The purpose of the study is to investigate the problems Korean high school students have pronouncing English consonants and to examine the effects of pronunciation correction through Praat, the program for the analysis of speech in phonetics, in educa...
The purpose of the study is to investigate the problems Korean high school students have pronouncing English consonants and to examine the effects of pronunciation correction through Praat, the program for the analysis of speech in phonetics, in educating English pronunciation. For this purpose, the research questions are as follows:
(1) Does the difference between the English and Korean consonant system have any influence on the pronunciation accuracy of Korean high school students?
(2) Does teaching English consonants through Praat have any influence on correcting the pronunciation errors caused by the differences between the English and Korean consonant system?
In order to answer the questions, twenty-four 1st grade Korean high school students were chosen as subjects. They were equally divided into an experimental group and a control group depending on the error scores after the first analysis. The experimental group had twelve lessons based on English consonants, once a week for fifty minutes each in addition to their regular English lessons in school. In contrast, the control group only received English lessons in school.
The students' speech of both groups was recorded and analyzed two times each, before and after the class. In the first analysis, seventeen English consonants /p, b, t, d, k, g, f, v, ɵ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʤ, ʧ, l, r/ were analyzed. In the second analysis, twelve English consonants /b, d, g, f, v, ɵ, ð, z, ʃ, ʤ, l, r/ which differ from Korean phonological system were studied. The accuracy of the students' pronunciation of these consonants was examined by Praat. In order to verify the results, the error rates of the experimental and the control group were analyzed using the SPSS 18.0 program.
The findings of the study were as follows:
⑴ The students had more difficulties in pronouncing the consonants group composed of /f, v, ɵ, ð, z/ which does not exist in Korean and the group comprised of /b, d, g, ʃ, ʤ, r/ which exists as allophones in Korean than the group comprised of /p, t, k, s, ʧ, l/ which has correspondence to Korean consonants. They experienced more difficulties in pronouncing voiced sounds than voiceless sounds and the most difficulties were with the phonemes /z/ and /ʤ/. In terms of manner of articulation, they show the highest error rates in affricates
⑵ The experimental group showed a decrease in the error rate at the meaningful level. The pronunciation of voiceless sounds improved more than the voiced sounds. Liquid consonants showed the biggest decline at the meaningful level.
According to the findings, it can be concluded that Korean high school students showed a higher error rate in English consonants which are different from Korean phonological system. Also, teaching pronunciation using Praat had good influence on correcting English consonant pronunciation caused by different phonological system between English and Korean.
This study suggests that such a scientific teaching method as Praat should be used in English classes in order to educate English pronunciation efficiently. Active support to the learning environment should be provided for personal guidance through Praat as well.
，韩语论文范文，韩语论文 |
