At the Lessen

No Music Lessons

This exercise is meant to test your ability to analyze and reproduce material for reading and retelling.

This exercise is meant to develop your ability to hear intonation and reproduce it in reading and narration.

Make up a dialogue about your future profession.

a) listen to the joke "Nothing to Complain About", sentence by sen­tence. Write it down. Mark stresses and tunes. Practise the joke for test reading.

b) Listen to the narration of the joke. Observe the peculiarities in intonation-group division, pitch, stress and tempo. Note the use of tempo­rizers. Reproduce the model narration of the joke.

a) Read the jokes silently to make sure you understand each sentence. Underline the sentence expressing the essence of the joke. Split up each sentence into intonation groups if necessary. Locate the communicative centre of each sentence. Mark the stresses and tunes, concentrating your attention on the attitude expressed. It is not expected that each student will mark the story in exactly the same way. Discuss your variants in class. The teacher will help you to choose the best variant. Practise your corrected variant for test reading.

b) Retell the jokes in your own words:

Once the teacher asked his pupil: "Bobby, how many fingers have you?" The pupil answered at once: "I have ten fingers."

The teacher asked him another question: "Well,if four were missing what would you have then?" "No music lessons," was the answer.

"Well, Alex, how much is two plus one?" asked the teacher, "I don't know, sir," answered the boy. "Well, Alex! Fancy I give you two dogs and then one dog more. Mow many dogs have you now?" "Four dogs," the boy answered timidly. "Why, Alex?" "Because I have one dog already, sir."

----------------

One morning a boy was going by a London bus to school. He had a cold and was sniffing all the time and so loudly that the people began to look at him and shake their heads. An old gentleman was sitting next to the boy. He suffered the boy's sniffing for some time but at last lost his patience and said: "Haven't you got a handkerchief, my boy?"

"Yes, I've got a clean handkerchief in my pocket," said the boy, "but I can't let you have it. Mother says it is not polite to ask anybody for a handkerchief. You must use your own."

SECTION SIX Compound Tunes
TWO OR MORE FALLS WITHIN ONE SENSE-GROUP

In sense-groups with the High Falling or Falling-Rising nuclear tone there may be one or more other words marked by a relatively high falling tone. The function of such Falls is to provide a greater degree of prominence for the words on which they occur. All other words of the head are not stressed. The attitude expressed by the sentence is not changed but the utterance sounds emphatic. In this case the head is called Sliding.

Compare:

1. Listen carefully to the following conversational situations. Concen­trate your attention on the intonation of the replies:

Verbal Context	Drill
What was the party like?	The food was terrible, I'm sorry to say.
Tom's having tea. What for you, Arthur?	I'd prefer a cup of coffee.
It's such a tiring journey by train.	Well why not fly?
Which one can I have?	Which would you prefer?
Oh I know he couldn't help it	Then why are you so angry with him?
I'm going to London tomorrow.	How long d'you intend being away?
The door won't open.	Why not try turning the key?
Ail right. Lets go to the pictures.	Do you really want to?
That's not very convincing.	Well, can you think of a better argument?
She's only working half time now.	Yes, but need she go to work at all?
Have you heard about Alex?	Isn't it incredible?
Of course he'll agree.	Don't be too sure.
These stewed apples aren't very sweet.	Have some more sugar with them.
What time's convenient for you?	Come whenever you're free.
I can't manage all that.	Well, eat as much as you can, then.
He didn't say a word.	How very unusual!
How about a show tonight?	If only you asked me earlier!
It's my birthday today.	Very many happy returns!

Дата добавления: 2014-10-17