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Intonation with a Poem and Small Group Opinion Exchange

Review of Previously Learned Grammar

Date: 11/23/2021
Teacher: Noah McGeorge
Class: Advanced English for All
Class Size: 4
Class length: 6:00pm—7:20pm
Class description
English for All offers training in American English, as well as test preparation, to adults in
Athens, OH for a low fee. This class is composed of a mix of students taking the IELTS, the
TOEFL, as well as no test. All students have graduated from an undergraduate college and
those without a master’s degree are planning to pursue a master’s in the future. The first
languages in the classroom include Latin American Spanish, Nepali, and Vietnamese. The
sweeping goals for the course are to increase student vocabulary, refine pronunciation, use
language in socially complex situations, and prepare for their respective assessments.

Terminal Objectives
By the end of class, students will be able to:
● interpret the speech acts conveyed by X of English’s pitch accents.
● formulate original dialogue which successfully employs learned pitch accents.
● successfully use modals should, would, could in original spoken sentences (review).
● apply new vocabulary in new contexts while speaking.
Assessment
Students will have
● analyzed the speech transcript by successfully marking pitch accents on salient words.
● created a dialogue with a partner then engaged in a conversation with another group
successfully using pitch accents to convey intended meaning.
Materials
● “Intonation” PowerPoint
● “The Hill We Climb” Intonation Map Worksheet
● “The Hill We Climb” (Gorman, 2020) video from Ted.com
● “Government Roles Opinion Exchange” Worksheet

Time
(mins) Enabling Objectives and Procedures

Enabling Objectives: Presentation

Students will be able to
● relate an understanding of musical pitch to intonation.
● explain what is meant by “intonation” and explain how it is formed orally.
● list 10 English pitch accents (called “intonation patterns” in class).
● orally repeat pitch accents after they are heard.
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● orally produce pitch accents with the help of visual aids.

● orally produce pitch accents by identifying context / sentence structure.
15 Procedures
mins welcome
● Students talk about what they did over the weekend as they enter the room.
schemata activation

● Teacher presents the “Intonation PPT” on the board and asks, “Who has heard
of this: intonation?”
● One student explains their understanding of intonation.
● Teacher plays a recording of one question said with two different pitch
accents.
○ Where do you live? once with a falling accent, once with a rising
accent.
● Students attempt to explain the different nuance that the two different pitch
accents create.
● Teacher amplifies students’ explanations or offers the following:
○ “With a falling accent: A speaker asks if they genuinely do not know.
○ With a rising accent: A speaker was already told and seeks to be
reminded.”
● Students respond to the question, “How am I doing this with my voice?”
● Teacher amplifies student responses.
○ Note--It is expected that more advanced students will be reviewing
this material while intermediate students may be feeling confused.
● Teacher plays a recording of a singer’s pitch range on do re me,
demonstrating pitch change.
● Students explain the relationship between pitch and intonation, demonstrating
understanding before proceeding.
Presentation
● Teacher asks students to take notes, reminding them that they will use their
notes in today’s activities.
● Students listen to recordings of each of the major pitch accents, accompanied
by visual examples.
● Throughout the PowerPoint, Teacher elects students randomly to identify the
direction of the pitch change in the recording. The PowerPoint will then
animate an indication of pitch change, amplifying student responses. Teacher
offers praise.
● Procedures repeat as the students review the major pitch accents.

Assessment
Students will have
● taken notes on the major intonation patterns to be used in class today.
● each repeated pitch accents as they are presented.
● produced pitch accents without repeating the teacher; will be able to produce
appropriate pitch accents when given visual cues (such as a line going up).
Transition
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● Students will share how they are feeling with the material. Teacher will relate
how they are feeling to the next assignment. For example, if students are not
feeling confident, the teacher can say, “That’s ok! Let’s practice it together.
I’ve planned a fun activity to give you guys a chance to get practice.”

Enabling Objectives: Practice

Students will be able to
● identify pitch accents in a poem by illustrating them on a guided worksheet.
20 Procedures
mins Pre-listening
● Students read the short biography feature of Amanda Gorman on the
PowerPoint.
● Students receive the “The Hill We Climb” Intonation Map Worksheet.
● First, students watch the reading of the inaugural poetry reading on Ted
without any tasks to complete.
● Teacher removes the visuals. Although the Intonation Map Worksheet mimics
the representation of intonation marking used in the PowerPoint, the teacher
demonstrates its use by completing one pitch accent mark. Teacher instructs
that students are to listen to the poem and mark the pitch accents over the
bolded words.
● Students listen to the reading of “The Hill We Climb” (first two minutes) and
mark pitch accents. The reading is replayed up to three times.
● Teacher moves to the front of the classroom. Teacher displays the major
intonation patterns presented previously (an overview).
● One by one, students share their answers by imitating the pitch accents they
marked. Then, students identify which of the major “intonation pattern” this
falls into.

Assessment
Students will have
● marked pitch accents with an arrow on the bolded words, correcting any
mistakes as they progress.
Transition
● Students reflect on their confidence. Teacher relates that to the next activity.
For example, if students feel confident, the teacher says, “Fantastic! Then
let’s get some practice making these intonation patterns ourselves.”

Enabling Objectives: Production

Students will be able to
● successfully use appropriate pitch accents to express their opinions and
evaluate the opinions of their peers.
30 Procedures
mins instructions
● Students receive the “Opinion Exchange” Worksheet
● One student reads the directions on the worksheet.
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What are the characteristics of a country that is “committed to all

cultures, colors, characters, and conditions” of its people?
Work together with a partner to:
(1) As a group, decide on four “Government Roles” that you two
believe are most important.
(2) As a group, decide on the most important duties a government
has in those roles (use the “useful expressions” to help in your
decision-making.
(3) After your group is finished, join another group and explain
your answers.
● Another student paraphrases the instructions.
● Students break into pairs.
Group work
● Students collaborate to complete the worksheet.
● Teacher visits each group, sampling the language students are producing.
Teacher rephrases student sentences that are off-target, amplifies sentences
that are on-target.
presentation
● The two pairs come together, sitting oppositely.
● Each member of the group will explain two of their selections to the other
group.
● Afterwards, each member of the other group will ask questions and express
disagreement or agreement. To facilitate, the teacher will ask the other group,
“Explain how you feel. Do you agree?”
● Procedure repeats until each student has spoken.
debriefing
● Teacher thanks the students for their hard work. Teacher writes any
constructions the students found difficult--such as the use of modals--and
writes it on the board.
● Students attempt to provide the appropriate pitch accent.
● Teacher amplifies the appropriate pitch accent and elicits a repetition from
students.
Assessment
Students will have
● completed all portions of the “opinion exchange” worksheet.
● presented their opinions to the group using appropriate pitch accents and
participated in the questioning and answering from peers.

5 mins Conclusion Procedures

● Students each share one thing they learned from class.

Anticipated Problems and Solutions

Rationale
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Anticipated Problems
● Less than four students attend.
○ If there are three students, the format of the lesson can be adapted to small
group work. If there is a single student, procedures can continue as written with
the teacher acting as student and placing emphasis on their use of intonation
that reflects the content given in the presentation.
● One student may become offended by the values expressed by another student.
○ Before the activity begins, the students can be reminded that all opinions
expressed by their peers are appreciated and valid; moreover, they should
appreciate the opportunity to gain insight from such a culturally diverse group
of students.
● Students may not have the background knowledge to understand the racial
intersections of Amanda Gorman’s poem; nevertheless, students may ask why it is
surprising for “a skinny Black girl” to be reciting poetry at a presidential inauguration.
○ Rather than explaining explicitly the historical significance of racism and
Gorman’s own life struggles, the teacher can use open-ended inference and
synthesis questions that require students to revisit the poem.
● Student articulations of pitch accents are likely to be dramatic and unnatural.
○ This is expected. At this point, the goal is to develop traction that students can
use to analyze the speech that they will hear in the future and develop more
natural intonation in the future.
● Time may go under.
○ If there is time left at the end of class, they may watch the remainder of the
Amanda Gorman inaugural reading.
Rationale
According to Zsiga (2013), intonation is not merely the expression of emotion but “convey[s]
discourse-level meaning” through the use “of pitch and other suprasegmental features” (p.
392). Specifically, discourse-level meaning is conveyed through pitch accents, a sudden
change in pitch “associated to a salient syllable in a word” (p. 394). Thus, to be successful
communicators, it is the challenge of advanced ELL students to interpret the speech acts
conveyed through intonation patterns and reproduce those speech acts by automatically
positioning pitch accents on salient words and then producing the appropriate accent.

In this activity, the students’ “focal attention” is “given to the interpretation and negotiation of
meaning” (Brown & Lee, 2015, p. 151). The context created is interactive but also offers a
glimpse into a real-world context in which the language can be used.

References
Brown, H. D., & Lee H. (2015). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language
pedagogy. Pearson Education.
Gorman, A. (2020). “The hill we climb.” In TED.com.
https://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_gorman_the_hill_we_climb
Zsiga, E. C. (2013). The Sounds of language: An introduction to phonetics and phonology.
Wiley-Blackwell.