The Oxford 3000 in Teacher Talk:

A Study of a Non-native Teacher of English, Teaching NCE I

Students of Aminu Kano College of Islamic and Legal studies, Kano

Anas Aminu Kamfa, Mukhtar Ali Hikima & Mubarak Ibrahim Lawan

ABSTRACT

This research is carried out to investigate the Oxford 3000 in Teacher Talk. It is assumed
that teachers simplify their talk to enhance effective second language acquisition. Words, on
the other hand, are with what teachers make explication of other terms. Not all words are
actually worth being used. There are some carefully chosen high frequency 3000 words
which are more important than all the other close to 40 million words in the corpus. This
research sets up to investigate the extent to which teachers employ such words in their talk
and how the words affect students’ comprehension. This paper is built upon Krashen’s
(1982) Theory of Comprehensible Input. Since this is a mini research, a non-native teacher
of English teaching Phonology to NCE I students of Aminu Kano College of Islamic and
Legal studies is observed to find out the extent at which he employs the Oxford 3000 in his
talk. Twenty students were randomly chosen to respond to the questionnaire on how these
words affect students’ comprehension. It is found out that 94% of the words in the corpus
studied belong to the Oxford 3000 and this helped the attainment of comprehension.

Key Terms: Oxford 3000, Teacher Talk (TT), Second Language (L2), Conprehensible Input
(C+I1), Language acquisition, Phonology

Introduction
Various circumstances abound in teachers’ effort to modify their talk for student’s
comprehension. Good modifications help focus on the characteristics that make such talk
‘communicative’. Comprehensible input gives rise to language acquisition (Krashen,1981).

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Teachers use words to talk. However, difficulty or simplicity of the words may affect
students’ comprehension. There are 3000 highly frequency words that more important than
any other words in English (Laufer 1992). This suggests there might be some effect in the
employment of these 3000 words by teachers in trying to ensure comprehensibility of the
input.

Pedagogically speaking, teacher talk is a vital aspect of classroom-based language learning. It

is important to investigate how qualitative such talk is. However, such words with which the
teacher delivers his talk, especially the Oxford 3000, have been neglected or given little
attention in the previous researches. Since permeation of these high frequency words in
teacher talk can undoubtedly help student comprehend the explanation, this paper sets up to
examine the extent at which teachers employ in their talk the Oxford 3000 and the effect this
has in students’ comprehension.

Interest in teacher talk within the profession has since shifted away from a concern with
quantity towards a concern with quality. While the question of how much teachers talk is still
important, more emphasis is given to how effectively they are able to facilitate learning and
promote communicative interaction in their classroom through, for example, the kind of
questions they ask, the speech modifications they make when talking to learners, or the way
they react to student errors (Nunan1989). Krashen (1981) hypothesized that teacher talk is
now generally recognized as a potentially valuable source of comprehensible input for the
learner. Since this is essential for language acquisition, getting teachers to reduce the amount
of their talk would not necessarily be in the interests of the learner.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Krashen’s (1985) Input Theory
Krashen’s theory emphasizes the significance of comprehensibility of input in second
language learning. The language used by the teacher affects the language produced by the
learners, the interaction generated, and hence the kind of learning that takes place. The type
of the input, according to Krashen should be appropriate and useful for language learners in
classrooms. In Krashen’s view, learning only takes place by means of a learner’s access to
comprehensible input. “Humans acquire language in only one way - by understanding
messages or by receiving comprehensible input. Learning takes place when only a little of the
input is beyond the learner’s level. Krashen coined this assumption using the structure

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“i+1”.In this, “i” stands for the learners’ current linguistic competence, and “1” stands for the
items a little ahead of the current linguistic competence of the learners. According to him, the
input is important when the language is a bit above the current level of the learner but not
overwhelming to them. This means that a little effort is needed from the learner. The Input
Theory also has two corollaries (Krashen, 1985: 2).
Corollary 1: Speaking is a result of acquisition, not its cause; it emerges as result of building
competence via comprehensible input.
Corollary 2: If input is understood and there is enough of it, the necessary grammar is
automatically provided. The language teacher needs not attempt to deliberately teach the next
structure along the natural order - it will be provided in just the right quantities and it
automatically reviews if the student receives a sufficient amount of comprehensible input.
It is deducible from the above assertion that comprehensive and right quantity input is the
central concern with which learners are able to learn a language. It is the foundation or
premise of the occurrence of learning. This provides implications for language teaching:
teacher talk should be comprehensible in different forms and in the right quantities. But how
could teachers know whether their input is enough or not? How could they make their input
comprehensible?
Krashen describes two ways: the linguistic resources are insufficient for immediate decoding.
Simplified input can be made available to the learner through one-way or two-way
interaction, with the former including listening to a lecture, watching television and reading,
and the latter occurring in conversations. Krashen stresses that two-way interaction is a
particularly good way of providing comprehensible input because it enables the learner to
obtain additional contextual information and optimally adjusted input when meaning has to
be negotiated because of communication problems.
According to Krashen (1985), acquisition takes place by means of a learner’s access to
comprehensible input. He comments that the input, which is totally incomprehensible to
learners, is not likely to cause learning to take place. Teacher talk, actually serves as the main
source of input of language exposure in classroom learning, is more important for foreign
language learning. Thus teachers should make their input comprehensible and in right
quantities. This paper is therefore set within the postulation of this theory that the
employment of the Oxford 3000 would help add quality to teacher talk.

The Oxford 3000

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The Oxford 3000 is a trademark which refers to the key words that have been carefully
chosen by a group of language experts and experienced teachers as the most important and
useful words to learn as contained in the Oxford English Corpus. Richard and Renandya
(2002) opine that knowing approximately 3000 high frequency and general academic words
is significant because this amount covers a high percentage of the words in an average page.

The Oxford 3000 emerged based on the information in the American English section of the
Oxford English Corpus. A corpus is an electronically held collection of written and spoken
texts, and this corpus contains more than 2 billion words. However, just being frequent in the
corpus is not enough for a word to be chosen as a keyword. Some words may be used very
frequently, but only in a limited area, such as in newspapers or scientific articles. In order to
avoid including these restricted words, included as keywords are only those words that are
frequent across a range of different types of texts. In other words, keywords are both frequent
and used in a variety of different contexts.

Familiarity of the words to most users of English also matters in selecting the words, even
though they are not used very frequently. These include, for example, words for parts of the
body, words used in travel, and words that are useful for explaining what you mean when you
do not know the exact word for something. These words were identified by asking a group of
experts in the fields of teaching and language study. Owing to their significance, the
dictionary uses these words in the explication of all the words in the dictionary in order to
make the definitions easy to understand. Leufar (1992) believes that it is required for second
language learners entering university to know a minimum of about 3000 words for effective
reading.

Ally (2012) reports the guidelines on the percentage of the words for different levels of
learners as follows:
 In a typical lower intermediate text close to 100% of the words will be Oxford 3000
keywords.
 In a typical upper intermediate text 90-95% of the words will be Oxford 3000
keywords.
 In a typical advanced text 75-90% of the words will be Oxford 3000 keywords.

Teacher Talk
Teacher talk refers to whatever a teacher says in the course of his or her explanation to the
students in the class. According to Sinclair ＆ Brazil (1982), teacher talk is the language in

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the classroom that takes up a major portion of class time employed to give directions, explain
activities and check students’ understanding. According to Longman Dictionary of Language
Teaching and Applied Linguistics, teacher talk is that variety of language sometimes used by
teachers when they are in the process of teaching. In trying to communicate with learners,
teachers often simplify their speech, giving it many of the characteristics of foreigner talk and
other simplified styles of speech addressed to language learners (Richards, 1992: 471).
Rod Ellis (1985), stated that “Teacher talk is the special language that teachers use when
addressing L2 learners in the classroom. There is systematic simplification of the formal
properties of the teacher’s language… studies of teacher talk can be divided into those that
investigate the type of language that teachers use in language classrooms and those that
investigate in the type of language they use in subject lessons.” He also commented “the
language that teachers address to L2 learner is treated as a register, with its own specific
formal and linguistics properties” (Ellis, 1985: 145).
Teacher talk is indispensable in learning a second language. Talking about the significance of
teacher talk, Nunan (1991) opined that teacher talk does a lot in the success or failure of
implementation of lesson plans. He also observes that TT plays a crucial role in the
classroom, not just as a tool for the organization and monitoring of the classroom but also as
an inherent process of second language acquisition. The organization and the management of
the classroom depend greatly on TT as it is through language that a teacher either succeeds or
fails to communicate the intended messages. It also facilitates the acquisition of language
because the teacher’s input is the major source of target language exposure for most of the
students.
Teachers’ instruction, especially comprehensible input, helps in quicker language acquisition
as Stern (1983) says: “ if a foreign language is learned in a class in a non-supportive language
environment, then the instructions given by the teachers are the only source of
comprehensible target language input for students”. However, Ellis(1985) points out that TT
serves two important functions. Firstly, it serves as an input of the target language, and
secondly, it is used for the process of interaction which facilitates understanding of the input
and helps learning occur in class.

Communicative Teacher Talk

Cullen (1997) characterizes teacher talk in terms of the authenticity of its
communicativeness. With this regard, Nunan (1987) attempted to evaluate whether classes
which purported to be communicative really were so by determining the extent to which

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genuine communication was evident in them. He suggested that genuine communication is
characterized by uneven distribution of information, the negotiation of meaning (through, for
example, clarification requests and confirmation checks), topic nomination and negotiation of
more than one speaker, and the right of interlocutors to decide whether to contribute to an
interaction or not . . . In genuine communication, decisions about who says what to whom are
up for grabs. (Nunan 1987: 137).Using such characteristics as criteria of communicativeness,
Nunan’s conclusion from his own investigations into classroom practice was that ‘there is
growing evidence that, in communicative classes, interactions may, in fact, not be very
communicative at all’ (ibid.: 144). A similar conclusion is reached by Kumaravadivelu (1993:
12-13):
In theory, a communicative classroom seeks to promote interpretation, expression and
negotiation of meaning . . . [Learners] should be encouraged to ask for information,
seek clarification, express an opinion, agree and/or disagree with peers and teachers . .
. In reality, however, such a communicative classroom seems to be a rarity. Research
studies show that even teachers who are committed to communicative language
teaching can fail to create opportunities for genuine interaction in their classrooms.

The criteria for assessing the communicativeness of classroom discourse and, by extension,
of teacher talk, are taken from what is perceived to constitute communicative behaviour in
the world outside the classroom (Cullen 1997).
Genuine communication appears to comprise characteristics such as ‘negotiation of meaning’
and ‘topic nomination by more than one speaker’. This becomes a reason for incorporating
them into classroom discourse, and for judging the communicativeness or otherwise of
classrooms according to whether or not these features are present Cullen (1997). Cullen
further argues that attempts to define communicative talk in the classroom must be based
primarily on what is or is not communicative in the context of the classroom itself, rather
than on what may or may not be communicative in other contexts; and that the application of
criteria of communicativeness solely on the basis of social behaviour which exists in certain
contexts outside the classroom could result in an inappropriate and ultimately unattainable
model for the majority of language teachers to follow, similar to the earlier preoccupation
with teacher talking time.

Many researches show that teachers modify their speeches to ensure students’
comprehension. This modification may be in terms of different aspects. According to Walsh
(2002), TT acts as a simplified code with two main features, namely formal features and

6
functional features (Xuewen, 2006). Formal feature refers to the form of TT which includes
the rate, speed, pause, repetition, and the related modifications of the TT. Functional features
refer to the language used by the teacher for the organization and management of the
classroom, including the quantity and quality of the TT, the questions that are used by the
teachers, the interactional modifications and adjustments, and the teachers’ feedback. Many
researches show how the amount of TT influences successful language acquisition.
According to some researchers, TT comprises about 70% of the classroom talk (Chaudron,
1988; Cook, 2000). In a different perspective, the classroom where students’ talk time is
maximized is beneficial, and more successful (Allwright, 1982; Harmer, 2000; Van Lier,
2001). Bellack et al (1966) found out that teachers do too much talking by dominating the
class with about 60 percent.
In relatively many researches conducted to find out how teachers make their speech
significantly different from ordinary conversations (Stayaert 1977; Dahl, 1981; Henzle, 1971;
Hakansson, 1986; Mammon, 1986; Ishiguro, 1986), it has been concluded that teachers speak
more slowly when talking to L2 learners than in ordinary speech. Teachers also pronounce
words to the students while delivering speech absolutely exaggeratedly (Downs 1981) with
careful pronunciation and fewer contractions (Mammon 1986). According to Chaudron
(1982), teachers exaggerate pronunciations to ensure students’ comprehension. In terms of
vocabulary, Henzle (1973) conducted a research and found out that teachers use basic
vocabulary in storytelling to L2 learners with neutral rather than colloquial words.

Research Methodology

The corpus used in conducting this research consists of Teacher Talk addressed to a class of
NCE I students at Aminu Kano College of Islamic and Legal Studies, Kano. Audio-recording
was conducted to analyze the extent to which the teacher used the Oxford 3000 in his talk.
Since this is a mini research, only one teacher was chosen as the subject for observation. He
is a non-native teacher teaching Phonology to ESL learners of the college. The speech
recorded was thereafter transcribed for analysis. To more easily and accurately find out the
percentage of the Oxford 3000 used in the transcribed speech, Oxford Text Checker at
OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com was used on line. Oxford Text Checker is a source
consulted to determine whether the vocabulary of a prospective text is level appropriate or
not. This resource checks the vocabulary of a text against multiple word lists (including the

7
Oxford 3000 under discussion) and labels it “low intermediate,” “high intermediate,” or
“advanced.”
To find out the effect of the Oxford 3000 in students’ comprehension, a questionnaire in
English (see Appendix I) was designed to collect responses from students on how simple or
difficult they found the teacher talk as well as the words used in the explanation. Twenty
students were asked to respond to the questionnaires. These students comprise ten (10) males
and ten (10) females randomly selected mainly based on their willingness to spare time to
respond to the questionnaires.

RESULTS

Results from classroom observation

The transcription of the recorded speech indicates that the teacher used a total of 3145 words.
The highest percentage of the words used falls within the Oxford 3000. The result from the
Oxford Text Checker is summed up as follows:

Words checked = [3145]

Words in Oxford 3000™ = [94%]
(See appendix I for the full transcript of the speech recorded)

There are certain words that were ignored in checking against the list because they are
proper nouns. Such words include Tehran, Ali, Musa and Hausa. However the checker was
programmed to ignore the symbol of unintelligible speech (xxxx) from the list.
The result highlighted in red the words that did not belong to the Oxford 3000 which
include intonation, supra-segmental, English, utterances, phonemes, vowels, interrogative,
tag, characterized, syllable, disbelieve, rising, falling, let’s, intro-phrases, cradle, soothing,
discomfort, console, plead, politeness, take–off, airplanes, British, grumbling, quarrel,
disputes, misunderstanding, bickering, characterized, modulation, pastor, praying, politeness,
soothing, imitate, invert, pioneer, and disbelief.

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RESULTS FROM THE QUESTIONNAIRE

The Tables below summarize the results of the questionnaire administered to find out the
effects of the Oxford three 3000 on students’ comprehension. The analyses are based on
Likert Scales. The percentages of the responses were also worked out and included in the
tables.
Table 1: Simplicity of teacher talk

Responses No of respondents Percentage

Very simple 10 50 %
Simple 10 50%
Difficult 0 0%
Very difficult 0 0%
Total 20 100%

Table 2: Simplicity or difficulty of words used

Responses No of respondents Percentage

Very simple 03 15 %
Simple 16 80%
Difficult 01 5%
Very difficult 0 0%
Total 20 100%

Table 3: Students comprehension of the lecture?

Responses No of respondents Percentage

Yes 20 100%
No 0 0%
Total 20 100%

Table 4: The extent of the comprehension

Responses No of respondents Percentage
A bit 3 15%
Partially 9 45%
very well 8 40%
Total 20 100%

Table 5: reasons for lack of comprehension

Responses No of respondents Percentage

The words were too difficult
The speech was not loud enough
The accent was not clear
If any other reason, please specify
Total
0 0%
0 0%
0 0%
0 0%
0 0%

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DISCUSSION

Study of the transcription of the teacher talk confirms the supposition that the Oxford 3000
dominates the corpus. 94% of the total words used support this. The words whose importance
and frequency are quite below the Oxford 3000 are very few in the corpus. Therefore, words
like characterize, syllable, disbelieve, rising, falling, let’s, intro-phrases, cradle, soothing,
discomfort, console, plead, politeness, take–off, airplanes, intonation, supra-segmental,
utterances, phonemes, vowels, interrogative, tag, grumbling, quarrel, dispute,
misunderstanding, bickering, modulation, pastor, praying, politeness, soothing, imitate,
invert, pioneer, and disbelief are outside the high frequency words in English and occupy
little space in this talk. If such words are overdone in the teacher talk, this is likely to impede
comprehensible input. Teachers should therefore sparingly employ such words, or use them
only when necessary. The word English, however, surprisingly does not make the list, and so
does not the word British.
Ally’s (2012) report of the guidelines on the percentage of the words for different levels
of learners hypothesized that in a typical lower intermediate text, close to 100% of the words
will be Oxford 3000 keywords. In a typical upper intermediate text, 90-95% of the words will
be Oxford 3000 keywords. And in a typical advanced text, 75-90% of the words will be
Oxford 3000 keywords. it is deducible from the results that this corpus approximates an
upper intermediate text since it incorporates 90-95% of the Oxford 3000.

The results from the questionnaire show that the explanation in this corpus typifies that of a
good teacher talk. This is entirely owing to the teacher’s effort in simplifying the input to be
comprehensible. The result indicates that the students understand the speech hundred percent
because 50% of the students found the explanation simple. 50% of the respondents also found
the explanation very simple. This made the talk down- to-earth and therefore comprehensible.
None of the respondents found the speech difficult let alone very difficult.

15% of the students found the words used by the teacher very simple. 80% also confirmed the
simplicity of the words while only 5% found the diction difficult. Compared to the result
found in the transcription, the simplicity of the words dovetails with the dominance of the
Oxford 3000 in the teacher talk.

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The students understood the lecture fully well. This is because all of them responded that the
lecture was well- understood. The sole aim of any teacher talk is undoubtedly its
comprehensibility. Comprehensible input gives rise to second language acquisition (Krashen
1983).
Fifteen percent of the students understood only a small portion of the talk. Forty percent
understood the talk very well. But the highest number of the students (45%) had partial
comprehension of the lecture. It is discernable from this result that despite the dominance of
the Oxford 3000 in this corpus, the talk was not too simple. This does good to Krashen’s
hypothesis that the input should be a bit ahead of the students’ current level of linguistic
competence but not overwhelming to them. Some effort is thus required from the student to
work out the linguistic elements.
Concerning the demand that the students who did not understand the lesson indicate their
reason as the words being too difficult, the speech being not loud enough, the accent being
not clear or specifying any other reason, none was chosen. Reason being no body indicated
total lack of understanding of the talk.

CONCLUSION
The Oxford 3000 is indeed indispensable in ensuring comprehensible input. After all, the
Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary itself employs these carefully chosen words in the
explication of all the other approximately 184000 words contained in it. What is more,
Richard and Renandya (2002) opine that knowing approximately 3000 high frequency and
general academic words is significant because this amount covers a high percentage of the
words in an average page. Leufar (1992) also asserts that the acquisition of a minimum of
about 3000 words is a prerequisite for second language learners entering university especially
for effective reading. This research has, however, indicated the extent to which teachers
employ these words in their talk and how the words help simplify the speech to ensure
comprehensibility of the input.

11
REFERENCES

Chaudron, C. (1988). Second Language Classrooms: Research on Teaching and

Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ellis, R. (1985). Understanding second language acquisition. Shanghai: Shanghai

Foreign Language Education Press.

Henzl, V. M. (1979). Foreigner talk in the classroom. International Review of

Applied Linguistics, 17(2), 159-167.

Krashen, S. D., & Terrell, T. D. (1983). The natural approach: Language

acquisition in the classroom. Oxford: Pergamon.

Krashen, S.D. (1985). The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. New York:
Longman Inc.

Richards, J. C., & Lockhard, C. (1994 ). Reflective teaching. New York:

Cambridge University Press.

Kumaravadivelu, B. (1993). ‘Maximizing learning potential in the communicative

classroom’. ELT Journal 47/1: 12-21.

Nunan, D. (1991). Language teaching methodology: A textbook for teachers.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sinclair, J. McH & Brazil, D. (1985). Teacher Talk. London: Oxford University
Press.

Stern, H.H. (1983). Fundamental concepts of language teaching. Shanghai:

Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

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Appendix I:
Student’s questionnaire on The Oxford 3000 in Teacher Talk

This research is carried out to find how Oxford 3000 in teacher talk aids student’s
comprehension. This questionnaire is designed to collect relevant information on the
aforesaid topic. Therefore, your cooperation is needed in answering the questions. Section
“A” involves personal data and section “B” involves questions related to the topic.
Section “A”: PERSONAL DATA

Age-
__________________________________________________________________________

Sex: Male Female

Level:______________________________________________________________________
___

Section “B”:

Answer the questions in this section by ticking the appropriate box against the options given
under each questions below:

1. How do you find the teacher’s explanation?

A) very simple B)simple C) difficult D) very difficult

2. How did you find the words used by the teacher?

B) very simple B)simple C) difficult D) very difficult
NOW
3. Did you understand the lecture?
A) Yes B) No

4. If your answer to the above is Yes, to what extent?

A) A bit B)Partially C)Very well

5. If your answer to question 3 is No, indicate the reason:

a) The words were too difficult.

b) The speech was not loud enough.

c) The accent was not clear.

d) If any other reason, please specify__________________________________-

__________________________________________________________________
___

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Appendix II: Transcript of the lecture on Intonation

(The symbol xxxx indicates an unintelligible speech)

You are so many in the class. So that is why we need absolute silence in the class .Our last
topic on the course outline is intonation and you can find intonation on page 113. Ok.
Please be quite! I will not read everything from the book I will just talk about the most
important areas. You know we talked about supra-segmental features of English phonology.
We talked about stress, and there is another supra-segmental feature which is the idea of
intonation.

The intonation is simply when one chooses to raise or lower his or her pitch. While
speaking when one comes to speak English sometimes you may want raise your voice.
When you want to ask a question you will not speak the same as way you make statement,
e.g. your voice falls down at the end if you want ask a question, say ‘Is Musa writing’ and
your voice rises up. So, there are a lot of reasons that make you raise or lower your voice.
This is what intonation does. There is an idea of new information xxxx or there is an idea of
meaning, you know, if come to speak, whatever sentence you utter, there is a sentence xxxx
you want show the important part of meaning that is why you choose to raise your voice
xx in some sentences, you can choose where to raise your voice. An example of how
intonation xxxx meaning in page xxx a good exercise on variety xxxx for example, the
sentence I didn’t say he stole the money, so it means you talk about someone else if stress,
xxxx there many words of utterances e.g. you can say I didn’t he stole the money the
intonation is on he you suggest someone else stole the money or I didn’t say he stole the
money here the intonation is on stole and if say I didn’t stole I didn’t stole the money the
intonation here on the means you are saying but rather money but other money not any
other money i.e. the money I am talking about not any other money xxxx here the
intonation also works in giving meaning, I didn’t say he stole the money he may have taken
some jewelry x x x x when the stress is on money may be there is a bag containing some
items but he stole the money it also helps in pronunciation. There certain instances where
some changes occur in pronunciation of phonemes xxxx if you look on page xxxx if you
take pronunciation the letter “T” at beginning of a word such as table xxxx clear sharp
sound but also clear in combination with other letters e.g. contain you clearly pronounce
your + here or when and there softer one occur between vowels e.g. xxxx yes can usually
found this in American English and xxxx there is also the issue of mood and personality and
types of intonation. There different type of intonation depending what you want to say by
rising and lowering the vice we going to find out six type of intonation the first is rising
intonation then the falling thin rising falling than the falling rising and five, take up
intonation sixth level intonation falling intonation can be used in many situations let us start
with statement e.g. “Open the door please.” this is falling intonation.

“Ali will go to Tehrain tomorrow.” This is also falling intonation. Example of another
sentence is “I have just come back from airport” and WH Question, they are interrogative
words. Examples of these words are what, why, who, where and when. All these are
question words. They are question words and they begin with WH. And we can also use
falling tone. If you come to use tag questions, there are two different ways of xxxx look at
this “won’t he?” It’s a real question, meaning you don’t know the answer but when you say

14
“wont he?”It is just to keep the conversation going. I hope you know all about tag Question
e.g Musa came here yesterday, didn’t he? Musa is coming today, isn’t he?

The rising tone which appears at the beginning here but in the explanation it comes
second. Rising intonation is characterized by a clear rise of the pitch after the stressed
syllable of the last content word of the sentence. In other words, the pitch will have to rise
after the stressed syllable of the last content word. Rising tone, or rising intonation is used
in yes / no Question. That is the first place where you use the rising tone. Repeated
questions or question statements and tag questions, we also have tag question here.

Let’s start with the first one, that is yes/no questions. You know, previously we’ve
talked about which questions, right? Or information questions that require information. If
you say Musa is writing, sorry, “What is Musa writing?” It means you require information
from someone. When I say what is Musa wiring? What will be your answer? He is writing a
story for example. He is writing a letter. But when I say what is Musa writing? Can you say
yes? So that means this is not yes/ no question. It is question or information question. But if
I say “Is Musa writing?” What will be your answer? Yes or No. So that is why they are called
Yes/No questions, because whenever someone asks a question, you can answer the
question by saying yes or no. So that kind of question is called yes/ no question. Did you go
to school yesterday? Yes or No, I didn’t. So this is yes/no question. So you raise the tone, the
intonation….. Did you go to school yesterday? Can you see it? Are you writing? But look,
what are you writing? So this is rising, right? So use the rising in yes/no question . And you
can use it in repeated questions. If you want to repeat a question, when someone asks a
question and you want repeat the question. For example, “What are you writing?” I am
asking you what are you writing? This is falling tone, right? Then you want to repeat the
question. What am I writing? ……… So you see if you are now repeating the question. So in
repeated question. You can also use the rising tone. And you can use it in question
statements, sometimes, some people tend to use statements to ask a question. If you turn
to next page when we say Ali will go to Tehran tomorrow. This is a statement right? But you
can use your tone to change it into question. When I say, Ali will go to Tehran tomorrow, is a
statement, but when I say ‘Ali will go to Tehran Tomorrow?’ I turn the statement into
question but simply by using the tone. Instead of asking you “Are you writing?” Then I can
say “You are writing? You are writing? But if you use this tone there is something you want
to show. You want to make someone to understand. For example when you say the monitor
has not come. May be I‘ve seen the monitor here, right? And then you say the monitor has
not come today. I don’t believe in you. Then I will say the monitor has not come you
understand I repeat what you say but in a question form. So I want to show that I disbelieve
in this.

Another place where you use the falling tone is, the rising tone sorry, I am talking
about the rising tone tag questions. That is what I’ve explained now, in tag question if you
say “Musa is writing, isn’t he?” Musa will come to school tomorrow, won’t he? You know,
won’t he?” is rising ok so there is another kind of tone which called take off. Ok, sorry we
have rising/falling or falling / rising. Let’s start with the / falling. Rising falling intonation is
characterized by combination of a rise followed by a fall. You’ve a rise and then it will be
followed by a fall. i.e. you know, is two ways first, you start with raising the voice and then
you come back to the falling tone. So in this case the pitch will go up one part of the
sentence and then will fall down on another part. This kind of intonation is used in two –

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part statements or intro-phrases and listing, if you want list things. In two part statement
for example, the first half of the sentence usually sets up the second half i.e. the first half
requires rising intonation. So the cradle of intonation in both parts is the last content word
of each part. Take the example, when you say “dogs eat bones, but cats eat fish. Which
part will rise? you say, Dogs eat bones but cats eat fish. The first part rises up, right? And
second part falls down. So we have some phrases that are used to introduce an idea. For
example, if you say as well as know dogs eat bones. You write the first form of the
sentence and then the second one. So here is rising and falling. The first part is raised and
second lowers down. And you xxxx if you have list of things. Dogs eat bones, quibble and
meat, So it means your tone here will be lowered down in this part, why because you are
listing things. So if you have a list of items. You start using the rising tone in the first part
of the listing and then you come to the last part and lower down the intonation.

So apart from rising/Falling, in rising/falling the first part of the sentence raises,
right? And the second part lowers. Just look at the title, rising / falling. So we have another
type of intonation where the part of the sentence lowers down and the second part rises
ok? So this kind of intonation is usually used if you want to make some statements which
are called soothing statements. So soothing statements refer to statements that make pain
or discomfort less severe. You know if you have a child for example, and the child is crying
you want to sooth that child to stop crying. You want to console the child to stop crying,
you understand, so then you can use your voice, this kind of voice, falling/rising you
understand so that you can make the boy to stop crying. For example, instead of saying
don’t cry, if you say don’t cry you use rising/falling. So now instead of this one than you use
falling ‘don’t cry’ you see this one so you see is falling rising. You say oh! Don’t cry you are
now trying to sooth your child not to cry. Or you can use this kind of intonation that is
falling/rising intonation if you want to plead somebody or you want make some polite
statements i.e for the purpose of politeness. For example, if you want to thank somebody.
Instead of saying thank you. Then you can say thank you for politeness, right? If you listen to
native speakers you’ll hear this oh thank you that’s all instead of thank you.

So there is take – off intonation which is no 5, and take – off intonation is an

intonation which has a take–off pattern after the most important contrasted stress of the
sentence. Or in other words, we can say the speaker begins with a regular or level tone and
then gradually raises the pitch as the way airplanes run along run way before the taking off.
You know airplane – have you seen airplane taking off. You know, aeroplane in British
English in British is aeroplane and American English is airplane. The planes right that take
off ok you know before it goes off you that it gradually starts at the level. That is what we
call taxing. It will taxi at the beginning. After taxing, it will start going up, up, up. So this is
exactly the same with take off. When you came to speak, your voice starts with the normal
level, right? At the level and then it will gradually go up, up, up. So this is take-off
intonation. So this one, it depends actually on your choice, on the speaker’s choice, there is
no any rule that will say this is how you actually want the voice to take off. For example,
there is idea of grumbling. You can use the take–off intonation in grumbling which is a kind
of emotional expression. So, that means questions of this types care more of a historical or
emotional nature than pure yes or no questions. They are often used to express the
speaker’s disbelief in the ideas expressed by the statement. If someone disbelieves of what
… you know disbelieve, not to believe in something from the word “believe,” right? If you
don’t believe in what somebody is saying then you want to repeat the question you said.

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 You know, if you want to express a negative feeling, you know,…. grumbling is when
somebody does something to you bad and you can’t beat that thing you will keep on talking
about that thing again and again and again. So it means you are grumbling over the matter
every day. You see the person you keep on talking about the wrong doing he did to you
last time. Ok so if you have an example like this, look at this you shouldn’t have given him all
that money you silly boy right. Grumbling you silly boy! You are saying something negative
and if you listening native speakers may be quarrelling you know quarrel when they are
having disputes when there is misunderstanding between them, you understand? They
are talking in a negative way, showing that they are angry at you. For example if someone is
angry at you, you are also angry at them, are having you know a quarrel a dispute when you
are having a squabble, bicker, if you are bickering over something then you will see that the
way of the talk is not the same way they speak when they are having a normal
conversation. So this kind of take off intonation is usually used if there is this. Let me say the
example again you shouldn’t have given him all that money you silly boy! From down
intonation. Which is the characterized by no or very little pitch, modulation throughout a
sentence., If you are trying to modulate… there is no modulation meaning in this type of
level intonation, is not like rising or falling or rising falling or falling rising or taking off but it
is simply the level as you come in Hausa I think you usually have this type of intonation. So
what they are saying is this type of level intonation is not actually found in everyday normal
conversation. Students should mind you don’t have to bother how this information
happens. Do you get the points? So what you should do here is just understand, you know,
have you ever listened to someone in a church. For example, have you ever listen to a
pastor in a church. Even in a television you have never watched any situation where you
a pastor in a church may be praying or reading the bible or doing of that things? They
usually speak at that level. You understand? At Normal level, no rising, no falling or
something of that nature, okay, this is the last type, that means what you are required to
learn, a part from knowing that intonation, is either trying to raise your voice or lower your
voice in different situation. This is the meaning of intonation, which is usually characterized
by the Word “Pitch”. And this intonation is very important in carrying meaning because
let’s take an instance of the example we’ve given where one can change a statement into
a question by only using the intonation. So if you don’t use the intonation, it means it is still
a statement, but if you use the intonation, then it now turns to question. And in writing
what you simply do is by putting a question mark at the end. Just put a question mark, it
changes. If you say he is writing, you put a full stop. This a statement. He is writing. And if it
is in speech, if you come to pronounce the sentence then the level. I mean the kind of
intonation you give to the expression, to the utterance, shows what meaning you want it to
take. Okay? So if you say” He is writing” What kind intonation is this? He is writing, is this
falling or rising? Is falling right? He is writing. So it means you mean the statement, because
in speaking you do not put full stop or question marks, you put full stop or question mark
by your intonation. So if you change this one into a question, then your intonation has to
also change, so that you are now talking about a different type of meaning. Therefore, here
you say “He is writing? He is writing? Now it is a question, right? By simply using the
intonation. So you see intonation is very important. It can be used in this case. And look at
the issue of politeness or soothing a boy. We usually tend to speak at the same level, we as
second language learners. Probably it is because in our language we don’t have such kind of
intonation. If you are to try to imitate the native speaker to do this then many people will

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think that you are just trying to show that you are… may be… but this actually has a lot
importance in everyday conversation.

So do you have any question? I think this is the last lesson.

xxxx (a student asking a question)
Okay, what I am saying is normally you know in English if you want to ask a question you
invert the sentence. There is what is call inversion, you change the structure of the
sentence. When you say “He is writing”, If you want ask a question, this is should be at the
beginning to say “Is he writing? “There is a scholar who provided this rule of
transformation. How we can transform…, okay, Chomsky is a pioneer of traditional
Grammar, so, it is also allowed in English, instead of doing xxxx, this is the normal may. So if
something happens, for example if you want to show that you are angry at something, if
you want show your disbelief on what somebody is saying, when someone makes a
statement and you want to show that you disbelieve of that statement, you want report the
statement in a question form, then you can use the statement and put a question mark at
the end. You get the point?

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