### Lesson Plan: Emphatic Stress
**Grade:** Junior Secondary 3
**Duration:** 45 minutes
**Subject:** English Comprehension
**Topic:** Emphatic Stress
**Objective:**
1. Students will understand the concept of emphatic stress.
2. Students will be able to identify and use emphatic stress in sentences.
3. Students will comprehend the importance of emphatic stress in conveying meaning.
**Materials Needed:**
- Whiteboard and markers
- Handouts with sample sentences
- Audio clips with examples of emphatic stress
- Projector and laptop (optional)
- Worksheets for practice
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### Introduction (10 minutes)
1. **Greeting and Attendance (2 minutes):**
- Welcome the students and take attendance.
2. **Warm-Up Activity (3 minutes):**
- Begin with a simple tongue twister to get students engaged and focused on pronunciation.
- Example: "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."
3. **Introduction to Emphatic Stress (5 minutes):**
- Write the phrase "Emphatic Stress" on the board.
- Ask students if they know what stress means when speaking in English.
- Explain that emphatic stress is the practice of emphasizing or placing more force on a particular word in a sentence to highlight its importance or to change the meaning of the sentence.
### Instruction (15 minutes)
1. **Explanation (5 minutes):**
- Use straightforward sentences to explain the basic concept of emphatic stress.
- Example: "I didn't say he stole the money." Discuss how stressing different words changes the meaning:
- **I** didn’t say he stole the money. (Someone else said it.)
- I **didn’t** say he stole the money. (Negates the statement.)
- I didn’t **say** he stole the money. (Implies another form of communication.)
- I didn’t say **he** stole the money. (Implies someone else did it.)
- I didn’t say he **stole** the money. (Implies a different action.)
- I didn’t say he stole **the** money. (Implies different money.)
2. **Audio Examples (5 minutes):**
- Play audio clips with sentences where different words are emphasized.
- Have students listen and discuss how the meaning changes with different emphases.
3. **Interactive Board Exercise (5 minutes):**
- Write a sentence on the board and encourage students to come up and place stress on different words.
- Discuss with the class how the meaning changes with each variation.
### Guided Practice (10 minutes)
1. **Pair Work (5 minutes):**
- Hand out worksheets with sentences.
- Ask students to work in pairs to read the sentences aloud, experimenting with emphatic stress.
- Circulate around the classroom to provide assistance and feedback.
2. **Class Discussion (5 minutes):**
- Invite pairs to share a sentence and explain how the meaning changes with different emphases.
- Summarize the key learning points from the exercise.
### Independent Practice (5 minutes)
1. **Worksheet Activity:**
- Provide a second worksheet with more complex sentences.
- Ask students to individually mark the words they would emphasize to alter the sentence meaning.
- Collect the worksheets for assessment.
### Conclusion (5 minutes)
1. **Recap (2 minutes):**
- Summarize the key points of the lesson: what emphatic stress is and how it changes meanings in sentences.
- Discuss why understanding and using emphatic stress is important in communication.
2. **Exit Ticket (3 minutes):**
- Ask students to write one sentence and underline the word they would stress for a particular meaning on a small piece of paper.
- Collect these as they leave to gauge understanding.
### Assessment:
1. **Formative Assessment:**
- Observations during class activities and discussions.
- Pair work and individual worksheet completion.
2. **Summative Assessment:**
- Analyze the collected worksheets and exit tickets for understanding of emphatic stress.
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### Follow-Up:
For homework, ask students to find a short paragraph from a book, magazine, or online article and underline the words they think should be emphasized for better understanding or dramatic effect. They should be prepared to read it aloud in the next class and explain their choices.
This lesson plan aims to provide a comprehensive and interactive approach to mastering emphatic stress, ensuring students not only understand the concept but can also apply it effectively in communication.