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[Raoul F. Duke]

I'm currently teaching a priest from Peru. He's a good solid upper-intermediate level...he's OK with general conversation, but is a bit hard to understand.

A big part of his problem, as with many students worldwide, is where to place the accents (ie stresses) within words. I'm good at teaching the sounds, but anyone have any good ways to teach stressing the syllables correctly...other than sheer long-term abrasion?

Please don't just post links...I'm also good at Googling.

[ericthered]

Nope...long-term intense studying, immersion in all varieties of audio and audio-visual English entertainment and loads of practice, recording a properly stressed text and recording the student and making him listen to it and identify the mistakes, repeat ad nauseam...

[Raoul F. Duke]

Rats. And it's probably the same with idioms, which are driving poor Fr. Oscar buggy.

[gonzo]

The stresses are just part of any local variant. We in Oz used to stress defence, but US English has taken over, so its become defence.
I could uncharitably add that you guys screwed up the language, so now unscrew it. Father Oscar's syllable stress is probably correct, and he'd be a hit in England. Plus he"s going to heaven.

[Raoul F. Duke]

Bitch.

Actually, in most instances we also say defense, except in football, where defense goes better with booze. The alcohol factor might explain why Australia is going to it.

No argument on Father Oscar, though. Like most priests he is a lovely, lovely man.

[Foscolo]

When in Bangladesh recently, I was at a teacher training workshop and looking at a sheet of paper containing details of the day's events. A Bangladeshi colleague came over and said "Do you want a copy?". I thought, well no harm in having a spare, I suppose, if he's offering me the use of the photocopier. So I followed him out of the room, and over to the table with cups and a kettle, and he proceeded to make me a cup of instant coffee.

Did he mispronounce the word, or was the failing mine for not having fully got my ear into local pronunciation habits? Obviously, English no longer belongs to its countries of origin and has become and international tool for communication. Some give-and-take is required. Your Spanish speaker, I'm guessing, will have a tendency to stress the penultimate syllable of a word, which will often be incorrect. Or 'Incorrect', as he might say it. But does that really matter very much? A huge number of speakers of Latin-based languages make the same mistake. In an international communication environment, that amount of slippage from native-speaker norms is likely to be within tolerance.

I'm not saying your student doesn't need to attend to his pronunciation, though. It's an important area which a lot of teachers don't pay very much attention to because it can be harder work than a lot of other parts of a lesson. So what am I saying? I don't know, exactly. I just felt like saying something. You know how it is.

[Raoul F. Duke]

Thanks, Foxy.

It DOES matter when mis-stressing makes him difficult to understand...and it do...

[gonzo]

OK, a serious response.
Is the good padre consciously or otherwise filtering out the wealth of spoken English that he's immersed in, like many of my Chinese students here in Oz? Like them, does he run for the cover of his L1 when given that option?
People write well by reading well, and speak well by listening well. Accent is only an issue when it really plays havoc with pronunciation, which you don't seem to be saying is the case. With his incorrect syllable stresses, maybe try this:
Find some spoken text that isn't outside his comprehension, maybe a radio/TV, news bulletin or record one yourself.
Get a transcript for the text [usually available online] with the bits you want him to stress highlighted.
Get him to listen and read simultaneously.
Eventually, ask him to read the transcript to you as he heard it.
Hopefully, he'll start to pick up the rhythms and sresses, and incorporate them, but this will be slow going.

Spanish speakers can be a challenge. I, and my Ecuadorian lawyer [no Raoul, not Samoan] student were equally frustrated by his accent that literally made him incomprehensible, even though he wrote beautiful English. I recall he gave up and went back home.

[Raoul F. Duke]

A good idea, Gone, thanks...

Fr. Oscar does not seem to avoid English too much, and he's pretty avid about improving his own English.

He works, though, in a largely Spanish-speaking parish, so much of his days are spent speaking Spanish. He does celebrate Mass in English...but only the "standardized" parts. His ambition is to also deliver the sermon in English, and I want to be in the front row when he does it.

[china-matt]

One trick I've used a couple times so far (works better with much lower-level students than those I teach) is to read a passage to the student and have him/her read it back. Correct the student every time he/she makes a mistake. Review sounds that give the student difficulty and go over more words that sound similar.

Also have the student use voanews.com/learningenglish to read along with the radio shows.

[Raoul F. Duke]

The good Father Oscar, looking freshly tasered after a particularly tough (but very productive!) English class...

[gonzo]

That appears to be The Shroud of Turin over his left shoulder. Do a good job here Raoul and you could exceed all family expectations by getting into heaven!

[Stil]

Is "Priest from Peru" some kind of euphemism for hit-man?

[fox]

one thing i find works, is to present a small bit of text. get student to read it. then write it up on the whiteboard give the ss a pen and get them to draw a small circle above each syllable to give the stress. 

then choose random words and put the stress circle wrongly and get student to say the word with the new stress point..

eg.   drawing

       o
     drawing

dead easy and effective. 

[Raoul F. Duke]

Good eyes, Gone, it is indeed a full-size copy of the Shroud. Heaven's what it's all about, of course...I teach him for free, which I just never never did before unless I wanted to get laid.

He's doing great and happy with the classes. He thinks he's making progress, and I agree.
Today I had him talking about Peru for about 35 solid minutes...he did very well but it was tough for him. Hence the hit-man look.