This study aims to examine whether or not there is any positive effect of explicit pronunciation education in teaching English pronunciation of consonants. In order to find out meaningful development of acquiring English consonants, this study mainly ...
This study aims to examine whether or not there is any positive effect of explicit pronunciation education in teaching English pronunciation of consonants. In order to find out meaningful development of acquiring English consonants, this study mainly targets English consonants that Korean young learners have the difficulties or mistakes in pronunciation.
Twenty-four 3rd grade young students from an elementary school in Daegu were participated in this experiment. Forty-minute class was given twice per week for four weeks. A preliminary survey and a pre-test were carried out before the main experiment along with a post-test after completing all the experimental processes.
The remarkable results are as follows. First of all, explicit pronunciation teaching was meaningful in phonemic awareness of consonants. Records of the post-test showed signigicant differences compared with those of the pre-test. Scores of all the subjects were improved because the subjects understood the principles and the methods of pronouncing the targeting consonants. A native teacher explained in detail the movement of a vocal tract and showed how to pronounce each sound. Furthermore, it is highlighted that the group of the biggest score in improvement rate was the lowest in the pre-test score. This implies that explicit pronunciation instruction in teaching English consonants is significantly effective for the low-ranked students as well as middle- or top-ranked ones.
Secondly, it was also shown that explicit pronunciation teaching had a positive influence on the improvement of listening section. The fact that most subjects got higher scores was verified through the results of the post-listening test. Regular pronunciation lessons using minimal pairs were given in order to help the subjects recognize the differences between /b/ vs /v/, /d/ vs /ð/, /p/ vs /f/, /l/ vs /r/, and /s/ vs /ɵ/. As a result, explicit pronunciation teaching enables the subjects to acquire each consonantal sound of minimal pairs correctly and effectively.
Thirdly, the result of post-questionnaire showed that the improvement of pronunciation acquisition and listening section brought out positive changes in subjects' mind. Many subjects became to realize the importance and necessity of learning about an accurate pronunciation information of each consonantal sound. In other words, explicit pronunciation instruction can play a key role in not only improving phonemic awareness educationally but also in motivating the subjects to get more confidence emotionally in learning English sounds.
Based on the results thus far, some practical suggestions can be made; it is essential that, when teaching students, English teachers know how the sound system of Korean and English is different and where the pronunciation errors are frequently taken place. One step further, teachers need to associate teaching pronunciation with learner-centered listening activities such as minimal pair drills for the young students at the beginning level. These efforts will help students to internalize accurate pronunciation as well as to communicate effectively with native English speakers.
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