Download Academic Communication Notes for Advanced Secondary Schools Form Five based in new syllabus. Academic Communication is a compulsory subject for all students in Forms V and VI. The purpose of learning Academic Communication is to strengthen students’ ability to using English in academic communication. Furthermore, the subject aims at developing a variety of language competences that will enable students to communicate proficiently and make academic presentations in English.
The lesson notes contains engaging activities and exercises, real-life examples and interactive activities that will help you develop the four basic language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.
This subject consists of six topics
Topic 1: Crafting Meaning
Topic 2: Effective writing
Topic 3: Participating in Oral Presentations
Topic 4: Utilising ICT in academic communication
Topic 5: Making academic presentation
Topic 6: Using illustrations in academic communication
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Application of English syllables
In language, sounds are not used in isolation. Rather, individual sounds are combined to form larger units, which are syllables. A syllable is made of cither a vowel alone or a vowel combined with one consonant or more. It is pronounced as a single unit in a particular word. In short, the number of vowels in a word determines the number of syllables.
For example, the word tall contains one syllable as it has a single pronunciation unit with a single vowel sound. However, consonants, also known as vocalic consonants, can form syllables on their own. These consonants are m, n and / in English words like rhythm, button and bottle, i.e., rhy-thm, but-ton and bot-tle, respectively. Knowledge about how to divide words into syllables can help a language user chunk bigger words into more manageable pieces for easy pronunciation.
Dividing a word into syllables also helps the learner to figure out what the vowel sound will be. When a language learner comes across unfamiliar words, breaking them up into syllables can help to predict the vowel sound based on the patterns they see in the word. Diving English words into their syllables follows certain procedures and the syllables form certain structural patterns.
Stress in pronunciation
When a word has more than one syllable, the syllables are not pronounced with the same energy. There will always be one syllable that stands out from others. That syllable is normally longer and louder than the other syllables in the word and it is said to carry stress. In English words, stress is not fixed on a particular syllable. Every word has a
Crafing weening stressed syllable. Stress is an essential feature of spoken English. Clear and accurate pronunciation of all English words relies on correct articulation and placement of stress. For example, stress is on the second syllable of the word banana. In this case, the first ‘na’ is pronounced with more energy than the other syllables in the word. Stress is marked using the symbol (“). This symbol is referred to as the stress mark.
Therefore, the stressed syllable in ‘banana’ is marked as ‘ba’nana’. Stressed languages are languages spoken with differing degrees of emphasis on the words and syllables in the sentences. In English, there are cases when the word class determines the stress pattern. For example, if a noun and a verb are similarly spelt, the noun receives stress on the first syllable while the verb receives stress on the second syllable.
Although stress and intonation are important parts of English pronunciation, learners must remember that it would be impossible for anyone to speak naturally with a set of rules in mind. The best way to improve one’s pronunciation is through constant contact with native speakers of English, either through conversation, watching films and news channels, or listening to the radio.