Náležitosti

Frequency, Length and Variety of Activities Used 
 
The criteria are: 
-
to provide opportunity for repetition, to use the same activity at least twice 
on two different occasions 
-
to offer a variety of short activities 
-
to use various interaction patterns
-
to use a variety of teaching aids
Young Learners 
The criteria, needed for the analysis of the set of pronunciation activities from 
the viewpoint of the age group of young learners, are: 
-
to choose activities that are appropriate and respect the cognitive, physical, 
social and emotional, and language development 
-
to provide such classroom situations that the learners enjoy and that would 
give learners appetite to master English language and intelligible 
pronunciation

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39 
Research results, describing the set of the evaluated pronunciation activities, are listed 
and commented on more in detail in chapter No.6.
III. Practical Part 
5. 
Research 
5.1 
Course Background 
The eight-month course took place at an elementary school in the town of 
Svitavy. The school belongs to the type of small elementary schools having only one 
class in each grade, in other words, there are nine classes organized at this school. There 
are three teachers teaching English language, none of them has graduated in English. 
Two are middle-aged women. The third teacher is younger than the other two. The two 
middle-aged women teach classes from fourth to ninth graders. These children are 
timetabled three English lessons a week. The youngest teacher 
[
teacher A
] 
teaches 
courses of children who are, since the school year 2005-2006, first, second and third 
graders. This teacher A has decided, in agreement with the headmaster, to teach these 
first three grades from a course book called ´Angli
č
tina pro nejmenší´ written by Marie 
Zahálková. The four graders continue with a course book, one course book per grade, 
called ´New English for You´ up to their ninth grade. 
Conditions of the eight-month course with the third graders were not ideal from 
the very beginning when the course organization was limited by the headmaster’s 
requirements. As there was no other opportunity to have my own course with a different 
group of young learners, these requirements were accepted.
The requirements were: 

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40 
-
the lesson length was stated, each lesson was to last 45 minutes, from one to one 
forty-five p.m. 
-
this lesson was the sixth lesson in the children’s timetable, moreover after lunch 
-
the course was to take place on Wednesdays, in other words once a week 
-
the number of children was not limited, finally there were only ten children 
interested and signed in the course (six girls and four boys) 
-
the course aimed only at the third graders, in other words children aged from ten 
to eleven
-
the book to be followed was also prescribed
-
the course was to take place in the children’s own classroom, as this elementary 
school does not have a language laboratory, so that the classroom settings had to 
be rearranged before each lesson to match the needs of the course 
Thought these requirements and course conditions go against all the theory listed 
in the chapters in the theoretical part of this thesis, these requirements were accepted. 
After signing a contract, the planning phase following mainly the headmaster’s 
requirements was to begin. To teach children many new things in the period of eight 
months in lessons organized once a week was not realistic. To be able to define the 
course aims, three types of planning were used – a long term planning, a short term 
planning, and lesson plans. These topics are in chapter 6.1 called ´Planning´. To gain 
the data needed for the research analysis, a ´teaching journal´, sometimes also called 
´diary´ accompanied by ´lessons plans´ and ´teaching logs´ was kept. The research 
results and their analysis are in chapter No.6.