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Raising Phonetic Awareness at Primary Level
Skočdopolová, Petra ; Červinková Poesová, Kristýna (advisor) ; Müller Dočkalová, Barbora (referee)
The theoretical part of the thesis scrutinizes the principles of awareness raising and noticing in language teaching. Furthermore, it focuses on their implementation in pronunciation teaching and examines the possible limitations to these approaches imposed by learners' age and level of cognitive development. The practical part presents a research which consists of designing a battery of pronunciation activities promoting noticing and awareness raising, followed by their pilotage in five different groups of elementary school pupils. The aim of the research is to determine whether the piloted activities result in young learners noticing the target pronunciation features. The results of the research suggest positive impact of the noticing and awareness raising activities even among the pupils at lower stage of cognitive development. Key words: young learners, teaching pronunciation, consciousness raising, noticing, cognitive development, learners' involvement
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Czech Primary Teachers' Approach to English Pronunciation Teaching
Jirsová, Emma ; Červinková Poesová, Kristýna (advisor) ; Müller Dočkalová, Barbora (referee)
The aim of this diploma thesis is to ascertain the current state of English pronunciation teaching at primary schools in the Czech Republic by researching Czech teachers' approach to it. The thesis comprises a theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part first describes the importance, aim, and content of pronunciation teaching as well as the effectiveness of pronunciation instruction and reasons for neglecting it. Furthermore, it characterizes young learners, gives recommendations for teaching pronunciation to them, describes an integrative approach to pronunciation teaching, and looks into how pronunciation is taught at primary schools in different European countries. The practical part of this diploma thesis presents, analyzes, and discusses the findings of a survey completed by 108 Czech primary teachers focusing on their approach to pronunciation teaching. The results of the survey describe the teachers' pronunciation pedagogy training, their perspectives on pronunciation teaching, the way they implement it into their English lessons at primary schools, the reasons why some educators teach pronunciation spontaneously, and the changes which would facilitate systematic pronunciation teaching. Keywords English pronunciation teaching, primary level, young learners, English as a Foreign Language
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Perceptual and pronunciation problems of Czech students of Korean at the segmental plane
Horáková, Štěpánka ; Bozděchová, Ivana (advisor) ; Ferklová, Blanka (referee) ; Červinková Poesová, Kristýna (referee)
The aim of this dissertation is to describe the perceptual and pronunciation problems of Czech learners of Korean at the segmental level. Mastering the sound plan of the target language both in terms of perception and production is one of the basic prerequisites for smooth communication. Therefore, from the beginning of the study, it is necessary to focus on the phonemic ear training and the formation of an articulation base for correct pronunciation in the target language. And since the mother tongue is one of the factors that influence foreign language acquisition in all areas, including phonetics, identifying pronunciation problems of students with a particular mother tongue can lead to more effective phonetics instruction. The introductory theoretical part of the thesis is divided into two chapters. The first introduces the reader to phonetics and its importance in language teaching, while the second focuses on a comparison of Korean and Czech from a phonetic-phonological perspective. The subchapters describe and compare the vocalic and consonant systems, syllable structure, and phonological processes in both languages. On the basis of the comparison, potential perceptual and pronunciation problems are anticipated. The experimental part of the thesis is based on the results of the comparative...
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The effect of teaching spelling on the ability to predict pronunciation in Czech lower-secondary learners of English
Fuková, Kateřina ; Červinková Poesová, Kristýna (advisor) ; Mikuláš, Martin (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether teaching spelling-to-sound correspondence rules improves learners' ability to predict pronunciation. The theoretical part is divided into two sections. After explaining the basic concepts, the correspondences between graphemes and phonemes in English are listed and clarified, briefly followed by historical reasons for their seemingly unclear contemporary relationship. It is then examined how these ambiguities in English correspondences affect learners of English and what approach to teaching pronunciation prediction is recommended by current methodology. The practical part consists of a collection of appropriate activities for teaching pronunciation rules and describes a seven-week teaching intervention that sought to develop this skill for the letters <c>, <g>, <s> and <o> in Czech lower-secondary learners of English. Twenty-six students and twenty-two members of the control group participated in a recorded reading of 18 real a nd 18 pseudowords before and after the teaching intervention. The test group showed an overall improvement between the two readings which was also statistically confirmed. This progress was fairly evenly distributed across all letters, as well as real words and pseudowords. KEYWORDS spelling instruction, pronunciation...
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Perception of native and non-native English accents by Czech listeners
Luongová, Ngoc Huyen My ; Červinková Poesová, Kristýna (advisor) ; Nádraská, Zuzana (referee)
This bachelor thesis explores the perception of native and non-native English accents by Czech listeners, focusing on their intelligibility and comprehensibility. Furthermore, it aims to scrutinise the scope of the Interlanguage Speech Intelligibility Benefit (ISIB). The theoretical part provides the necessary terminology to set a theoretical framework for the research conducted in the practical part of the thesis. In the practical part, audio recordings of native and non-native speech were played to low and high-proficient Czech users of English. Data obtained through the transcription and rating tasks was employed to assess the intelligibility and comprehensibility of each accent. The intelligibility scores provided evidence substantiating the matched ISIB. However, the mismatched ISIB was not proven to be effective. As for comprehensibility, the speech produced by native speakers was rated to be more comprehensible in contrast with non-native speech production. This outcome also demonstrates that intelligibility and comprehensibility are related yet partially independent. Lastly, this thesis sheds light on the importance of exposure to non-native English accents.
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Intonation of cleft and pseudo-cleft sentences in the speech of advanced Czech learners of English
Hynková, Tereza ; Červinková Poesová, Kristýna (advisor) ; Malá, Markéta (referee)
The bachelor thesis examines the intonation of English cleft and pseudo-cleft sentences in the speech of advanced Czech ESL students. The aim of the thesis is to describe the tone choice in speech realisations of cleft and pseudo-cleft constructions produced by Czech ESL students. The first part scrutinizes literature and sets a theoretical framework for the small-scale research conducted in the second part of the thesis. The theoretical part describes the syntax of cleft and pseudo-cleft constructions, it focuses on the functional sentence perspective and provides basic information about intonation. In the second part, audio recordings are analysed in order to examine the Czech speakers' usage of tones when reading a meaningful conversation containing the target structures. It concludes that the falling tone is prevalent in the realisations of cleft sentences, whereas the productions of pseudo-clefts are more diverse. Moreover, the respondents are likely to realise three or more out of five cleft sentences using the same realisation type. They are likely to realize three or fewer out of five pseudo-cleft sentences using the same realisation type. The thesis sheds light on a marginal topic that is not popular among researchers. It compiles information on the intonation of clefts and pseudo-clefts...
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Effectiveness of teaching synthetic phonics to EFL students
Urbanová, Lucie ; Červinková Poesová, Kristýna (advisor) ; Uličná, Klára (referee)
The effectiveness of teaching synthetic phonics to EFL students Abstract This diploma thesis deals with the effectiveness of systematic and explicit Synthetic Phonics teaching methods in the EFL learning environment. The theoretical part of the text investigates the similarities and differences between teaching Synthetic and Analytic Phonics. Whether synthetic phonics is essential not only for native English speakers, but also for EFL students is examined. Furthermore, it introduces the changes and development in phonics teaching in a historical context. The practical section describes the test preparation and presents how the research methodology was applied. It also examines the data collected from testing four groups of Prague primary school children who have different experience of phonics. Last but not least, the empirical section presents the results of 60 students' readings and analyses their performances concluding with an assessment as to whether explicit Synthetic Phonics teaching instruction helps EFL students in pronouncing words or not. Key words: synthetic phonics, analytic phonics, phonemes, graphemes, pronunciation and articulation, spelling, reading, writing
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