Focus: Pronunciation boost

In Section 5a of the Pronunciation Masterclass (your bonus material), I introduced you to 'weak forms' containing the short vowel ‘schwa’, with the phonetic symbol /ə/.

In this lesson, we'll be looking at how this and other short vowels influence word stress and sentence stress in English.

Step 1:

Watch the video lesson for some visual information on word and sentence stress patterns.

Step 2:

After watching the video, download the ZIP file .

First, Read the Audio script to become familiar with the content.

Then, listen to and repeat the examples for each section out loud while still looking at the transcript.

Then, listen to and repeat the examples for each section out loud several times without looking at the transcript.

Be patient! It may take some time for you to get used to this aspect of English pronunciation.

The most important thing is that your ears begin to recognise these stress patterns. This will vastly improve your listening comprehension of natives.

Once you can hear these stress patterns well, you will gradually begin to use them yourself.

Step 3:

Now, take the quiz for more practice.

You need to get a minimum score of 80% in each quiz to receive your Certificate of Completion, so repeat the quiz until you score above 80%. You can take each quiz up to 10 times.

You’ve almost finished the ninth week of your studies!

Keep up the excellent work!