Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies

Conclusion

Due to the incongruence between the stress systems of Czech and English, special attention must be paid to stress in secondary language teaching. The current system as has been evidenced above does not help students improve their stress recognition in spoken word and by extension fails to teach students the correct stress production as well. Especially the supposition that students will acquire correct stress placement habits through listening has been proven as fundamentally flawed. The resulting lack of the ability to correctly produce stress within the English language greatly affects the students’ ability to be understood, since it is closely linked to such basic features of language as rhythm, intonation, nuclear or tonic stress and pronunciation – all of which are necessary for understanding the spoken word.
The complexity of the English stress system has always greatly hindered the ability to teach English word stress and has thus forced the education system to resort to a less direct approach. However, this approach appears to be wholly insufficient for the needs of the student, as it forces them to learn the correct stress placement for each individual word instead of providing a set of rules by which to abide. The stress system introduced in this thesis must therefore be simplified and shaped into a more accessible form (such as Tibbitts’ rhythmic exercises) and be presented to students repeatedly and frequently in order for the students to acquire the ability to sense English stress almost physically. Such practices will then result not only in increased ability to produce understandable speech, but also to improve the student’s pronunciation of unknown words and thus increase the efficiency of independent study and reading.
Though one of the main purposes of this work was to clearly and concisely present the word stress system of English for students as well as other interested parties, it is the author’s hope for the results of this effort to not be limited to this task alone. On the contrary, the use of the data and evidence presented in the survey to inspire a new initiative on the field of second language teaching as well as textbook production is encouraged in order to better accommodate the needs of the students to acquire the habits of correct stress placement in English speech. The benefits resulting from this initiative would, in the author’s opinion, greatly improve the quality of second language education and improve the students’ ability to communicate on an international level, thus opening new opportunities for future.