CONTENT AND FUNCTION WORDS IN ENGLISH. WHY SHOULD LEARNERS OF ENGLISH LEARN ABOUT THAT?

Do you know the difference between content and function words in English? Why should learners of English learn about that?

Content words are words that have meaning. Nouns, main verbs, adjectives and adverbs are usually content words, so they tend to be highlighted in the sentence. In other words, content words are stressed words and, therefore,  are pronounced more loudly or with greater force than other words in a sentence. 

By contrast, function words, also known as grammatical (structural) words are often unstressed, that is, not emphasized. Auxiliary verbs, pronouns, articles, and prepositions are usually grammatical words and, therefore, are pronounced in a reduced form. 

All in all, why should we know that? This difference will undoubtedly help you improve your listening skills, and I should say that improving listening skills must be a top priority for anyone who wants to become really good at speaking a foreign / second language.

In order to practise this pronunciation topic, I have chosen a famous song “ All the stars’, by Ed Sheeran, because we can clearly hear the stressed and unstressed words in connected speech. We can see two different colours and sizes to simbolise the stressed and unstressed words in each verse. 

For teachers

Learning how to notice the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables can be rather difficult and it is far form being an easy task for non-native teachers of English  If you are a teacher of English, use this helpful resource to teach your students how to identify whether or not a syllable is stressed or unstressed in a song. By doing so, your students will definitely  enjoy working on pronunciation. 

1. Give out the copies of the song. 
2. Read the first stanza aloud to demonstrate the stress patterns. Explain that the bigger/red circles will be the content words as opposed to the grammatical words (smaller/ blue circles and unstressed)
3. Split the class into two groups and ask each one to read the second and third stanzas paying close attention to the stress patterns. If necessary correct pronunciation errors/ mistakes.
4. Later, play the song so that the students can do the task while listening to the singer.They are expected to mark the stressed and unstressed words as shown. If necessary, play the song more than once. 
5. Alternatively, do pair work activity and ask 'Student A’, for example, to dictate the fourth stanza to 'Student B’. It will be a further pronunciation practice for the student who is dictating and a listening activity for that who is listening. Then, play the song.
6. If the students do not have colour pens, they can make big/small circles as shown.
7. Sing along!

For students

If you are a learner of English, follow my guidelines above and do the task on your own known, OK?