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Effects of the Teaching Czech as a Second Language
Neubergová, Daniela ; Šebesta, Karel (advisor) ; Saicová Římalová, Lucie (referee)
Name of the thesis is "Effects of the Teaching Czech as a Second Language" and in its first part presents theoretical introduction to the field of study, empirical researches of student's productive skills (Czech as a foreign language) follow (speaking, writing). First part is focused on theoretical knowledges of second language acquisition, options and approaches to exploration of language's errors and approach and viewing of errors and mistakes in general, especially in foreign researches and literature. Bigger attention is paid to selected analyzes, those are basic instruments for making of practical part of the thesis. It is especially error analysis (EA) and analysis of fluency and accuracy. Because the thesis's topic is concerned to effects of teaching and affecting factors, there are defined terms of pedagogy and psychology in theoretical part. In practical part there is presented empirical execution of mentioned analyzes, its comparison, evaluation and making conclusions in relation to appointed variables, or rather determinants, which enter the education process. Beside these instruments the research uses questionnaires and evaluation sheets for (self)reflection of student and lecturer. The aim of the thesis firstly is mapping of student's interlanguage progress thanks to case study, and...
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The voicing contrast in Vietnamese English
Tranová, Lenka ; Skarnitzl, Radek (advisor) ; Tichý, Ondřej (referee)
This thesis deals with the voicing contrast in Vietnamese-accented English. The theoretical part introduces the generally accepted phenomenon of voicing contrast and several theories aimed at generalization of the main tendencies in second language acquisition. The final part of the theoretical background addresses initial consonants in Vietnamese and Vietnamese English. The methodological section provides information about the informants, the recording, and data processing prior to the analysis itself. I also present graphs and tables illustrating the statistical calculations - using ANOVA and Tukey's post-hoc tests - that identify the relations among the measured units. The results of this analysis show that in its initial stressed plosives, Vietnamese-accented English maintains a voicing contrast similar to that of a native English accent. The average Voice Onset Time values of lenis stops without prevoicing are slightly higher than those produced by American English (AmE) speakers, while the average values of voiced initial stops prove to be fairly close to their AmE equivalents. This affinity is attributed to the fact that prevoicing in Vietnamese exhibits strikingly similar values to AmE. The values for fortis initial plosives are shown to be higher in VE than AmE, due to the fact that in...
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Czech for Foreigners in the Preschool Education Institutions
Hušáková, Barbora ; Šebesta, Karel (advisor) ; Saicová Římalová, Lucie (referee)
v anglickém jazyce The present M.A. thesis deals with teaching the Czech for foreigners in the preschool education institution. The work with the preschool children is connected with lots of specifics and thus it requires teacherʼs special attitude towards their very young learners. Children- foreigners often come from families, where nobody speaks Czech and their vocabulary is very restricted. Therefore, their inclusion into the Czech educational environment is not easy. In the theoretical part, at first we will focus on analysis of curriculum documents for preschool education, particularly with regard to children-foreigners. Afterwards, we will pay oneʼs attention to possibilities of support of integration of children-foreigners during education in Czech preschool institutions. After that, we will outline the aspects accompanying foreigners' integration into teaching and theoretical ways for child-foreigners integration process. At the end of the theoretical part, we characterize group and individual courses. Two case studies are subject of the empirical part and they contain the complex analysis of situation of children-foreigners in selected preschool institutions.
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Utilization of general rhythm metrics for differentiation of Slovak English from Slovak and English
Kaprál, Jakub ; Volín, Jan (advisor) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
The purpose of the present thesis is to analyze Slovak English from the perspective of speech rhythm in relation to its native (Slovak) and target (English) language. The first part contains theoretical background for the study of language rhythm, history of its research, and describes rhythmically relevant features of English and Slovak phonetic systems. It is concluded by summary of rhythmical differences between the two languages and hypotheses are proposed. The experimental part uses rhythm metrics for determination of phonetic properties of rhythm in Slovak English. It is based on recordings of one English and two Slovak representative radio reporters along with six recordings of Slovak students of English studies. The rhythm metrcis results for Slovak English closely approximate the results for native English but due to inconsistency of the results the question of aplicability of rhythm metrics to L1, let alone L2, remains open. Keywords: Slovak English, speech rhythm, rhythm metrics, prosody, second language acquisition
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English as a Lingua Franca in the Context of the Czech Educational System
Kadlecová, Hana ; Matuchová, Klára (advisor) ; Červinková Poesová, Kristýna (referee)
Despite the predominance of English used by non-native speakers in international communication, the approach to teaching this language is still centred on the notion of acquiring English for the purpose of communication with native speakers. This thesis argues for acknowledgement of English as a lingua franca in the approach to teaching English. It also stresses the necessity of further investigations into the global use of English to better understand this phenomenon. A questionnaire was conducted with ten English teachers to see their opinions about some of the key issues of English as a lingua franca (for instance the concept of nativeness, the role of a teacher and the understanding of an error). As a result, it was found that despite some slow changes in individual opinions, the traditional view on teaching English is still prevalent. Both the theoretical research and the analysis of the questionnaire stress the need of implementing the concept of English as a lingua franca into teaching English as it is necessary to prepare students for the reality of global use of this language. Key words: English as a lingua franca, second language acquisition, nativeness, error, variation
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Perceptual evaluation of rhythmic features in Czech English
Hanzlíková, Dagmar ; Volín, Jan (advisor) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to investigate the effect of changes in speech rhythm on the perception of personality traits which are detectable in speech. The theoretical part is concerned with the description of some important theories in the field of psychology of personality, then with summarizing research done in the effects of foreign-accented speech on perception, and finally with presenting the issue of speech rhythm with a focus on representative studies of speech rhythm and its effect on speech perception. In an independently designed experiment, the changes in speech rhythm were created by manipulating the durational patterns and pitch contours. Subsequently a perceptual test was prepared. Twenty subjects were asked to evaluate individual speech samples and rate to what extent they would characterize the speaker by the given personality trait. The results from the perceptual tests were analyzed from multiple points of view: the effects of the manipulations on the perception in general, and then in relation to the nationality of the speaker (native vs. non-native speaker), to the personality trait in question, and in relation to the individual speakers and items. The results showed some tendencies for example in perception of honesty in relation to durational patterns, or in perception of...
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Second language acquisition (English) based on mother tongue (Czech) - connections to the theory of children's language picture of the world
Lopatová, Lucie ; Pacovská, Jasňa (advisor) ; Filippová, Eva (referee)
This thesis engages in the language acquistion of the mother tongue (czech) and the second language (English) in preschool age and discribes the development of child language competence in both languages based on available theories, results of illustrative research and one-year observation in kindergarten with bilingual education program. In the beginning, there are defined theories which engaged in past and engage today (from 20th century till the present day) in study of language acquisition. In addition of these theories we focus factors which influence on the language development of children and consideration even theory of children's linguistic picture of the world. We compare the development of language competence (phonetic-phonological, semantic, grammatical, communication, pragmatic and vocabulary) in first language (czech) which are defined in agreement with available theories with empirical discoveries which indicate the development of those competence in second language (English) and we discribe partial methodological processes.
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Acoustic analysis of the vowel /æ/ in the Czech pronunciation of English
Šturm, Pavel ; Skarnitzl, Radek (advisor) ; Marková, Petra (referee)
The subject of the thesis is acoustic analysis of the open front vowel /æ/ in the read speech of Czech students of English. The thesis deals with the differences between Czech students and native speakers of British English, as well as the differences among individual Czech speakers. The focus on this particular area in the vocalic space derives from the widespread difficulty encountered at the acquisition of the open front vowel by Czech students. Foreign accent in general is nowadays of great interest, in both general and applied research. The theoretical part of the thesis is therefore concerned not only with issues of acoustic description of vowels (formants and vocal tract resonances) and vowel systems of the languages in question (including regional differences), but also with second language acquisition. Important concepts discussed here are contrast and linguistic categories, interference of native language, and the relationship between production and perception. Since a systematic description of Czech English is yet missing, the thesis aims to contribute a more thorough investigation in this area, which could also have practical application in ESL environment.
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