Consider the following rejoinder:

I did not say you stole my red hat.

At the moment, nothing is particularly stressed. The meaning seems fairly obvious.

But what if some stress is placed on the first word, I

I did not say you stole my red hat.

Then the meaning contains the idea that someone else said it, not me.

Accent the second and third word and you get another shade of meaning.

I did not say you stole my red hat. (Strong anger and denial of the fact.)

I did not say you stole my red hat.

I did not say you stole my red hat. (But I implied it that you did. Did you?)

I did not say you stole my red hat (I wasn't accusing you. I know it was someone else)

I did not say you stole my red hat. (I said you did something else with it, or maybe borrowed it.)

I did not say you stole my red hat (I meant that you stole someone else's red hat)

I did not say you stole my red hat. (I said that you stole my blue hat.)

I did not say that you stole my red hat. (I said that you stole my red bat. You misunderstood my
pronunciation)

 Say the following in five different ways.

 Goodbye
 Hello
 How are you?
 Do we have to speak English, teacher?
 I never watch TV
 Etc. (Add more expressions liable to spark several interpretations when delivered with a
different tone)
Your students will be inhibited at first, so the best thing to do is let them know what you are
talking about. That is, give them a sample of how to use different tones when you want to
insinuate different meanings. I did the following after the class had begun to grasp what I was
looking for:
 Me: John, say "Hello" to me
 John: "Hello" (neutral, polite tone)
 Me: John, now say "Hello" to a friend
 John: "Hello" (much more upbeat tone)
 Me: John, say "Hello" to a 6-month-old-baby!!!
 John: "Hello" (contorted face, exaggerated fall-rise tone, etc)
 One word conversations
 Write a number of single words (e.g. yes, today, sorry, bread etc.) on scraps of paper. Make groups of three - and give
each group one of the pieces of paper.

 Tell the class a situation - (e.g. "Two people think the third person is a thief." or "It's one person's birthday.").

 The learners must now have a conversation - but the only word anyone can say is the one on their paper!To express
different ideas and emotions (e.g. anger, requesting, apologising etc) they will have to vary their intonation. The
resulting dialogues are usually funny, but there's also a real teaching purpose. Without the resources of vocabulary and
grammar, students have to find ways to express much more with intonation.

 Repeat it a few times - with new words and new situations.