Abstract:
This study is conducted to investigate the ability of master degree student to process some aspects of connected speech by identifying the sounds of functional words through listening to the sentences and say either strong or weak form while listening to the natural speech of native speakers in English language. The main concern is to evaluate the students’ performance of perception in listening to the weak and strong forms of grammatical words. The test and interview have revealed that the master degree students at University of Sudan for Science and Technology seem to have some problems of perceiving in listening to strong and weak forms as a result of learning because they focus in studying such forms on the productive level rather than on the perceptive one. Furthermore, these forms are seldom used in the speech of teachers and the students, lack of awareness and training. Through a listening test, and an interview it has tried to depict the comprehension level of students regarding these forms and to elicit the perception difficulties that they are likely to face in listening to native speakers in English language. The results confirmed that almost all the tested students and interviewed ones are not only unaware of the significance of weak forms learning, but also they are unable to perceive some weak and strong forms well in their pronunciation while listening. As a practical contribution, the study leads to some recommendations concerning the teaching of weak forms and strong forms in aspects of the connected speech, in general the researcher’s view point there should be a support to non-native speakers of English language learners in applying accurate ways of learning English phonetics and phonology earlier during the years at schools until students, admission to Universities and there must be qualified teachers in all levels who will make the learners stronger in familiarizing the aspects of English language sound system, students should apply the first skill of an English language in non-native groups to accustom saying the words as well as natural speech through native speakers directly, if possible to compare the pronunciation of single and connected words in the same time to avoid misperceptions of sounds
