RUN-ON POEM Full of potential for a better tomorrow 1. Pause.
Pause as hesitation is a non-fluency
Teach me discipline teach me character teach feature. However, intentional pauses are used to Below is an African poem. It is written demarcate units of grammatical construction, such me hard work without punctuations solely for this activity. as sentences or clauses. These can be indicated in Teach me to think like the star within me writing by full stops, colons, semi-colons and Your teacher will read it to you without I am an African child commas. interruption; no pausing nor variation in tone. She may also call one learner to re-read it for I can be extra-ordinary 2. Pitch. Different pitch levels, or intonation, can everybody. Call me William Kamkwamba the Inventor affect meaning. The most obvious example is the “ I am an African Child” Give me a library with books way in which speakers raise the pitch at the end of by Eku McGred Give me a scrap yard and discarded electronics a question, and this is indicated by a question mark Give me a broken bicycle in writing. However, patterns of rise and fall can I am an African child Plus the freedom to be me indicate such feelings as astonishment, boredom or Born of a skin the color of the chocolate And I will build you a windmill puzzlement, and these can be shown in writing only Bright brilliant and articulate in a special transcription. I am an African child Strong and bold Im gifted 3. Stress. Stress, or emphasis, is easy to use and Talented enough to be the best We are the new generation recognize in spoken language, but harder to I am an African child Not afraid to be us describe. A stressed word or syllable is usually Uniquely gifted black and talented preceded by a very slight pause, and is spoken at Often the target of pity Shining like the stars we are slightly louder volume (louder, longer, & higher in My future is not confined to charity We are the children of Africa pitch). Give me the gift of a lifetime Making the best of us Give me a dream a door of opportunity Yes I Am an African Child 4. Volume. Apart from the slight increase in I will thrive loudness to indicate stress, volume is generally I am an African child used to show emotions such as fear or anger. In PROSODIC FEATURES OF SPEECH. writing, it can be shown by the use of an exclamation mark, or typographically with capitals Do not hide my fault Prosodic features (sometimes known or italics (or both). Show me my wrong as suprasegmental phonology) are those aspects of I am like any other 5. Tempo. Tempo, or speed, is to some extent a speech which go beyond phonemes and deal with Teach me to dream matter of idiolect. Whilst its use is not wholly the auditory qualities of sound. In spoken And I will become communication, we use and interpret these features systematic, it can indicate the difference between, I am an African child without really thinking about them. There are for example, impatience and reflectiveness. It can various conventional ways of representing them in be shown in writing only through unspoken words, writing, although the nuances are often hard to e.g. “Certainly not”, he snapped. I am the son daughter of the soil convey on paper. Rich in texture and content