Sounds Clear

To the Instructor
To the Student
Guide to the Symbols

Chapter 1 SYLLABLES
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN 3
LISTEN AND SPEAK
SPEAK 1: Syllable Maze
SPEAK 2: Counting Syllables
SPEAK 3: Change the Lyrics

Chapter 2 STRESSED AND UNSTRESSED SYLLABLES
PART 1. STRESS
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN 3

PART 2. UNSTRESS
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
SPEAK 1: Word Stress Bingo
SPEAK 2: Highlighting and Weakening Syllables
SPEAK 3: Role-Play Situations

Chapter 3 PREDICTABLE WORD STRESS
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
PART 1. STRESS PATTERNS ACCORDING TO SYLLABLE WEIGHT AND WORD CATEGORY
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN 3
SPEAK 1: Airport Check-in
SPEAK 2: Have You Ever…?

PART 2. STRESS PATTERNS IN MORPHOLOGICALLY COMPLEX WORDS
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN 3
LISTEN 4
LISTEN 5
SPEAK 1: College Life Dice Bingo
SPEAK 2: The Perfect Date Survey

PART 3. STRESS PATTERNS ACCORDING TO SPELLING
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
SPEAK 1: Ty & Teen Snakes and Ladders
SPEAK 2: Personality Interview

Chapter 4 RHYTHM IN SENTENCES
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN 3
SPEAK 1: Ordering Drinks at a Cafe
SPEAK 2: Team Project

Chapter 5 PHRASING AND LINKING
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN 3
LISTEN AND SPEAK
SPEAK 1: Worst Day Ever?
SPEAK 2: Chants & Poems
SPEAK 3: One Fry, Two Fries

Chapter 6 PROMINENCE IN DISCOURSE
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN AND SPEAK
SPEAK 1: The Danger of a Single Story
SPEAK 2: Focus Tic Tac Toe
SPEAK 3: Eliciting Vocabulary
SPEAK 4: Food Debate

Chapter 7 INTONATION
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN AND SPEAK
SPEAK 1: Asking Questions
SPEAK 2: Lesson Introduction

Chapter 8 CONSONANTS
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Voiceless vs. Voiced Consonants in English
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1

/p/ as in pin vs. /f/ as in fin
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN AND SPEAK
SPEAK 1: Classroom Quiz
SPEAK 2: Are You Adulting?

/b/ as in boat vs. /v/ as in vote
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN AND SPEAK
SPEAK 1: Guess Who
SPEAK 2: Giving Directions

/ɵ/ as in think vs. /s/ as in sink
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN AND SPEAK
SPEAK 1: Tongue Twisters
SPEAK 2: Battleship

/ð/ as in though vs. /d/ as in dough
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN AND SPEAK
SPEAK 1: Whose Is It?
SPEAK 2: Desert Island

/r/ as in rent vs. /l/ as in lent
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN AND SPEAK
SPEAK 1: The Dial Pad Game
SPEAK 2: Lesson Review

/ʒ/ as in usual vs. /ʤ/ as in judge vs. /z/ as in zoo
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN AND SPEAK
SPEAK 1: Dots and Boxes
SPEAK 2: The Time Capsule

Chapter 9 VOWELS
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
/iy/ as in leap vs. /ɪ/ as in lip
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN AND SPEAK
SPEAK 1: Tongue Twisters
SPEAK 2: OXO Game

/ey/ as in mate vs. /ɛ/ as in met
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN AND SPEAK
SPEAK 1: Find the Objects
SPEAK 2: American Slang

/æ/ as in mat vs. /ɛ/ as in met
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN AND SPEAK
SPEAK 1: Connect Four
SPEAK 2: A Visit to the School Nurse

/ʌ/ as in hut vs. /ɑ/ as in hot
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN AND SPEAK
SPEAK 1: Family Tree
SPEAK 2: Common English Errors
SPEAK 3: Pronunciation Pyramid Page

/uw/ as in Luke vs. /ʊ/ as in look
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN AND SPEAK
SPEAK 1: Blankety Blank - What to Say When...
SPEAK 2: Daily Activities

/ow/ as in no vs. /ɔ/ as in all vs. /ʌ/ as in null
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
LISTEN 1
LISTEN 2
LISTEN AND SPEAK
SPEAK 1: Carnival Bingo
SPEAK 2: Setting Homework

Practice Activity Answer Keys
APPENDIX: Activity Worksheet

Chapter 5
PHRASING AND LINKING

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Q. What is phrasing?
A. In conversation, speakers do not say long sentences once in one breath. Instead, they divide them into smaller groups of words that form grammatically coherent units that express an idea. Phrasing is a process of dividing speech into meaningful groups of words. These groups of words are called various names such as “thought groups”, “meaning groups”, “rhythm groups”, “intonation groups”, “breath groups”, and so on. In this textbook, we will refer to them as thought groups. In written English, punctuation marks such as commas and periods are used to indicate thought groups. However, in spoken English, thought groups are marked with a short break, namely a pause.

Q. Why is phrasing important?
A. Phrasing has beneficial impacts on intelligibility. Speakers divide their speech into thought groups to make the meaning clear. Thought groups also help listeners better understand the information in the speakers’ speech by organizing it into comprehensible chunks that are easy to process. Also, when an utterance is phrased differently, it can change the meaning of the utterance.

Listen to the sentences below. (Track 5-1)
The boss said, “The secretary was hard-working.”
“The boss”, said the secretary, “was hard-working”.

The first sentence where a pause is placed after , means . On the other hand, the second sentence with a pause after and before means . Changing the place of a pause in an utterance can result in a difference in meaning.

Q. How often should speakers pause when they speak?
A. There are no strict rules for how long each thought group should be or how often speakers should pause. Pausing may differ from speaker to speaker, depending on the meaning and the situation. For instance, in informal conversations or slow speeches, thought groups may be shorter, and pauses between the groups may be more frequent than formal speeches or long speeches.
Q. Are some words within a thought group said as if they are one word?
A. Yes, they are. In English, words which are within the same thought group are linked together as if they are one word.