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Week 1 · Foundation
Why Fast Speech Is Hard
You already know these words. This week you learn why you can't catch them when people speak quickly — and you take your baseline recording so we can measure everything that changes from here.
The one idea for this week: the problem isn't vocabulary — it's that Americans link words together and shrink the small ones until whole phrases turn into a single blurry sound. Once you can hear the pattern, the blur turns back into words. That's the whole job of Week 1.
Your two home sessions
Home Session 1 — Hear the glue → Home Session 2 — Your first news clip → In Class — what to bring to your two live hours →
This week's target
By Friday you should be able to:
  • Explain, in your own words, what linking, reduction, and rhythm are.
  • Hear "what did you" as "wu-juh" and "what did he" as "wu-dee" — and not be thrown by it.
  • Follow a short slow-news story from start to finish.
  • Get the gist of a fast, casual clip even when you miss individual words.
★ Baseline recording — in Live Session 1
Your teacher gives you a short paragraph to read aloud and records it. This is your Day-One baseline. You'll read the same paragraph again in Weeks 4, 7, and 10 — and hear the difference. Nothing to prepare; just read it naturally.
Resources you'll use this week

All three live on the Resource Hub. This week you'll open:

VOA Learning English a slow-news story  ·  PBS NewsHour one current-events clip  ·  Rachel's English "what did" reduction + intro to linking