Pronunciate!

I used a section of my class today to focus on pronunciation. As there were not really any interesting aspects or rules to follow in the text I was teaching this week I focused on stressing certain words. I used the technique referred to in Harmer, example 4 page 259. I wrote a sentence on the board, "Where can I buy a cheap computer?". This sentence is found in the text book I was teaching on that day. I then prepared different situations and passed them around to pairs in the room. Some of the situations were:
1) I have found cheap phones, cheap TVs and cheap MP3 players everywhere, but no cheap computers!
2) Everywhere I look the computers are so expensive!
3) Everybody else has bought a computer, but I can't find one anywhere!
4) I have looked everywhere, but I can not find a place that sells cheap computers!
By discussing in pairs they worked out on which word they would place the stress to emphasize the situation they had. It was a difficult task and i had to model it a few times with another sentence before a few of them understood.
This was not so much a practical lesson on pronunciation that cam up in class, but a planned lesson on stressing certain words to convey different meanings. I do not think the students got the hang of it in the 15 minutes we focused on it but after a few reviews I hope they get it. It did make them realize that stress on words is very important in the English language, which was the point of this activity I believe.