Abstract:

The perception of the difficulty of individual basic language skills is highly subjective and depends primarily on particular learners, bearing in mind such factors as level of education, country of origin, prevalent language teaching methods, the language learnt, and many other variables. Previously published studies tended to pertain to specific populations characterized by common age, education, profession, or other background criteria. Similarly, this article focuses on the issue of language skills difficulty in the Czech military environment. It compares the difficulty levels of basic language skills based on data gathered at the Language Centre of the University of Defence in Brno, which is responsible for language training and testing for the military in the Czech Republic. The study aims to identify similarities and differences concerning the difficulty of individual basic language skills, not only as perceived by adult language learners and their teachers, but also as demonstrated in the results of a standardized language examination.

Keywords:

Language skills, language teaching, methods, language testing, results of language examinations.