The English alphabet is a collection of letters consisting of 5 vowels and 21 consonants. A group of letters constitutes a word and generally each word must contain at least one vowel, or one vowel sound, and these sounds constitute syllables.
English is about speaking, listening, reading and writing. While reading and writing depend on spellings for the proper understanding of the language, speaking and listening depend upon pronunciation. A word is pronounced in a particular way and it is here that syllables come in handy. Each word is broken into units of speech and we call each unit a syllable.