"Teaching Word Stress: A Curricular Resource For Adult English Language Learners At The High Beginner/Low Intermediate Levels "

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine what materials were needed to inform the development of a curricular resource contributing to adult English language learners’ awareness and improved pronunciation of North American English word stress. A review of contemporary literature revealed that pronunciation instruction is key to adults’ acquisition of intelligible speech, and that instruction needs to focus foremost on prosodic features that are global to the needs of learners, such as word stress. The author’s curricular resource includes a series of lesson plans and student- centered activities. To guide the development of the resource, the author employed a Communicative Language Teaching approach with principles that embrace the validity of pronunciation instruction and a pedagogical framework of five phases. The resource will add to the small but growing bank of pronunciation instructional resources available for teachers of adult English language learners.