Judy Thompson discusses the importance of word stress in English fluency, emphasizing that not all syllables carry equal weight and that understanding stress can enhance communication. She provides practical tips for teaching pronunciation and encourages language learners to focus on syllables, stress, and the schwa sound. Thompson advocates for a shift in traditional language learning methods, highlighting that grammar study alone is insufficient for achieving fluency.

1. ENGLISH FLUENCY HACK
WORD STRESS
By: Judy Thompson
March 12th, 2016

2. WHO THE HECK IS JUDY THOMPSON?
⦿Passionate ESL teacher and
hacker of Spoken English in
Speaking Made Simple
⦿TEDx talk on Three Secrets you
Need to Know about Spoken
English
⦿Published English is Stupid in
Students are Not in 2009 which
is now taught in 40+ countries

3. Still about Judy
⦿3 more books out including
the world’s first Sound
Dictionary - Grass is Black
⦿Preparing to launch online
teacher training and
student fluency courses in
2016
⦿Founding member of
Radical English, an
international organization of
master teachers dedicated
to the reform of education

4. And You? NOT a Member of the
“World is Flat Club?” I Hope.
Probably not or you wouldn’t be on this webinar!
True learning involves some unlearning.
Be prepared to let go of the following:
things you thought
were facts
facts you were taught in
school or by your parents
that have proven to be
untrue

5. World is Flat for Language Learning
After billions of wasted dollars and hours… We NOW know
• Grammar study is NOT the best way to learn a new
language
Grammar fluency comes with using a language.
• Accents are NOT usually a problem for native speakers
to understand.
Accents are like hair, something you worry and fuss over
that NO ONE pays any attention to.
The questions of the day are when do accents interfere
with communication and what can we do about them?
The answer is Stress.

6. Stress

7. Word Stress
It’s something different and it’s really important
Not That Kind of Stress

8. English is a Stress-Based Language
Great but what does that mean?
Unlike Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Korean...
where each symbol represents one and only one sound
and every sound is equally important
In English some sounds and some syllables are
important.
But which ones and important how?

9. Agenda
• Syllables, Stress and Schwa are the three core
elements in word pronunciation
• Activity - Making it real - change the stress, change the
meaning
• Unstressed syllables - how unimportant syllable show
up in conversation
• Simple pronunciation hack for words and sentences
• The secret to intelligibility in English

10. Sy•lla•bles are the Beats in a Word
Rules for syllables that I never tell students:
1. Vowel sounds determine syllables
1. One and only one vowel sound per syllable
i.e. Canada - /Ca na da/ has 3 syllables
strength - /strength/ has 1 syllable
How many does ‘idea’ have? - /i de a/
(Students can break words into syllables intuitively - no lesson)
The rule I always tell students:
There is one and only ONE MOST IMPORTANT
SYLLABLE in ANY WORD!
This is the eye of the storm!

11. Stress
• All syllables are NOT equally important.
Chinese, Arabic, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu... LISTEN UP.
• There is one and only one most important syllable in
any word and that syllable is STRESSED.
• Stressed syllables are HIGHER, LOUDER and
LONGER than other syllables in the same word.
BA NA NA is not a word in English. Neither are BAnana
nor banaNA
The word is baNAna and there are no variations.

12. Change the Stress Activity
What happens when you move the stress in
these words:
content
record
rebel
innocence

13. Word Stress is Everything
content content
record record
rebel rebel
80% of two syllable nouns – first syllable
60% of two syllable verbs – second syllable
innocence
in essence
in a sense
Change the stress - change the meaning

14. Schwa - What Happens with Unimportant Syllables?
• The vowel sound of unimportant syllables is always
the same. It’s the tiniest sound the human voice can
make /uh/ and it’s called schwa
• (tiny baby Mustard if you know your vowel colors)
• banana sounds like /buh NA nuh/
• Don’t spend too much time on
unimportant syllables (schwa)
because they are unimportant

15. Unimportant is SO Unimportant
• Judy – /JU dy/. The stressed syllable is the first one, if
you don’t say the second syllable at all ‘Jude’, I still
know you want me
• ‘because’ – cuz “Bring a coat cuz it’s raining”
• ‘second’ – sec “Just a sec”
What happens to the unimportant syllable in:
chocolate, family, vegetable, camera, probably?
The ebb and flow of important and unimportant is
KEY to FLUENCY in English.

16. The Fluency Hack is in your desk drawer
It’s a rubber band.
Hook it between your thumbs and pull your hand
apart to pronounce STRESSED SYLLABLES
buh NA nuh

17. It works for Sentences, too
This is really starting into the next webinar but
A cup of coffee:
uh CUP uh COffee

18. Recap
• The 3 elements of word pronunciation are syllables,
stress and schwa
• Syllables are the beats in a word dictated by vowel
sounds - one vowel sound per syllable
• One syllable is always more important than all the
other syllables in a word
• The important syllable is stressed - higher, louder
and longer than the other syllables
• The stressed syllable dictates the ‘color’ of the word
if you know that system

20. English is a Stress-Based Language
• Word stress is the secret to intelligibility
• Grammar can be good or bad and accents can be
charming or challenging but if word stress is not in
place there is nothing
• Word stress hack is an elastic band. Pull your thumbs
apart on stressed syllables and the skill goes into your
brain kinetically

21. Please Sign up
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upcoming webinars:
www.thompsonlanguagecenter.com
judy@thompsonlanguagecenter.com
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• Learn hacks for teaching all English skills
including grammar at
www.RadicalEnglish.weebly.com

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