Paul Ibbotson and Michael Tomasello. The natural world is full of wondrous adaptations such as camouflage, migration and echolocation.
In one sense, the quintessentially human ability to use language is no more remarkable than these other talents. However, unlike these other adaptations, language seems to have evolved just once, in one out of 8.7 million species on earth today. The hunt is on to explain the foundations of this ability and what makes us different from other animals. Grammar 1.0 The intellectual most closely associated with trying to pin down that capacity is Noam Chomsky. It was a bold claim: despite the surface variations we hear between Swahili, Japanese and Latin, they are all run on the same piece of underlying software. First, it turned out that it is really difficult to state what is “in” universal grammar in a way that does justice to the sheer diversity of human languages.
Universal cognition If not universal grammar, then what? Putting our heads together The place of language. Teaching, Teacher Education, New Technologies. Collins Dictionaries. Teachingenglish.org. Why word stress is important What word stress is Some 'rules' of word stress How I help my students In the classroom Conclusion Why word stress is important Mistakes in word stress are a common cause of misunderstanding in English.
Here are the reasons why: Stressing the wrong syllable in a word can make the word very difficult to hear and understand; for example, try saying the following words: And now in a sentence: "I carried the b'tell to the hottle. "Now reverse the stress patterns for the two words and you should be able to make sense of the sentence! "I carried the bottle to the hotel. " These three reasons tell me that word stress is an important part of the English language, and it is something I should help my students with. What word stress is When we stress syllables in words, we use a combination of different features. It is equally important to remember that the unstressed syllables of a word have the opposite features of a stressed syllable! Intonation. It's no surprise that many teachers don't feel confident about tackling it in the classroom.
When teaching grammar or lexis, we find ways of making the language accessible to our learners. How then to do this with intonation? What is intonation? Why teach intonation? Can I improve my own awareness of intonation? What is intonation? It's divided into phrases, also known as 'tone-units'. Why teach intonation? Awareness of intonation aids communication. Though it's unlikely our learners will need native-speaker-level pronunciation, what they do need is greater awareness of intonation to facilitate their speaking and listening. BBC Bitesize - GCSE. News, sport and opinion from the Guardian's UK edition.
The Telegraph - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph. Bbclearningenglish. UK holidays, tourist information & days out. TEFL resources. BBC Learning English - Learning English. Breaking News English Lessons: Easy English News. English Tips Blog. English Power Pack Product: American Pronunciation Training by Rachel Rachel’s eBook shows you, from start to finish, how to improve your English speaking skills.
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World War One on TV and Radio. Teaching Resources. Teachit English - Home page. Onestopenglish: Number one for English language teachers. Dave's ESL Cafe. TeachingEnglish.