英语语音教学研究论文

1、 论文题目：A Study on English Pronunciation Teaching in Junior Middle School初中英语语音教学研究AbstractPronunciation is one of the three elements of language, it is the basis of the mastery of language knowledge and language skills. If the students can not master the pronunciation knowledge, they wont understand

2、the other peoples speaking and make self-expression in communication with a strong language sense. But English pronunciation teaching effect in junior middle school is not ideal at present. Pronunciation teaching is usually neglected under the exam-oriented education background, but all the aspects

3、of English learning are influenced by the pronunciation ability, since there is a closely connection among listening, speaking, reading and translating, So how to improve the quality of English pronunciation teaching and make the junior middle school students master systematic pronunciation knowledg

4、e is a urgent problem to solve in this paper. This paper is divided into five parts: the first part is a brief introduction about the pronunciation teaching; the importance of pronunciation in English teaching is introduced in the second ;In the next is the third part that mainly analyzes the curren

5、t situation about competent insufficiencies of English pronunciation teaching, the influence of local dialect in junior middle school English pronunciation teaching and other situations. From the analyzing, we put forward some effective countermeasures like strengthening pronunciation awareness and

6、ameliorating teaching methods to solve the problems of the current pronunciation teaching on the fourth part. The fifth part is a conclusion.Key words: junior middle school; English pronunciation teaching; countermeasures1. IntroductionAccording to Deng Chunyan (2008), pronunciation is the physical

7、form and the essence of language. Pronunciation is the first stage of teaching. English pronunciation teaching is the initial point of English teaching. For students, pronunciation learning is the starting of English study. The purpose of any kind of language teaching is to train students ability to

8、 use it. Hedge (2002) pointed out that the ability to produce sounds intelligible to other speakers is part of the competency of speaking English. As the material basis of existed language and the starting or the key point of language teaching, pronunciation teaching aims to cultivate students to fo

9、rm correct way of pronunciation, speak naturally and have a fluent flow of language and intonation. But there is no way to express concepts without vocabulary, and the exchange of ideas will be inevitably influenced without rich vocabulary. Esling,J & Wong,R (1983) suggested early training should be

10、 given to the learners, hoping to awaken the students desire to practice. However, in real English teaching process, pronunciation teaching is not ideal. The effect of English teaching in junior middle schools is unsatisfactory in China. Many problems still exist in English pronunciation teaching, s

11、uch as irrational teaching methods, lack of attention and effect of the local dialect, etc. What causes these problems? How can we solve these problems? This paper will discuss some major problems through the way of literature analysis and practical research in junior middle school English pronuncia

12、tion teaching and put forward some countermeasures or provide valuable reference to improve English pronunciation teaching situation in junior middle school. 2. The Importance of Pronunciation TeachingPronunciation teaching is an important stage in English teaching. It should be paid much more atten

13、tion. Voice is the material shell of a language, the language is first voiced, teaching a language is always starting from the teaching of pronunciation. Adults learning of a second language and students learning of a foreign language have to start from pronunciation learning. When the right English

14、 pronunciation and intonation is stored in students brain, it will be a basic guarantee or a foundation to learn English well. Whats more, it will also ensure students to express their own thoughts correctly and understand English information properly.To speak any language a person must know nearly

15、100% of its phonetics,while only 50-90% of its grammar and 1% of the vocabulary may be sufficient (A.C.Gimson,1989). From this perspective, we elicit the conclusion that teaching pronunciation plays an essential and integral role in the education of English for second language learners. The famous l

16、anguage expert Stern (1922:117) considered that pronunciation learning is a progress of learning step by step and it needs a long time to strengthen the knowledge or the ability of language. From this viewpoint, we know that pronunciation is a vital part in language teaching. Pronunciation teaching

17、also affects the other part of language teaching, such as listening, grammar and word which is the fundamental materials of a language. If the students can not get a good pronunciation teaching, they wont get a strong language sense for the language learning. Therefore, as English teachers, they nee

18、d to teach in patience and teach the pronunciation throughout the whole English teaching progress. They need to make sure their students have a good pronunciation foundation.3. The Current Situation of Pronunciation Teaching in Junior Middle SchoolAccording to the observation and research in teachin

19、g practicum and data analysis, there are multifarious problems in the English pronunciation teaching. Here, we will set five major problems: competent insufficiencies in English teachers, the influence of local dialect, the weak awareness in pronunciation, the deletion of pronunciation materials in

20、the new curriculum standard, the students psychological dependence. 3.1Competent Insufficiencies in English teachers English teachers English pronunciation competence is not very desirable. Some of them have no no systematic English phonetic knowledge.They can not pronounce accurately and clearly. T

21、hey often pronounce without rhythm and they dont know where to put the stress and weak stress. Whats more, when students make pronunciation errors, they can not point out the errors at first time, their sensitivity about errors is not enough. Besides, the teachers pronunciation teaching methods are

22、monotonous and boring. They can not easily stimulate students learning interest and enthusiasm. For example, according to Fang Xinjings research (2010) on the competency of English teachers in Chongyang County, there is only 55% teachers having got Bachelors Degree of English, and most of them got i

23、t through on-job training and self-study. Most of them had no systematic English phonetic knowledge. In reality, it is not just the competence of Chongyang County English teachers are not desirable, the other places English teachers also have this problem. Their pronunciation ability isnt enough for

24、 their English teaching.3.2 The Influence of Local DialectLocal dialect affects the pronunciation teaching. Since most of the English teachers are local people and their pronunciation is also considerably influenced by the dialect. Many teachers like to use the dialect to explain the lesson in class

25、. English teachers poor oral English and that they seldom speak English in the class are big problems in English pronunciation teaching. The students cannot study English in a good English environment and have few chances to open their mouths. Chongyang County is a remote district in HuBei province.

26、 Almost all people speak Chongyang dialect, which is totally different from mandarin. Most of teacher speak dialect in school, and a large portion of them even speak it in the class. Under the effect of teaching in Chongyang dialect, students can hardly make a distinction between/l/ and /r/, /l/ and

27、 /n/, / and /t/.Consequently, when they speak English, similar pronunciation problems arise. Negative transfer from the local dialects in English pronouncing has became a thorny issue for these students to tackle in learning English pronunciation (Fang Xinjing, 2010). 3.3 The Weak Pronunciation Awar

28、eness of English pronunciation teaching English teachers do not realize the importance of pronunciation teaching. In junior middle school, teachers tend to focus on the text reading, listening and writing training for the high school entrance examination. They think that pronunciation teaching is in

29、 the assistance of pronouncing words, and they do not make a great difference in language teaching.They dont like to spend too much time on pronunciation teaching which give rise to problems in pronouncing the standard pronunciation for students, such as: pronouncing breathed consonants as the voice

30、d, confusing short vowels with long vowels etc. Most of the teachers prefer to focusing the key teaching points on the words of the letters, the phonetic symbol and soundmark spelling exercises in the actual process of pronunciation teaching. They ignore flow of speech, speed, the language meaning o

31、f pause, rhythm, intonation and the other pronunciation training contents. They teach English step by step and just repeat what the book says in the class. They teach students just according to the content of syllabus, neglecting development of the studentslearning ability (Qi Yanmin2010).Finally, t

32、his process results in spell inconsistent, poor speaking, incorrect intonation, and which causes serious impact on the students reading skills and the development of translation skills.3.4 The Deletion of Pronunciation in Teaching Materials Pronunciation teaching materials are not enough for English

33、 pronunciation teaching in junior middle school. There are deletions of pronunciation materials in junior middle school. Liu Qingwen (2012) pointed out that one of the reasons causes the junior students pronunciation ability problem is the deletion of pronunciation materials, there are no enough pro

34、nunciation materials in the English book, since a lot of English teachers considered that the students had learn the pronunciation materials in their elementary school, there is no need to learn to in junior middle school. As pronunciation learning is closely related with English vocabulary, listeni

35、ng comprehension and the improvement of English communicative competence.The English curriculum standard has made it clear to the junior middle school graduates who need to reach the level of English pronunciation, which is knowing well the pronunciation, stress, intonation, rhythm. But so far there

36、 are a lot of students in junior middle school can not reach this level as the deletions of teaching materials.They cant get a systematic pronunciation materials to learn. For example,Go for it is one of the most widely used teaching materials throughout junior middle school English teaching materia

37、ls. But in the practical application, the pronunciation teaching effect in Go for it is far short of the level that English curriculum standard demand.There are deletions of pronunciation materials in it . Firstly, stopping students from spelling knowledge for reading words in a timely manner. It do

38、es not have pronunciation learning text in the first five unit (starter unit)of Go for it until the 9th unit, and it cost 32 lessons between speaking English and learn how to use 48 phonetic symbols to read. Since the students just have 5 hours a week, it will spend them six weeks to finish this mis

39、sion. If teaching on this arrangement, they will know 40 phonetic symbols at the end of the first semester, and they have to learn the rest 8 the phonetic symbols after the winter holiday. The Students can just only imitate the words constantly and mechanically, and they cant read by themselves when

40、 they meet some monosyllabic words conformed to spelling rules. Secondly, they may form word memory obstacle. Since they can not master the phonetic spelling skill and contrast memory of words. It is very hard for them to remember the words. They can only learn by rote repeatedly and make mistakes i

41、n writting even if a few multi-syllables are copied out a decade times. This is because they dont know how to recite according to the rules of pronunciation. Some students learn English for a year or longer, they just can remember a few words like: pig, dog, cat and some other simple words. These wo

42、rds may be a result of the simple repeating and they can not remember many new words. With the arrangement of Go for it, it will be more difficult to remember these words.If a beginner who does not have correct pronunciation without mastering the basic spelling rules, he wont have the preliminary ab

43、ility to read. Liang Dehong (2004:1) who analyses of the pronunciation teaching arrangement on the book of Go for it also found out the deletions in the pronunciation teaching materials. 4. Countermeasures for the ProblemsIn order to solve the problems listed above, there are some suggestions and co

44、untermeasures,which can be divided into the following aspects. 4.1Ameliorating Teaching Methods A good teaching method can improve the quality of teaching, and can achieve twice the result with half the effort. English teachers should ameliorate a few effective methods to teach pronunciation. So we

45、share some methods for the reference here.4.1.1 Encouraging More ImitationsImitation is a significant procedure in the pronunciation learning. It is a key to solve Chinese local dialect interference by strengthening the students pronunciation imitating training. Phonetic symbol teaching is an import

46、ant content of pronunciation teaching, but it is very boring. So how to make students be interested in learning the phonetic symbol? Strengthening the pronunciation imitation is an important procedure, since imitation is very suitable for junior middle school students in the ages of physiological ch

47、aracteristics. Strevens (1997) argues that in the pronunciation teaching, Imitation, training, explain is very important. First of all, teachers should encourage students to imitate, dont waste time to explain pronunciation. In most cases, the direct imitation can meet the need. When someone has dif

48、ficulties in imitation, they can use some targeted speech materials to do pronunciation training, and repeat it as many times as possible. Imitation is not only to repeat the pronunciation, but also to imitate the manner of articulation and the place of articulation. The interpretation of the manner

49、 of articulation and the place of articulation will effectively help students pronounce sounds as accurate as possible and make distinction between two similar sounds. Whats more, the teaching of articulation is more interesting for the students than repeating time and time again. Except sounds, str

50、ess and rhythm, pitch and intonation should also be practiced. There are some ways training them: give different contexts of words and sentences and make difference of the same sentence in different intonation; indicate the stress and intonation clearly by using gestures and the board; make sure tha

51、t students pay attention to stress and intonation when they repeat the sentence. The teachers should take full advantage of the teaching available instruments and choose a model carefully for the students to imitate. When choosing the model, difficulty, accent and genre should be taken into consider

52、ation. And Stern (1992) also stressed the importance of imitation. He thought the pronunciation teaching should be a continuum that is a exposure - imitation - training explaining process. Exposure means the teachers present real speech materials to the students, it may be a kind of recording materi

53、als without direction, or a natural scene of language, and then let students imitate. Encouraging students to speak as much as possible in the class is the best way to enable teachers to give precise instructions, which will help students to correct faulty pronunciation. It also contributes to givin

54、g chance for students to speak English in public and helping them form the habit of opening their mouths. Some relevant activities can also be involved in the English pronunciation teaching. For example, in the class, teachers can organize competitions among students on the pronunciation knowledge a

55、nd the pronunciation of words and sentences, which will make the class become challenging and interesting and drive students to grasp the rules and pronunciation effectively. 4.1.2 Combining Interest with EffectivenessInterest combined with effectiveness is a helpful way to improve students pronunci

56、ation. Pronunciation study is boring, so the pronunciation teaching activities, teaching methods, teaching means should try to be funny, avoiding to be simple, boring, and to attract the students selective attention, stimulate students interest in learning. Zhang Qi (2008: 28) pointed out that in th

57、e teaching process, teacher should apply ample teaching aids and methods to stimulate the students interactive movement of seeing, hearing, speaking organs. The intuitional teaching aids, such as the pictures of lip reading and pronouncing organs, tape recorder, radio, or slides, should be used to s

58、timulate students seeing, hearing, and utterance motor sense. The teachers role to play in the pronunciation teaching program is a role that Morley describes as one of “speech coach” or “pronunciation coach” (Morley, 1991:507) and supported by Otlowski (1998). Rather than just correcting the learner

59、s mistakes, the speech coach supplies information, gives models, offers cues, suggestions and constructive feedback about the performance. So when teachers correct students pronunciation mistakes, interesting is wrapped in the icing outside the medicine (Sun Chunhong, 2009). Therefore, to correctly handle the relationship between interest and effectiveness, all of the interesting things should ensure service to effective l