Do you teach your ELLs about ‘word stress’? Many languages keep the word stress (or emphasis) in the same place for most of their words. However, in English, every word has one syllable which one should pronounce “longer, louder, or higher” than the others. We usually stress these syllables with a slight falling tone, too. But there is not really a strict rule governing which syllable is stressed.
Native English speakers have grown up hearing English. Therefore, it is something we take for granted and often overlook when teaching English as a second language. Luckily, there are some loose rules on word stress around two-syllable words which function both as adjective and verb. The video below gives a good overview of this and it’s something you could integrate into your lessons.
