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Q: How can you help students hear and understand the stress in the word 'banana'
10 years 39 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
Use phonemic symbols.
i.e. / bə 'na: nə /
sorrel:
use the phonemic as suggested above, and underline the syllable that is stressed. Then repetition from each student! (sorry, that is the CELTA approach, not acceptable in China as I have found)
Stamp your foot on the stressed syllable while saying the word.
When they say the word banana right when they are about to get to the stressed syllable get one of those foam bats and bonk them on the head! Then they won't forget! You can even ask them afterwards where the stress syllable is and if they get it wrong bonk them on the head again!
Traveler:
With you, I'd use a baseball bat and stress every syllable 
There is no stress in bananas - as fruit go they're extremely laid back.
Don' worry about that. The stress is well taught to Chinese students during their junior high schooling. What you need to do is to remind them: every word has a stress, and stress is as important to English as the tone to Chinese.". Also tell them in a sentence which words need to be pronounced stressed.
Lots of times they don't even know what the sound coming out of their mouth . Get them to speak into there voice recorder on their phone till they get the sound that you are teaching them .it is also a easy home work exercise for them
when teaching new vocabulary I have a dot put over the stressed syllable, they have to copy it that way, and of course, lot of practice with stumping feet 
