Teaching Connected Speech and High School English Education in Japan
Connected speech is the area on which little research has been done and is not taught in any systematic manner in EFL programs, including high school English education in Japan. No teaching material has been published to show a comprehensive view of connected speech. Yet teaching connected speech is essential for listening comprehension as well as pronunciation. The purpose of this article is to present an overview of connected speech that will be helpful for teaching English pronunciation. First, we will see the important of teaching connected speech in English education, especially for listening comprehension. Next, we will look at the present situation of pronunciation teaching at high school in Japan, where no systematic teaching of pronunciation, let alone that of connected speech, is given. Then an overview of connected speech is presented with special emphasis on the articulatory explanations of linking, elision, and assimilation. Unfamiliarity with these combinatory articulatory phenomena is the main cause that hinders the improvement of L2 learners' listening comprehension of fluent native speaker English.