Teaching Intonation in Iran’s high school Text books

Teaching intonation has been one of the most neglected areas in English language teaching at high schools or universities in Iran. English lessons tend to lay major emphasis on reading and writing because they are more tested abilities in entrance examinations for universities or colleges compared with listening and speaking. In teaching students to speak English most attention is devoted to the correct pronunciation of sounds and isolated words. Generally speaking, much less attention is paid to a correct production of intonation. If intonation is taught at all, traditionally the following seem to be a few typical examples of main intonational features treated:

Ø  Declarative sentences have falling tones.

Ø  General questions (i.e. Yes/no questions) have rising tones.

Ø  Special questions (i.e. Wh-interrogatives) have falling tones.

Pre – University English Book 1 & 2,
Birjandi et al. (2002) Pages 68,109

According to Halliday (1967:24-28, 1970:21-31, 1994:302-303), McCarthy (1991:106), Roach (1991:174-176), and Crystal (1995:249), these descriptions seem to derive from the view that intonation is determined by linguistic forms. Nevertheless, in the academic field many observations that contradict this type of grammar-based explanation are made in Brazil (1997:99-116), Cruttenden (1997:88), McCarthy (1991:106), and Roach (1991:179) and the validity of the grammatical approach to intonation has seriously been challenged. On the other hand, as Cauldwell and Allen (1999:11) point out, the discoursal approach developed by Brazil (1997, 1994) has been receiving a strong endorsement particularly for the purpose of teaching language learners. According to Cauldwell and Allen (1999:10-12), contrasting with the grammatical approach, Brazil’s Discourse Intonation views speech as a purpose-driven activity where a speaker and a hearer co-operate to reach the goal of shared understanding, and in their interaction intonation signals a speaker’s assumptions and intentions regarding the shared ground between a speaker and a hearer. A speaker’s and a hearer’s views or assumptions about the common ground are the major determining factors of intonation choice. Furthermore, in spite of the fact that the official curriculum for teaching the English language which every teacher in all high schools is supposed to follow was revised several times during the past twenty seven years by the Iranian Ministry of Education, this grammatical approach to intonation seems to remain almost unchanged.


Ahmad Reza Beigi (M.A)