simple.”
At least from the English-speaker’s point of view, phrasal verbs are
the simplest of all verb forms. In fact, children use them from their
earliest speech and seldom use single word verbs until their ninth
or tenth birthdays.
Phrasal verbs are an intimate, solid foundation of all Germanic
languages, and probably more so in English than in the others.
Much of English semantics would be difficult to comprehend
without phrasal verbs, and much of the rest of the language appears
confusing and arbitrary until these items are learned.
Therefore I firmly hold that we foreign language teachers do
a great disservice to any student from whom we withhold of this
knowledge — doubly so because there are easy, excellent ways to
present phrasal verbs from the very first week of classes! Here are
some ideas.
What a Phrasal Verb Is

There are many types of two-word and three-word verbs in the English
language, (and even a couple of four-word verbs!). Only a fraction of
these are full phrasal verbs, in the proper sense of the term. Shea
(1993) explains the linguistic definition of phrasal verbs includes the
following prominent features. Keep in mind that the kind of analysis
in this section is the linguist’s territory, explained for the teacher’s
comprehension of the phenomenon. Probably the only detail worth
mentioning to students is that this is everyday language. In the other
direction, it is also not advisable to ask native speakers of English
what phrasal verbs are; most are unlikely to be able to analyze them,
precisely because school training focuses on more formal discourse,
which favors a predominance of Latinate vocabulary.
The strong stress is on the “preposition,” (properly termed the

particle). Illustration 2.1 presents how pick up and put down sound.
In the recording for Illustration 2.1 the reader can appreciate how
the particles have both a higher tone and louder volume. The chart
in the background behind the samples is described in full detail in
the third chapter; for the moment it is sufficient to mention that the
low tones are at the bottom and high tones at the top.
Illustration 2.1: Phrasal Verbs
up down
pick put
The first feature is clear when we listen to ourselves say them

aloud. Therefore it is quite alright to say the particle loudly and
clearly in our introductory exercises.
Almost all phrasal verbs have a single-word synonym.
It is sometimes said that English has a “double vocabulary,”

which is to say that many formal words have a synonym that is
more casual. What may be pointed up here is the fact that the
formal vocabulary is largely composed of Latin- and French-origin
derivatives, while the Germanic background of English is the source
of those everyday words: pick up versus lift, put down versus place,
come in versus enter, go out versus exit, and so on.
The parts are “separable.”
When the stress is on the particle, as the first rule states, then
pronouns and direct objects fit nicely between the two parts: “pick
up the book” and “pick the book up” are both perfectly easy to say.
24
It must be pointed up that the great majority of exercise books

and even textbooks are mistaken when they make affirmations like,
“some phrasal verbs are separable.” The authors of these books have
not been asked to consider the issue of intonation as the means for
distinguishing phrasal verbs from the other kinds of multi-word
verbs that exist in English.
Illustration 2.2 has the same words as the previous graphic,
with pronouns added “separating” the two constituents. In the
accompanying recording the intervening pronouns are noticeably
quiet.
Illustration 2.2: Phrasal Verbs with Pronouns
up down
it it
pick put
The particle is most often derived from the preposition’s

literal meaning.
Another noticeable feature, beyond the previous strictly

linguistic ones, has to do with lexical significance. There is
little metaphorical stretching of the meaning from the original
preposition. All of our examples for beginners used in the sample
exercises like up, down, and through, describe literal movement
through three dimensional space. The senses of authority and
completion implicit in look up and clean up, for example, are clearly
derivative of some sense of “higher altitude.”
A hyphen can transform a phrasal verb into a noun.
Curiously, most phrasal verbs convert easily into nouns, which

is in writing is created by adding a hyphen. Some everyday examples
are, “What a let-down!” “What a show-off!” “What a put-down!”
25
Not the Same as Idioms

The fourth feature in the preceding section, the one about the
literal meaning of the particle, leads to another frequently confused
matter. So many exercise books and websites claim to practice
“phrasal verbs,” but in fact muddle them with idioms. Phrasal verbs
are quite distinct from idioms.
An idiom is a group of words with a single, unique meaning,
one that has little to do with the meanings of the individual words.
The meaning of the whole is not equal to the sum of the parts; in
fact the parts have little to do with the whole. Kick the bucket and
hang up your spurs, for instance, are idioms for dying, and have
no literal derivation from kicking, hanging, buckets, or spurs, but
rather reference parodies of Hollywood cowboy movies where these
movements represented poor acting. These samples demonstrate
how an idiom comes into being at some point in the history of a
culture, and thus reflect its unique view of the world and, moreover,
often display a humorous or novel viewpoint.
An idiom is thus a fixed, immutable phrase, and in a sentence
operates very much like a one word noun or, as Lewis (1993) terms
it, a single lexical item. Although a verb within it may be conjugated
into the past and present tenses, the idiom as a whole cannot be
broken or reordered without losing its meaning.
On the other hand, like any word a phrasal verb can have
multiple meanings, but all of them are likely to be derived from the
literal meaning of its particle and verb.
Insofar as its mechanics are concerned: being a proper verb,
a phrasal verb can mutate into any and all of the grammatical
functions appropriate to verbs. They can be conjugated into all
tenses and modes and take on both passive and active voices. As
noted above, they also easily transform themselves into nouns.
Teaching Principles
This brief series of activities is quite different from the language
found in commercial textbooks — books that spend endless
chapters merely naming things with the verb be. Regardless of how
important that verb-of-existence may be, learners learn when they
do things, perform actions. So it is a discourtesy, if not an actual
waste of time and energy, to oblige them to trudge through chapter
after chapter before encountering their first action verbs.
26
In a couple of very amusing lessons totaling only two or three

class hours, the students learn and practice quite a few words within
two grammatical structures. Concerning verb tenses, they practice
the present progressive with two different meanings: the declarative
action-in-progress and the infamous reported speech. They will also
use the imperative, and therefore have an opportunity to notice that
-ing is an affix. Moreover, they hear at least three questions words
and two question forms.
Lexically, they name possibly dozens of objects from several
semantic fields (classroom items, clothing, people’s names), a
half-dozen actions, and a handful of those critical prepositions.
Several opposites are acted out, and so the learners can appreciate
the intellectual principle of reversibility. The lesson also models
how to request the names of new objects, with the added benefit
of preventing the teacher becoming into the famous “walking
dictionary.” Further, it is almost inevitable that several possessive
pronouns will come into play: my, her, and his.
For those who agree with Gardner’s theory of multiple
intelligences (2006: 9-11), pantomime is among the realizations of
the bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. If Dr. Gardner’s theory is correct
that there is such as thing as musical intelligence and, moreover,
that the intelligences can be cultivated or developed, then this
tool combines visual intelligence to musical intelligence in a novel
manner.
The lesson is memorable because it is humorous. Further fun
with the same theme is in the beloved children’s book, The Cat in
the Hat by Dr. Seuss (1957).
A Lesson for the Very First Week of Classes

After just two or three class hours of class time of naming people
and things, and students are grasping the sense of be accompanied
with the question words who and what, the teacher can now grasp
one of these common objects and asks, “What am I doing?” While
the learners may not catch the significance of doing yet, but they
will in just a moment.
Point to yourself and state the action you are performing: “I
am picking up the book.” Repeat this a couple of times, then a
couple of times more with other already known objects. You can
signal “upward” with the index finger of the other hand, moving
close by in tandem with the “working” hand.
27
Invite the students to imitate, while you “narrate the action:”

“Lisa is picking up the book.” Demonstratively signal for other
students to take turns performing the action while still others
narrate.
Asking for confirmation with incorrect questions keeps it lively
and creates a humorous game-like challenge by naming the wrong
student and naming the incorrect object, followed by corrections
by the students.
Insist that the person performing the action move very, very
slowly, so the narrators can keep pace, especially when they are
purposely asking incorrect questions.
Now introduce the opposite action: put down. Again, start
by narrating while you yourself put down the same objects you
had picked up, likewise accompanied by a downward hand signal.
Alternate between picking up and putting down those same three
or four objects. The whole class can continue the narrative while
volunteer students perform the actions.
Now we move into the imperative. Use a commanding voice
and tell a student what to do: “Yesyka, pick up the pen. Yesyka,
put down the pen.” Have the student repeat the action (signal or
whisper to do so very slowly), and ask the rest of the class yes/no
questions, such as “Is Yesyka putting down the pen?” So that they
pay attention to the meaning, formulate the incorrect questions by
simply saying the name of another object or another student.
That first student then turns to tell a second what to pick up
and put down, in a Simon Says-type game, for instance “Pick up
the pencil. Pick up the book. Pick up the piece of paper. Put down
the book. Put down the pencil. Put down the piece of paper.” The
second student then gives commands to a third, the third to a fourth
while the second to a fifth, and so on, cascading through the class.
It is humorous to be juggling several objects while recalling
many names, so when the pace quickens a mundane substitution
drill transforms itself into an exercise closer to a proper task, at
last insofar as it now requires a bit of planning and paying close
attention to the meaning.
The next items are in, on, and under, all in combination with
put. The teacher will need to consider what mimicry and hand
signals to use, and to rehearse them before the class. In may be
signed with the index finger going down into the opposite hand
held like an open fist. On can be shown with one hand flat open
and the index finger of the other hand gliding down to meet it.
Under can be signed with the one hand held flat open and the index
28
of the other going down right next to it and then turning ninety
degrees to end up below the first.
To raise the challenge a step further, and as means toward
presenting the names of classroom and personal items, keep your
eyes open for surprising, uncomfortable places to put things (always
with a mischievous look in your eye): big books into small purses,
erasers inside the cd player, chairs in the window, chairs on top of
the table, a large cd player under a chair, your coin in my wallet...
Encourage the students to ask each other questions like, “What is
Ixchel putting under the cd player?”
Another natural step forward is to ask about what the students
are saying. For instance we see Xóchitl put an eraser under the
cd player while Miguel narrates, “Xóchitl is putting an eraser
under the cd player.” The teacher then asks the class, “Is Miguel
saying ‘Xóchitl is putting an eraser under the table’?” The whole
class answers, “No.” The teacher asks, “Is Miguel saying ‘Xóchitl
is putting a table under the cd player’?” The whole class again
answers, “No.” Clowning at irritation, the teacher asks loudly, “Is
Miguel saying ‘Xóchitl is putting a table under the eraser?” The
whole class answers, “No” for a third time. The teacher now asks,
“What is Miguel saying?” The answer is: “Miguel is saying ‘Xóchitl
is putting an eraser under the cd player.’” Immediately point to
Daniela while asking Javier, “What is Daniela saying?” The answer
is: “Daniela is saying Miguel is saying ‘Xóchitl is putting an eraser
under the cd player.’” Continue the chain with three or four more
people!
By now the meaning of the gerund for progressive action has
been clearly demonstrated, while the subjective viewpoint implicit
in reported speech has also become evident.
Another extension is to use all the question words they have at
their disposal: who, what, and where, uttered with sharp intonation:
“Where is Guadalupe putting the chair?” “Who is putting what under
the window?” “Cristina is putting what in her purse?” “Jonathan is
putting what under the desk?”
The next words to introduce are stand up and sit down. The
presentation starts with your own pantomime and narration, “I am
standing up. I am sitting down.” Give an order, “Martha, stand
up.” Signal another to narrate as Martha performs her action. Give
the opposite order, “Martha, sit down,” and signal that second
to narrate as Martha completes her routine. Martha then gives
orders and further students narrate, while you ask incorrect yes/no
questions. “Is Angélica sitting down?” “No.” “Who is sitting down?”
29
“Federico.” “What is Angélica doing?” “Angélica is standing up.” “Is

Federico saying Angélica is sitting down?” And so on.
The next words are come in and go out. Wave and dramatically
say, “bye-bye” and then demonstratively open the door and walk
through the doorway. Halfway out of the room, you point outward
while saying, “I am going out of the classroom.” Remain out of sight
for three or four heartbeats; you have made your point when you
hear someone start to giggle nervously. Then stride back in and
stop precisely within the doorframe and declare, “I am coming in
the classroom.” Follow the previous routines for repetitions and
commands and questions on the narrations.
Put on and take off are logical lexical items to follow up with,
by putting things on top of other things (stack that stuff up high!)
and then take them off. Similarly, put on and take off coats and
hats and other items of clothing. People can go into and come out of
places, and also turn around.
Keys to Success
Notice that two points are critical to the success of this sequence
of lessons. First, the words are action words, ones that can be both
mimicked and executed at the moment. Yet they are controllable,
they can be pantomimed in slow motion, or even frozen, when
tongues get tied. Second, this strategy takes advantage of the fact
that they are transitive, so presents them in opposite pairs where the
actions can be done and undone innumerable times (except for the
very last item, turn around).
One trick to keep the banter flowing is to ask two or three
different incorrect yes/no questions, then follow up with one with
a question word. Look again carefully at the example with Xóchitl
and Miguel. The two or three yes/no questions concern truth value,
each one about the same aspect of the reality being played out.
Finally, the last question that searches for the missing information
uses a wh- question word, “What is Miguel saying?”
30
Recycling at Intermediate and Advanced

Levels
Students who have enjoyed lessons like these will be well armed
for the day when they encounter prepositions in the intermediate
and advanced levels. Prepositions are quite difficult! Reflect for a
moment. How many are there? Less than fifty altogether, including
the more exotic ones like insofar (as) and heretofore. There are so few
of them, yet they are so ubiquitous.
As pointed out previously, an exposition like the one found in
this article would sound like esoteric linguistics to the ears of any
normal mortal. The way to breach the topic with our intermediate
and advanced students is from another angle. A seeming innocent
question like, “How many words do you know with down?” can
lead to a very rewarding conversation.
An awareness task for intermediate students can open quite
simply. Take advantage of any text to ask the whole class, “How
many words do we know with down?”, while writing it in the middle
of the board. Once they get warmed up and you have started noting
their contributions on the board, narrow it down to verbs-with-
down, and accept the answers like pull down, sit down, and draw
down. When the board is full, they have built a mental or semantic
map of the lexical item. The follow up question is, “What does
down mean?”
Please note that this exercise is quite different from — even
opposite to — the order in most textbooks and almost all exercise
books address the subject. Until recent years, multi-word verbs
were listed alphabetically according to the verb. From the student’s
point of view, there is little, if any, relation among the consecutive
items drive through, drive up, and drive up to, insofar as they employ
three different meanings of drive (force, insanity, and come alongside,
respectively). However, as the principles of the Lexical Approach
have caught on, some recent publications invert this order of
presentation, using the particle as the center of focus. There is
greater cohesion of meaning among the items in a list organized
around the semantic meaning, in the same manner as the sample
activity earlier in this chapter, for instance, come up, drive up, get up,
go up, follow up, and push up.
Having appreciated these presentations when they were
beginners, our intermediate and advanced students will now stand
upon a very solid foundation from which to judge for themselves
31
the meanings of several prepositions, and as advanced students

can come to appreciate the logic of the prepositional system of
English.
This brings us back to the comparison-and-contrast technique
that presents opposites to effectively demonstrate how the
prepositional system of English is based on location and motion:
consider in versus into, or on versus onto. For students who speak
Spanish, this is quite unlike the logic of Romance languages that
focuses more on origin and means, as in Spanish’s por versus para,
and de versus por. Therefore, as a teaching principle, contrasts with
the mother tongue are not only inevitable but in fact quite fruitful.
Advanced students need to appreciate the fact that new words
are coined every day, and in English one of the most common ways
to coin a new word is to attach a preposition to a verb. As they join
the community of speakers of this new language, they too have the
right to utilize all of its power. My personal favorite example of how
natural this kind of invention is the song Crazy on You by the rock
group Heart (1976).
Drawing attention to the role of synonyms and borrowings
in their mother tongue, learners can better appreciate how English
came to have its “double vocabulary.” Words of Germanic origin
are for common, everyday chatty talk, while the single-word
synonyms of Latinate origin (from French or Latin itself ) constitute
sophisticated adult speech and technical terminologies.
International Exams
This last point about English’s double vocabulary leads it almost
obligatory to mention why student’s time should not be wasted
on phrasal verbs in preparation courses for the Test of English as
a Foreign Language (toefl). A course that specifically prepares
students for this university entrance exam has much to gain in
studying everything except phrasal verbs (Siders 2004). Precisely
because its focus is on testing academic vocabulary, the toefl is
full of the sophisticated, technical genres encountered in college
classrooms and textbooks which, as we have described at length, are
of Latinate origin.
However, when preparing for British evaluations such as the
Trinity conversational skills exams or the Cambridge Suite, keep in
mind that these have a broader outlook of “general English,” which
is looser and more relaxed. So some knowledge of phrasal verbs will
32
be helpful because they occasionally appear in the recordings and

the interviews.
Conclusions
This chapter followed up on an intersection between vocabulary
and intonation which gives rise to a lexical transformation. An
extensive exposition of the linguistic issues endeavored to provide a
bridge from the technical concepts to a vernacular, so as to provide
teachers with immediate tools for classroom use. Sample graphics
from a successful course provide further teaching devices to attract
student attention and foster their awareness of a phenomenon that
is largely unconscious for native speakers.
A sample series of lessons was presented for the teacher’s consideration
albeit, unlike the other chapters in this manual, it was woven into the
exposition. Some additional information was included at the end for
teachers to approach students at higher levels with more enriching data.
The final chapter of this manual will take up intonation at
the level discourse, where it comes to full power and is consciously
manipulated to persuade and influence listeners. It will make more
extensive use of SEPAInglés graphics, bundled with their linguistic
and didactic justifications, from the author’s postgraduate thesis.
33
Chapter 3
34
Four levels of intonation
This article presents and explains a tool that helps tutors to aid
beginners to be aware of one of English’s subtler aspects, its
intonational system. This teaching tool is in use by SEPAInglés
in the distance program for the tutors in Mexico’s Telesecundaria
system.
The reader can probably notice that the illustrations were made
as PowerPoint slides. It is the author’s hope that the fellow teachers
who read this can also use this easily accessible technology to make
similar presentations which are appropriate to their own students.
What Is Intonation?
The mechanical part of communication is in sharing a code. Crystal’s
Encyclopedia of Language (1997: 107) describes the great volume of
information intonation transmits: grammatical, pragmatic, social,
and propositional! It further describes three physical properties that
together make up intonation (properly termed prosody). A person
speaks in a high or low tone, which is the “pitch” in everyday words.
Second, the volume may range from quiet to loud. Third, “tempo”
or rhythm corresponds to what we do when we clap our hands
while singing a song.
A doctoral thesis on the topic of prosody by Dzib (2007) points
out how “prosody is an aspect of language that goes beyond verbal
communication, insofar as it includes intonation (voice, tone, and
fluctuations), tension, pauses and rhythm of speech.” It goes on to
elucidate that,
Prosodic structures are used to organize the representation of a phrase

in working memory while comprehension processes [it]. Phrases
must adapt to the listener’s auditory system. Prosody’s melodic wave
allows us to compensate for error in the syntactic structure. (Dzib,
2007: 2)
Of some eight thousand languages in the world, much more than

seven thousand have a rhythm that goes syllable-by-syllable. Thus,
most words in those languages are virtually guaranteed to be
pronounced clearly. English, however, is unlike them; it is one of
very few languages with a rhythm that does not permit syllables to be
uttered clearly. Linguists term this unique rhythm as “stress-timed”
(Crystal, 1997: 171).
The consequence of this stress-timed feature is that the central

words in a given message ordered and paced so as to coincide
with the metric beat, while all the others are either extended or
compacted so as to fit in between. The further outcome is that these
less important, and non-stressed, words receive much less energy,
so such a great extent that they are often slurred together into a
mumble. This is the “mechanism” that causes the proliferation of
contractions.
Although intonation does receive superficial treatment in
student textbooks and some attention in teacher training manuals, the
linguistic aspect (properly termed “feature”) of rhythm continues to
be entirely overlooked. The next section will address this critical loss.
What Is Rhythm?
The gap found in the systematic review (Siders 2011) continues to
be true at the time of this publication: both coursebooks for students
and textbooks that prepare teachers do not take up the other side
of the “music” of language, the property of rhythm. Considering
that those books use the metaphor of music, this gap should be
surprising to everyone for the simple fact that without rhythm
music does not exist, despite the quote from Crystal mentioned in
the previous section (1997: 107) which affirms that it is one of the
three linguistic features which comprises prosody — the other two
being tone and volume.
It has been called rhythm, beat, tempo, and cadence. The second
definition in Merriam-Webster states it is “the aspect of music
comprising all the elements (as accent, meter, and tempo) that relate
to forward movement” (2016). However, it is remarkable that this
reference to musical meaning is the second definition, and that the
first definition refers to language: “an ordered recurrent alternation
of strong and weak elements in the flow of sound and silence in
speech” (ibid).
36
What these authorities do not mention is that this feature

is the dominant one, the one that prevails over all others. The
beat is the reason why other words lengthen or compress, with
the result that their prominent syllables keep to the tempo. In
more everyday language, all the other syllables stretch or shrink
to make way for those stressed syllables. “All the other syllables”
refers not only to the others in the same word but also to those in
all adjoining words up to the next stressed syllable within the next
important word to say.
Curiously, one of the most obvious results of this crowding
together of syllables does receive treatment in most coursebooks
that teach spoken language. In early chapters they model the famous
contractions of I’m, you’re, he’s, she’s, don’t, can’t, and so on. However,
they abstain from explaining why this occurs, and the phenomenon
remains a mystery for most students. At best they comment to the
effect that, “This is how it is written, and this is how they say it.” Yet
there is a reason and it follows a clear pattern. The crucial syllable is
the pronoun or the auxiliary, so the neighboring verb-of-existence
or negation loses most of its strength, and the lack of energy has the
additional effect of causing it to fall into a lower tonal range.
It is unfortunate that these aspects are modeled to students
from very early on yet not explained in any way even at the most
advanced levels. Most of the blame falls on the manuals for teachers
in training.
Teacher Training Books on Intonation

Many books to train teachers expound upon how students must
appreciate this “musical” aspect of the language. Yet very few of
these take up the challenge of representing intonation graphically;
so few in fact that three of them present the entire range of graphic
solutions encompassed in all others. Initial teacher training
courses often assign readings from either Pronunciation (Dalton
and Seidlhofer, 1994) or Teaching Pronunciation (Celce-Murcia et
al., 1996). They argue for the need to raise student awareness of
“sentence stress and rhythm” (Celce-Murcia: 154). In this century,
Learning Teaching by Scrivner (2005: 295-6) says that,
Intonation is sometimes referred to as the ‘music’ of the language,

and we use it as a kind of oral equivalent of written punctuation.
It is closely connected to prominence, for the main movement of
37
intonation begins at the tonic syllable…. Intonation has a definite

effect on meaning and also gives us information about the speaker’s
attitude.
Yet all three of these leave this issue at that theoretical level,
offering little concrete advice on teaching strategies or techniques.
Teaching Pronunciation has just one additional paragraph followed
by a bullet list with brief items such as “mark intonation patterns on
dialogues”; “hum/whistle/sing the sentence without words before
you say it”; “indicate intonation with hand gestures, waves, etc.”. A
noteworthy one the “musical staff” (Celce-Murcia, 1996: 193), but
there are neither illustrations nor any further explanation of how
that is to be brought about.
Further, Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994: 73) justify the paucity
of techniques.
There seems to be a conundrum for pedagogy here: prominence,

tones, and key… are particularly important in discourse, in that
they allow speakers to negotiate their relationships and to indicate
how they view the topic under discussion. At the same time they are
particularly difficult to teach.
Reflecting on these readings and several others, the conclusion

that prosody is particularly complicated to teach appears inescapable.
Here is a summary of the principal concerns.
• Compared to other aspects of language, (words, articula-

tion, pauses, parts of speech, volume), intonation is mostly
unconscious.
• In the case of English, the stress-timed rhythm is totally un-
conscious, to the degree that even to this day native spea-
king linguists have great trouble describing it.
• Textbooks rarely take up the topic, be they for foreign stu-
dents or native speakers. And those few occasions receive
superficial treatment.
• The above mentioned paucity in teacher training courses.
Most textbooks for teachers in training include pronuncia-
tion, but this is limited to phonemes and isolated words.
Only the three cited above even discuss prosody, but unfor-
tunately in these it is no more than a mention.
• As the book by Scrivner (2005) points out, the ability to
hear intonation is a critical skill for reading. While it is a
38
truism that punctuation does represent part of prosody, the-

re is much more to phrasing which punctuation does not
present. The most obvious example is the tiny pause before
every verb, that pause that infuriates every high school wri-
ting teacher because it is the cause of the infamous “comma
splice” (which is even more common in Spanish). Prepo-
sitional phrases are likewise set off by tiny pauses. Since
much of phrasing is literally invisible within written text,
most people find it problematic at best to analyze it in oral
speech.
The preceding explanation has been necessarily extensive,

because the problem is compounded for many different reasons.
Now that the presentation is over, we can move on to the solutions.
Make Your Own Examples

The stress-timed rhythm of English is often described with a
metaphor of music. Setting the issue in that manner points our
attention toward its solution. The recommended teaching technique
draws out that musical metaphor, drawing a musical staff. For this
section the author will take the reader step-by-step through how
the samples he designed for SEPAInglés were made, so to serve as
models for teachers to create their own based on the language in
their curricula, as well as to reveal certain pitfalls to avoid.
Before going on, it may be advantageous to point out that
English’s stress-timed prosody is evident in children’s rhymes. The
reader can access classic examples by searching for “Mother Goose”
which has countless versions of nursery rhymes, many of them with
recordings; among these is a site by the U.S. National Institute of
Environmental Health Sciences (2007). These recordings allow one
to hear how several words are grouped together into a single group,
a “musical beat,” because the unstressed words stretch out or shrink
to accommodate the stressed syllables in the important words.
The SEPAInglés lessons for Telesecundarias start with five
horizontal lines, which create four open spaces in between them.
The work is done in these gaps, which represent the normal tones
of English. Just as in a normal musical score, the high tone is above
and the low tone is below. It looks like this.
39
Illustration 3.1: Colored Musical Staff (sep and ilce, 2007, 2008)
As mentioned before, these illustrations were made with

PowerPoint. The tool is called “Insert Table,” selected to make a
table that is one cell wide and four high.
The choice of colors is three-fold. To be attractive and memorable
it is a stylized rainbow, ranging from red to blue. Second, among these
rainbow colors, an earthy foundation is suggested by sea and land
below. But the most important reason is this: red symbolizes “hot”
emotions in the Anglo culture, such as love and anger, while blue
symbolizes calm and relaxed moods. Blues music is always slow, isn’t it?
Experimentation in the TV studio demonstrated that the
pastel colors must be very light to prevent them from dancing on
the screen. But for the classroom the light pink is stronger, that
shade of fuchsia known in this country as Mexican Pink. This is the
color shown in the illustrations here.
The next step is to add the words and phrases. PowerPoint has
several tools for adding text; the one that worked for those programs
writes in “text boxes” that float over the musical staff, that is, they
become the foreground.
The individual syllables are placed into the cells of the corresponding
intonational level. The classic rising intonation for questions is shown
by placing most of the sentence in the middle lines, and the final
syllable goes into the yellow line, to look like Illustration 3.2.
Illustration 3.2: Text of a Question (sep and ilce, 2007, 2008)
at
Wh would ke?
you ii
la
40
The clincher is in the final addition. As the Pronunciation

book by Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994: p. 48) suggests, use arrows.
PowerPoint has a set of ready-made straight and curved arrows just
a couple of clicks away. Just stretch them to shape. Of course, the
arrows may be changed for other graphic designs such as animated
bouncing balls, or the text itself may be shown to flow up and down
like a snake. This sample explicitly shows how the word like spreads
out so it falls on the beat, using a bit of Spanish orthography.
Options for the graphic presentation permit modifying in
accordance with the amount of attention the teacher wishes to
direct to the feature. For instance, In Illustration 3.3 the arrows are
a subtle background, while in Illustration 3.4 they have borders to
make them stand out.
Illustration 3.3: Question with Arrows (sep and ilce, 2007, 2008)
at
Wh would ke?
you ii
la
Illustration 3.4: Bad News (sep and ilce, 2007, 2008)
Oh
bad I’m
deaaaa. news, afraid.
Illustration 3.4 exemplifies that classic warning that doctors

and or repairpersons say to prepare their customers for some very
serious news. As pointed out earlier, the blue color does double
duty by demonstrating the cultural connotation of sadness.
More details may be added. Illustration 3.4 is an example of
how the musical metaphor can be pushed still further by including
41
thin vertical lines, equivalent to musical measures. Use a metronome

to tick out the beat while the narrator reads the example aloud. The
words dear, news, and afraid fall on the beats. This combination
makes it patently clear that timing is the heart of the “stress-timed”
combination, upon which all the other syllables crowd together or
spread out so that the stressed syllable of each important word in
the utterance falls on the beat.
Adaptation for Prereading Children

In a pre-reading class with little children, physical manipulatives
work even better. A placemat-sized chart may serve as a background,
on which they can draw with crayons. Equally well would be pieces
of regular paper, magnets, felt, or Cuisinaire rods, accompanied by
a set of arrows of various shapes. For pre-reading the words would
be represented with illustrations, and the arrows could be made into
shapes or animal tracks accompanied by arm waving. This way the
students can listen to a recording many times, each time making a
closer approximation to the original, and, most importantly of all,
debate among themselves how it really sounds by repeating as often
as they like.
Illustration 3.5: Story Ending (Siders, 2011)
...and they lived happily ever after.
They can learn by negotiating meaning, in the context of

solving a problem, for instance, “Which [thing] does the character
want?” or “What was the question?”. They decide whether the tone
rises or falls, and listen and repeat countless times while doing it.
42
How Students can Draw

their own Conclusions
Students quickly come to a couple of findings. The rises and falls

appear quite dramatic, at least to Spanish speakers. For most of
them it is a real surprise to see that contours may be traced within
individual words. In each case it must be emphasized that these are
the normal mechanisms to English. Spanish speakers can become
aware of the fact that the range of tones is somewhat broader than
in their own tongue. The high tone (in red), which would show
anger in Spanish, is just part of the regular range in English. In other
words, an English-speaker is not angry with them — what a relief!
Sample Lesson
A lesson for very early beginners uses the examples shown above
in Illustrations 3.1 and 3.2. The first is printed on a standard letter
size page, and called a “placemat,” the latter may be a poster. The
topic is a typical lesson on manners for a restaurant waitperson.
The affective expression appears when another student answers that
polite question.
In a Restaurant
Instructions (given in the native tongue)
Bring a tablecloth and candle to class; cover a table with the

cloth and place the candle in the middle.
Listen to this customer give an order. Listen carefully to the
waiter’s questions.
On the placemat, draw the “music” of the waiter’s first question.
Draw arrows up when the tone rises and down when it falls.
Listen three times to catch all the tones.
When you finish, we will compare your drawing with the original.
waitperson Good evening! What would you like?

customer I would like a salad, orange juice, and a chicken
sandwich.
waitperson What would you like to drink?
customer Orange juice, please.
waitperson Right away, ma’am.
(Display the tone chart.)
43
Here is the original. How is yours? Is it similar?

What do you think? Give your opinion on the waiter’s first
question. Does it sound polite to you?
Now, draw the “music of the second question. Again, listen three
times.
When you finish, compare your drawing with two classmates.
Now it is your turn! One classmate plays the role of the
waitperson and the others are customers. The customers order
what they want.
This lesson features self-evaluation after both attempts at

drawing. The first is compared with the teacher’s model, and the
second is mutual evaluation with classmates’ attempts. The second
is intended to provoke an exchange of points of view. Then the
students are invited to express their opinions, achieving an initial
degree of personalization. Finally, further personalization is
stimulated by permitting individual answers within the discourse
frame.
To see a series of sample lessons that implement these principles,
the reader can consult many of the teletutor sessions (teleasesorías)
SEPAInglés has online. At the time of this publication, the URL
address is this.
http://sepaingles.ilce.edu.mx/videos-teleasesorias/teleasesorias
Closing Remarks
Although the model I fixed, with proper treatment under a gentle
hand, it is a tool that lends itself to students constructing their own
understanding by solving intriguing problems, rather than being
passive receivers.
A few precautions are also in order. One is that it takes a while

to train the ear to hear the musical beat and the “measures” in the
chart. A second caution is to point out a significant limitation in the
medium: the most that can appear at a time is two short sentences;
not enough text fits on a screen to recreate a whole dialogue.
Finally, used under a prescriptive teaching style, it would be just as
meaningless as any other tool.
A conclusion for teachers is that a technology is available to
address this subtle, unconscious aspect of language.
44
Reference List
Ally. (n.d.) In Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary. Retrieved 16
September 2014 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/
dictionary/ally.
Berlitz de México. (1990). Orientation course. Mexico City: Berlitz
de México.
Celce-Murcia, Marianne; Brinton, Donna M.; Goodwin, Janet
M. (1996). Teaching Pronunciation: A Reference for Teachers
of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Crystal, David. (1997). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dalton, Christiane; Seidlhofer, Barbara. (1994). Pronunciation.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Durkin, Philip. (2013). Middle English–an overview. In Oxford
English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Retrieved
September 16, 2014 from http://public.oed.com/aspects-of-
english/english-in-time/middle-english-an-overview
Dzib, Alma. (2007). Prosodia. in: Siders, Proceedings: Language
and Education IV. Mexico City: Universidad Pedagógica
Nacional.
Gardner, Howard. (2006) Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons.
New York: Basic Books. Retrieved March 30, 2016 from
https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=qEEC8lyAwWoC&
pg=PA10&dq=multiple+intelligences+kinesthetic&hl=es&s
a=X&ved=0ahUKEwjIutGNiuLLAhUIMSYKHdj5DqwQ
6AEIUDAH#v=onepage&q=multiple%20intelligences%20
kinesthetic&f=false
Heart. (1976). Crazy on You. EMD/Capitol (Mushroom) Records.
Lewis, M. (1993) The Lexical Approach. Hove: Language Teaching
Publications.
Littlejohn, A. (undated) Tasks. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. Retrieved March 30, 2016 from http://www.
andrewlittlejohn.net/website/az/tasks.html
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. (n.d.). Sing-
Along Songs (Midis and Lyrics). Retrieved March 31, 2015
from http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/music.htm.
Richards, J. and Rodgers, T. 1998. Enfoques y métodos en la
enseñanza de idiomas. Madrid: Cambridge University Press.
45
Rhythm. (n.d.) In Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary. Retrieved

March 29, 2016 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/
dictionary/rhythm
Scrivner, Jim. (2005). Learning Teaching. U.K.: Macmillan
Education.
Secretaría de Educación Pública e Instituto Latinoamericano de
la Comunicación Educativa. (2015). Videos de Teleasesorías
de SEPAinglés. Mexico City: Televisión Educativa. Retrieved
March 31, 2016 from http://sepaingles.ilce.edu.mx/videos-
teleasesorias/teleasesorias
Seuss, Dr. (1957). The Cat in the Hat. Great Britain: William
Collins & Sons.
Shea, John. (1993). Some Practical Ideas on the Teaching of Phrasal
Verbs. Workshop, Mexico City Regional Convention. Mexico
City: mextesol.
Siders Vogt, Terrence Nevin. (2011). Una intervención educativa
por televisión de la prosodia del inglés como lengua extranjera.
Tesis de maestría. México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México.
----------------. (2004). The Awful toefl: A Multiple Choice Exam.
workshop for Mexico City mextesol.
----------------. (1995). “Phrasal Verbs: For Beginners Only.”
MEXTESOL Journal, 19, 2-10.
Skehan, P. (1998). Task-based Instruction. Annual Review of Applied
Linguistics, 18, 268-277.
Willis, Jane. (1998). Task-based learning. English Teaching
Professional, October 1998, 3-9.
46
SECRETARÍA DE EDUCACIÓN PÚBLICA
Otto Granados Roldán Secretario de Educación Pública
Rodolfo Tuirán Gutiérrez Subsecretario de Educación Superior
UNIVERSIDAD PEDAGÓGICA NACIONAL

Tenoch Esaú Cedillo Ávalos Rector
Elsa Lucía Mendiola Sanz Secretaría Académica
Omar Alberto Ibarra Nakamichi Secretaría Administrativa
Alejandra Javier Jacuinde Directora de Planeación
Martha Isela García Peregrina Directora de Servicios Jurídicos
Fernando Velázquez Merlo Director de Biblioteca y Apoyo Académico
Xóchitl Leticia Moreno Fernández Directora de Unidades upn
María Teresa Brindis Pérez Dirección de Difusión
y Extensión Universitaria
Coordinadores de Área Académica

Adalberto Rangel Ruiz de la Peña Política Educativa,
Procesos Institucionales y Gestión
Jorge Tirzo Gómez Diversidad e Interculturalidad
Pedro Bollás García Aprendizaje y Enseñanza en Ciencias, Humanidades y Artes
Carlos Ramírez Sámano Tecnologías de la Información y Modelos Alternativos
Iván Rodolfo Escalante Herrera Teoría Pedagógica y Formación Docente
Comité Editorial upn

Tenoch Esaú Cedillo Ávalos Presidente
Elsa Lucía Mendiola Sanz Secretaria Ejecutiva
María Teresa Brindis Pérez Coordinadora Técnica
Vocales académicos
Etelvina Sandoval Flores
Rosa María González Jiménez
Jorge Mendoza García
Armando Solares Rojas
Rosalía Meníndez Martínez
Abel Pérez Ruiz
Mayela Crisóstomo Alcántara Subdirectora de Fomento Editorial

Terrence Nevin Siders Vogt Revisión
Mariana Jali Salazar Guerrero Diseño de Portada y Formación
Esta primera edición de English Stress and Intonation: Words,
Phrasal Verbs, and Discourse. For Beginners Only Collection (1),
estuvo a cargo de la Subdirección de Fomento Editorial, de la
Dirección de Difusión y Extensión Universitaria, de la Univer-
sidad Pedagógica Nacional, y se publicó el 2 de febrero de 2018.

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U N I V E R S I D A D P E D A G Ó G I C A N A C I O N A L

Terrence Nevin Siders Vogt

For Beginners Only Collection

Terrence Nevin Siders Vogt

Primera edición, febrero de 2018

1. Inglés-Estados Unidos-Pronunciación I. t. II. Ser.

Preface to the For Beginners Only Collection......................... 7

There are several matters that would provide beginners of English

here for teachers and textbook writers from a grammatical outlook,

as an article in the MEXTESOL Journal (1995) and mextesol

To make any real progress, we’ll have to progress slowly

The bold words in this example are pronounced differently.

When we turn to the charts further down, there is a further

I want to buy the Beatles record, Let It Be.

Another word that is easily recognizable is present.

Well, I have no idea what we might do next time

So let us move on to the explanation.

The First Group: Nouns and Verbs

Table 1.1: Nouns and Verbs

A few of these words change meanings between the two forms,

a thematic speech, and both appear in both forms. Console changes

The Second Group: Nouns, Verbs,

The next group has a third form, an adjective. In fact it is no more

Table 1.2: Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives

One of the few in this group that changes meaning is contract:

Table 1.3: Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives

An example with these two words can be found in so many

Suggestions for Teaching these Lexical Items

Two Sample Lessons

In the Recording Studio

manager Well! You finally made it! In the recording studio!

manager Well! You finally made it! In the recording studio!

In the Business World

Many of my fellow English teachers are of the opinion that phrasal

What a Phrasal Verb Is

The strong stress is on the “preposition,” (properly termed the

Illustration 2.1: Phrasal Verbs

The first feature is clear when we listen to ourselves say them

Almost all phrasal verbs have a single-word synonym.

It is sometimes said that English has a “double vocabulary,”

The parts are “separable.”

It must be pointed up that the great majority of exercise books

Illustration 2.2: Phrasal Verbs with Pronouns

The particle is most often derived from the preposition’s

Another noticeable feature, beyond the previous strictly

A hyphen can transform a phrasal verb into a noun.

Curiously, most phrasal verbs convert easily into nouns, which

Not the Same as Idioms

In a couple of very amusing lessons totaling only two or three

A Lesson for the Very First Week of Classes

Invite the students to imitate, while you “narrate the action:”

“Federico.” “What is Angélica doing?” “Angélica is standing up.” “Is

Recycling at Intermediate and Advanced

the meanings of several prepositions, and as advanced students

be helpful because they occasionally appear in the recordings and

Prosodic structures are used to organize the representation of a phrase

Of some eight thousand languages in the world, much more than

The consequence of this stress-timed feature is that the central

What these authorities do not mention is that this feature