As the society we are living in is called a global village, the cultural, informational, and knowledge-based exchange is being active, and also the correlation with the countries is becoming higher. Like this, the reason why the world has been becomin...
As the society we are living in is called a global village, the cultural, informational, and knowledge-based exchange is being active, and also the correlation with the countries is becoming higher. Like this, the reason why the world has been becoming a global village is because English can have an important role of connecting with each different nationality. If so, it is essential that international people recognize the characteristics of English which is the common language used by the global countries. Originally, English is a stress-timed language, which is that stress is considered as a basic factor of a language, but Korean is a syllable-timed language, which is that syllable is regarded as a fundamental element of a language. Due to the different language system between English and Korean, Korean students have difficulty in studying and understanding English. Suprasegmental features such as stress, length, and pitch, and phonetic alteration such as linking, contraction, and reduction happen naturally in English setting. These sandhi phenomena are one of the most difficult challenges when Korean students listen English(Kim, 2002). So, if the differences of the aspect of the listening ability and affective domain of Korean L2 learners who are taught explicit and implicit pronunciation instruction using a movie which shows lots of suprasegmental features are investigated, there will be a contribution to the English listening education for Korean EFL learners.
Hence, the purpose of this study is to examine if explicit and implicit pronunciation instruction focused on suprasegmentals using a movie has significant effects on English listening ability and affective domain of Korean middle school students.
For this study, 60 Korean middle school students in Seoul were chosen, and they were randomly alloted into two homogeneous groups in accordance with different pronunciation instruction: explicit and implicit. Then, each group was fractionated according to their pre-listening test scores: high-level and low-level groups. The study has been proceeded over 7 week periods, with the exception of two weeks of pre and post listening tests. The pre-survey, pronunciation instruction focused on suprasegmentals using a movie during the 10th periods, the post-survey, and the post in-depth survey were conducted.
The findings acquired from the study are as follows: First, both of two groups- explicit and implicit- benefited from taking part in English suprasegmental classes using a movie. However, there were no statistically significant intergroup differences, which can be inferred that explicit and implicit pronunciation instruction focused on suprasegmentals using a movie might help improve Korean middle students’ English listening ability regardless of the ways of pronunciation instruction.
Second, the result of the listening test states that the most progressive group was the low-level explicit group, and the low-level implicit, the high-level explicit, and the high-level implicit groups were ranked in order according to their progressive listening test scores. One interesting outcome of this result was that it is more effective for low-level groups to learn suprasegmentals in English class.
Third, there were statistically significant differences on segmental, word stress, sentence stress, contraction and reduction areas from both of the explicit and implicit groups. Varying results were gained depending on learners’ language level and the ways of pronunciation instruction. The high-level explicit group showed that there were statistically significant differences in 4 aspects such as segmental, word stress, sentence stress, contraction and reduction. Next, the low-level explicit group indicated that there were statistically significant differences on 6 areas such as segmental, syllable number, word stress, sentence stress, linking, content-understanding. On the other hand, there were statistically significant differences on 4 parts such as segmental, word stress, sentence stress, contraction and reduction from the high-level implicit group. Finally, the low-level implicit group stated that there were statistically significant differences on only 3 sections such as segmental, word stress, sentence stress.
Fourth, the results from pre and post survey indicated that the explicit group showed significant differences on self-pride, adventurous attempt, anxiety, interest, motivation, listening perception, excluding self-defence. However, the result of the implicit group stated that all of the parts of affective domain were statistically significant. From this result, concerning affective domain, it can be expected that implicit pronunciation instruction is more effective for EFL learners because it lowers affective filter.
Fifth, the different results were obtained depending on learners’ language level and the ways of pronunciation instruction. In case of the high-level and the low-level explicit groups, there were statistically significant differences on 5 areas, excluding self-defence and adventurous attempt. This result gives a message that only 10 week periods of explicit treatment which was leaded by the teacher were too short to make statistically significant differences of self-defence and adventurous attempt about English learning. On the other side, the high-level and the low-level implicit groups made statistically significant differences in all parts of affective domain. From this result, it can be inferred that implicit pronunciation instruction attaching importance to language learners is more effective for the aspects of personal attitude.
If the results of this study are integrated, the findings are as follows: Although explicit and implicit pronunciation instruction didn’t show statistically significant intergroup differences, both of two ways were effective for improving L2 learners’ listening ability according to the big score gaps between pre and post listening tests. Furthermore, no statistically significant differences of affective domain were found in-between groups. However, since both of each different pronunciation instruction had more positive effect on post scores of affective domain of Korean middle school students, it is possible that explicit and implicit pronunciation instruction focused on suprasegmentals using a movie had an affirmative effect on affective domain of Korean middle school students.
The caveats of this study are noted as follows: Since the number of the students who engaged in the experiment was only 60 middle school students who were girls, it is hard to generalize its study results to whole middle school students in Korea. Besides, items of pre and post listening tests taken in this study for the purpose of gauging specific listening abilities of Korean middle school students were quite simple and traditional ways, so it leaves something to be desired. Consequently, if further researches are included with a number of students who are boys and girls, a variety of levels, and developing the test items which measure more correct segmental, suprasegmental, and content-understanding listening abilities of Korean students, more meaningful and reliable researches will be completed in the future.
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