Pronunciation That Scores: Word Stress, Sentence Stress and Chunks

Pronunciation is assessed in the Speaking exam as a separate criterion, and this lesson focuses on four groups of key features:

1. Individual sounds – the pronunciation of each phoneme (like the difference between think and sink).
2. Word stress – which syllable is strong in multi-syllable words.
3. Sentence stress and connected speech – which words stand out, how words merge into one another.
4. Intonation – the rise and fall of the voice, how it colours the meaning.

The key point: the rubric assesses pronunciation features together (sounds, stress, rhythm and intonation) and looks at how easy your speech is to understand. Changing your accent is not the main goal; what matters is how individual sounds and other pronunciation features affect how easy your speech is to understand. For example:

I’d RATHer WORK from HOME than COMmute EVery DAY.

Correct stress helps convey the meaning clearly in this sentence, but it does not guarantee a high mark on its own. Practise individual sounds, stress, rhythm and intonation together; spend more time on the features that make it harder for a listener to understand you.

Check the stress of a multi-syllable word in a dictionary: PHOtograph – the stress is on the first syllable. But as the word family grows, the stress moves:

In some words the stress changes the meaning completely:

• PREsent (a gift) – preSENT (to give; to show)
• REcord (a disc; a written account) – reCORD (to put on record; to write down)
• INcrease (a rise) – inCREASE (to rise)

Why does it matter so much? Stress in the wrong place can make a word harder to recognise: for example, moving the stress to the end of comfortable can make it harder for the listener to identify the word. The rule is simple: the strong syllable is long, clear and a little higher; weak syllables are shortened and passed quickly – not ba-na-na but buh-NAH-nuh. Always learn a new word together with its stress: write the word in your notebook with a stress mark, not just its spelling.

Native speakers of English do not speak word by word; they pronounce an idea in parts (chunks). Each part is a complete unit of thought, and there is a short pause between them:

What I really love about my job / is that no two days / are ever the same.

There are three main places to pause:

1. After a full clause – I moved to Baku in 2019 / because I found a better job.
2. After a long subject – The main reason I chose this course / was the practical training.
3. Before conjunctions – I enjoy team projects, / although they take more time.

This technique has two benefits. First, your speech becomes understandable for the examiner – they follow even complex ideas easily. Second, the pauses give you time to breathe and plan the next part, so your speech sounds more fluent. A pause in the wrong place, however, ruins the meaning: the difference between Let’s eat, Grandma! and Let’s eat Grandma! is not just the comma but the place of the pause. For practice, read any sentence aloud and mark your own thought groups with "/" signs.