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Hello, subscribers! Welcome back.

This week, we invite you to hum along as we tackle strategies for learning pitch and tone! In this issue, you'll find learner-centered advice for mastering the use of pitch and tone in the target language. We'll also provide valuable techniques, resources, and more to help learners develop perfect pitch!

Ready? Let's dive in.

 
Pitch and Tone 

Divide learners into groups. Prepare two sets of cards: one with sentences and another with various tones (e.g., happy, sad, angry, questioning). Learners take turns drawing one card from each pile and reading the sentence aloud using the indicated tone. The rest of the group guesses the tone being used and discusses how it changes the meaning of each sentence. 

2. Tone Isolation:

This activity can be used with either lexical tones or whole sentences and is beneficial to helping learners build their capacity to isolate tones. Begin by selecting a few sentences and marking where the tones change. Guide the group through three stages:

1. Read the sentences normally, emphasizing tone production.

2. Repeat the sentences using only vowels and tones, omitting consonants.

3. Finally, hum the sentences or use a kazoo to focus solely on tonal patterns.

3. Tongue Twisters:

Create or select tongue twisters that challenge learners with frequent tone changes. Practice these in stages:

1. Have learners read the tongue twister while producing only one specific tone, using a neutral tone for all other syllables.

2.  Repeat this process for each tone in the language.

3. Finally, combine all tones, allowing learners to practice the full tonal range within a challenging context. A good example would be the famous Mandarin Chinese “four is four” tongue twister

   1. sì shì sì, shí shì shí, shísì shì shísì, sìshí shì sìshí;
      shéi bǎ shísì shuō “shíshì”, jiù dǎ tā shísì,
      shéi bǎ sìshí shuō “shìshí”, jiù dǎ tā sìshí