Stress refers to the way in which pitch, duration, and loudness combine to give certain syllables within words, and to certain syllables or words within utterances greater prominence (McMahon, 2002: 115). English is considered to be a stress accent language (Kelly, 2000:70). When speaking English, some syllables and words are put in a big force, while others are quickly spoken. Accordingly, when communicating, most non-native English speakers find it difficult to understand native speakers, especially those who speak fast. Thus, stress is very important in understanding spoken English. Being aware of the position of stress can help you understand the word even if you cannot hear a word clearly. Here is an example to demonstrate my point of view. Suppose you are speaking with a friend, he speaks so fast that you can not hear clearly and you can only hear the first two syllables of ‘ photo…’ Is this ‘photograph’ or ‘photographer’? However, without hearing the whole word exactly you can still know which word it is by means of the position of word stress, for the stressed syllables of ‘photograph’ is PHOto..., while the stressed syllables of ‘photograph’ is phoTO…( the stressed syllables are marked with capital letters.) Since stress is an important part of English pronunciation, English learners should have a good grasp of the theoretical knowledge of stress. Therefore, stress should be taken into account in explaining English pronunciation. However, the learners will feel bored and confused if the teacher only explains the theoretical knowledge. In this article, the author will present his way of integrating word stress into teaching and provide some activities for the purpose of enhancing students’ knowledge of word stress.
　　There are word stress and sentence stress. In this article, the author will present his way of integrating word stress into teaching and provide some activities for the purpose of enhancing students’ knowledge of word stress.
　　When stress functions at the word level, it is called word stress. At the word level, stress can fall on the first, middle or last syllables of words, and the syllables around the stressed ones need to be unstressed (Kelly, 2000: 66-67). For stressed syllable, it is longer, louder and said with more breath effort; for unstressed syllables, it is said very quickly, lightly and with very little breath effort (Hubbard et.al 1999: 213). A syllable can also carry secondary stress, which means that it is said with more breath effort than unstressed syllable but less than stressed one (Hubbard et.al, 1999:213). There are some rules of word stress, which are useful for English learners. Kelly (2000,68) summarizes the rules as follows:
　　1.Many ‘every day’ nouns and adjectives of two-syllables length, like SISter (the stressed syllables are marked with capital letters), MOther, LOvely, are stressed on the first syllable;
　　2.Prefixs and suffixes are not usually stressed in English;
　　3.The first element of words which are formed from a combination of two words tends to be stressed, like POSTman, CROSSroad;
　　4.When a word can be used as either a noun or a verb, the noun tends to be stressed on the first on the first syllable and the verb on the last syllable.
　　However, there are some exceptions to the rules of word stress. Therefore, when introducing these rules to learners, the teacher should point out these exceptions and call attention to the students not to learn these rules by rote.
　　Here is an activity for word stress teaching. Intonation is an effective way. Take ‘SUBstitute’, ‘baNAna’ and ‘kangaROO’(the stressed syllables are capitalized) as an example. First, the teacher reads these words out; then students follow the teacher’s model to repeat them. After that, the teacher isolates the stressed syllables –SUB-, -NA- and –ROO and reads them out; the students follow the teacher’s instructions to repeat these stressed ones. Finally, the students repeat the whole word again. The teacher can do some gestures to indicate the position of stressed syllables. When students say the stressed syllables SUB of ‘SUBstitute’, the teacher can thump the air or clap his hands.
　　In daily communication, the learners of English speak with correct articulation of vowels and consonants but without stress; their speech will be very monotone and doesn’t express the attitude and emotions or what they mean, which are all significant in communication. Therefore, in teaching English pronunciation, all the components should be taken into account.
　　references
　　Hubbard, P., Jones H., Thoroton, B.,&Wheeler, R.(1999). A Training Course for TEFL. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
　　Kelly, G. (2000). How to Teach Pronunciation. Essex: Longman.
　　McMahon, A.(2002). An Introduction to English Phonology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.