Starting Teaching Pronunciation to Czech Learners of English. Connected Speech - a stressed-time language symptom - in a syllable language environment

      Аннотация: "... this can?t be me speaking, I sound so well in English now!" "Having known this, I had scored better in my listening tests, do you think there is a connection between pronunciation and listening?"..."Why did we learn this in French in the third lesson and never in English... These and the alike are comments of my middle-aged adult students after having gone through a lesson on connected speech, which unfortunately is not a very popular topic in the Czech Rep. The reasons may vary, from lack of time to teach and focus on pronunciation, or due to the fact that Czech is a phonetic language as opposed to English being a stressed-time language, lack of experience in pronunciation learning, non-native teachers’ fear of pronunciation lessons and other. The work also shows research with a group of young adult learners, their will, attitude, progress, enthusiasm, boredom, motivation at different stages of the year-long project of introducing and practising the rules of connected speech. The book is bringing examples and shortcuts for both teachers and learners of English.

Ключевые слова: motivation, phonetics, pronunciation, Linking, connected speech, Czech speaker