What are Methods to Teach Native- Like Sentence Stress?

The English language is often referred to as stress-timed. This means that stress in a spoken sentence occurs at regular intervals and the length it takes to say something depends on the number of stressed syllables rather than the number of syllables itself.

A stress-timed language is a language where the stressed syllables are said at approximately regular intervals, and unstressed syllables shorten to fit this rhythm. English and German are examples of stress-timed languages, while Spanish and Cantonese are syllable-timed.

1. Start by Discussing Stress. Read a sentence aloud from the textbook without stressing content or main idea words.
2. Introduce Syllables.
3. Elaborate on Stress.
4. Provide Examples.
5. Define Schwa.
6. Practice Sentence Stress.
7. Mark.
8. Compare.

In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence.

Factors affecting stress placement for English nonwords include syllabic structure, lexical class, and stress patterns of phonologically similar words.

Fluent English speakers use word stress to communicate rapidly and accurately, even in difficult conditions. If, for example, you do not hear a word clearly, you can still understand the word because of the position of the stress. Think again about the two words photograph and photographer.

Stress is the degree of force that the speaker makes on the specific syllable or words in order to carry important information to the listener. So, it is important to pronounce words accurately because part of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences depends on stress placement.