A Study on the Influence of “Peer Tutoring Program” in Improving English Pronunciation of the Freshmen in English Major

1、 “同伴辅导同伴辅导”对提高英语专业新生英语发音的对提高英语专业新生英语发音的作用研究作用研究以河师大外国语学院英语教育专业 08、09 级学生的实验为例a study on the influence of “peer tutoring program” in improving english pronunciation of the freshmen in english majora trial in grade 08&09 students of the faculty of the international studies in henan normal university a

2、cknowledgements i would like to thank all those who have given me their generous helps, commitment and enthusiasm, which have been the major driving force to complete the current paper. this thesis based on a scientific research item “the detection and counter plan to the incorrect pronunciation of

3、english major freshmen” which was guided by li wenzhong, the president of the faculty of international studies and lead by xxx, a junior of english major, this item contains three other english major students, xxx, xxx）and xxx. besides, we asked many freshmen of english major to help us to carry out

4、 this research. every member takes his great effort to this item and makes a significant contribution to it. as an elder student, i have a prior chance to take a conclusion and write a thesis. so, i should praise all the members of our team who taught me the importance and benefits of teamwork, and

5、thank the freshmen who took part in our research item. finally, i should appreciate my great respect and tribute to my tutor, professor xxx she gave me the most help in this thesis.摘要摘要语音是语言的基础，我国高校英语专业无一例外的对新生进行语音训练。在此背景下，为了找到一条切实有效的训练方法，考虑到在学术界有一定影响的“同班辅导教学”模式，并基于河南师范大学外国语学院国家级创新性实验项目“英语专业学生发音困难的跟

6、踪调查及对策研究” ， 笔者通过对河南师范大学英语专业 08、09 级新生随机分组进行语音采集分析，对实验组采取同伴辅导教学活动。本文简要介绍了同伴辅导的历史和理论背景，并描述了在 20092010 学年秋季进行的该项活动的过程和结果，总共分为三个过程：准备阶段、辅导阶段和评估阶段。通过对本次教学活动的分析和讨论，结果显示，不难看出，作为一种自主学习的模式，同伴辅导对于解决英语专业学生发音困难有积极作用。 关键字：自主学习；同伴辅导；发音困难；语音训练；abstractas the basis of langue and interpersonal communication, the cor

7、rect pronunciation is prerequisite and the training is widely proceeding without exception. in this background, to find a useful way to train them and consider that the “peer tutoring program” is really have a great impact in education circle, we took a peer tutoring trial on the testee, which based

8、 on the nation innovational research item, then took a sound collecting and analysis after a random allocation to them. this article introduces the history and background of the “peer tutoring program” briefly, and describes the process and result of this trial in the autumn in 2009-2010, there are

9、three stages in this trial: preparing stage, tutoring stage and assessing stage. its easy to find that the peer tutoring program which as a autonomous learning model has a positive effect to solve the incorrect pronunciation problem of the freshmen in english major after the analysis.key words: auto

10、nomous learning; peer tutoring program; incorrect pronunciation; pronunciation training; table of contentsacknowledgements.摘要 .abstract.table of contents .introduction.5chapter 1 general principles .2 the background and emotions of our research.2 the general frame of the study .2chapter 2 the histor

11、y and background of the “peer tutoring program”.2chapter 3 the process of the “peer tutoring program” which took in henan normal university in 2009 .51 preparing stage.62 tutoring stage.103 assessing stage.10chapter 4 the discussion and achievements of the “peer tutoring program” .11chapter 5 conclu

12、sion.17bibliography .20 introductionthe abroad expert had started the autonomous learning towards foreign language and got a lot of research and discussion since the 1970s. while the local scholar expects after beginning from the 80s in 20th century to the discussion of english independence study an

13、d gets a value and expands in the end of 90s. most of them confirm the positive effect of cultivating the ability of autonomous learning in the education of university english, and discuss about the training methods in different perspective, almost 71% them are theory introduction, while 29% of them

14、 are based on their empirical studies. the research target is confined within the middle and primary school students, open universities and night college students, at the same time, their research scope is focused on the features of the autonomous learning class, lacking of the empirical studies whi

15、ch aim at a certain abilities about the developing of autonomous learning in english majors. so, some researchers who have studied the foreign language education in universities for many years believe that its especially important to learn the autonomous learning methods for the foreign language stu

16、dents.a study on the influence of “peer tutoring program” in improving english pronunciation of the english major freshmena trial in grade 08&09 students of the faculty of the international studies in henan normal universitychapter 1 general principles the background and emotion of our researchthus,

17、 as we said in the introduction, we, who belongs to the “the detection and counter plan to the incorrect pronunciation of english major freshmen” item, took a tracking survey to the underway “peer tutoring program” in henan normal university for half a year, aiming to know whether it is suitable to

18、solve the incorrect pronunciation problem of english major freshmen and try to find and solve some problems which happened in the process to make it better. the general frame of the studythis article will describe the following details:1. the history and background of the “peer tutoring program”;2.

19、the process of the “peer tutoring program” which was taken in henan normal university in 2009;3. the discussion and achievements of the “peer tutoring program”.4. conclusionchapter 2 the history and background of the “peer tutoring program”the first recorded use of an organized, systematic peer tuto

20、rial learning project in the western world didnt come about until the late 1700s. arising from school budget woes in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, peer tutoring became an effective way of giving underprivileged (at this time, sadly, only male) children a reasonable shot at an education. th

21、e first systematic approach to peer tutoring is credited to andrew bell, who was the superintendent of the military male asylum at egmore, in england (goodlad et. al. 23). when bell took the reins at this institution, the asylum was run as a school for boys whose fathers had been killed during warti

22、me. bell transformed the asylum into more of an official school. many teachers feel that they do not have enough time in the school day to work one-on-one with every student. peer tutoring is a way for all students to get one-on-one help and enough time to practice and learn. for peer tutoring, ever

23、y student in the class is paired with another. the teacher writes lessons that one student uses to teach or tutor another. during the tutoring, one student explains the work to another student, asks the student to answer questions, and tells the student whether his or her answers are correct. peer t

24、utoring is usually considered less threatening and intimidating. there are many benefits for both the peer tutor and tutee in this relationship, one aspect of this is that the tutor can establish a rapport with the tutee in a way that a teacher cannot. a peer tutor may have taken the same class rece

25、ntly, or have taken similar classes.because the peer tutor is seen by the tutee as being more at their own levels, advice given by the tutor may be accepted more readily than advice from a teacher. another key reason for this is that a peer tutor does not give any grade on the paper, whereas a teach

26、er serving in a tutor role may still be perceived as someone who grades papers.peer tutors can be trained through on-the-job training, as well as through formal workshops. new tutors can be paired with more experienced tutors for their first few tutorials, and after the tutors are satisfied that the

27、 new tutors can operate alone they can give one-on-one tutoring. a key aspect of tutor training is the reflection on tutorials with other tutors. this reflection looks at what could have gone better as well as the tutors progress in giving tutorials.there is a realistic example of the “peer tutoring

28、 program” in the river east collegiate in canada and they said, “the peer tutoring program is a service runnel by the students, for the students. students with an average of 80% or higher in a course offer their talents by signing up for this program in hopes of helping other students meet their goa

29、ls. this service is available to all grades for both tutoring and being tutored. once a tutor and a tutee are matched up they simply choose a specific time to meet and then they are all ready to go. the program is monitored by the river east collegiate resource teacher. students who volunteer to be

30、a tutor are awarded by the school at the end of the year.” but there is no english learning example for the chinese students. in higher education tutorial settings, the benefits of peer tutoring programs also extend to class tutors (a website about peer tutoring at rmit university). using grounded t

31、heory techniques, it was found that the following five themes underlie their experiences: role exploration, sharing responsibility, regulation of the peer tutored groups, harnessing the peer tutors role and community (see article for further detail).esl training can be separated from regular tutor t

32、raining as a subject that contains special difficulties that must be dealt with on their own. tutoring in an online writing lab can also be separated from normal training. the critical importance of youth having the opportunity to participate in meaningful roles such as youth-helping-youth is a sali

33、ent factor in preventing social problems, including substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and delinquency. the need exists to expand the opportunity to have all students experience the helping role. the new model: * calls for in-depth preparation and training of peer tutors and their ongoing reflection o

34、n the tutoring process; * removes the negativity usually associated with receiving help, since all students participate in giving and receiving help; * sees being a tutee as preparation for becoming a tutor; * leads to the creation of student-centered, peer-focused schools (gartner, 1992). (an ancil

35、lary aim is the spread of other peer opportunities: peer mentoring, peer mediation, peer education, peer helping.) above all, a peer tutor is anyone who is of a similar status as the person being tutored. in an undergraduate institution this would usually be other undergraduates, as distinct from th

36、e graduate students who may be teaching the writing classes; in a k-12 school this is usually a student from the same grade or higher. there are some basic rules to establishing your peer tutoring program, the key to success is a clear objective. thorough planning and evidence gathering activities w

37、ill contribute to substantiation of the decisions you will make. zimmerman believes that the emotion of the autonomous learning should be inherent and self-motivated essentially, the study process should be planned, the students could realized the results of the autonomous learning, and control them

38、selves in the course. some local researchers took a conclusion about the common features of autonomous learning (as follows) based on zimmermans viewpoint. we can find that “peer tutoring program” suits these common features. at the same time, the “peer tutoring program” could teach students the met

39、hods of autonomous learning and give them more free learning time according to sinclair goodlad and beverley hirsts studies, besides, it takes great advantage of ameliorating the relationship between the peer tutor and tutee.with all the above viewpoints and comparison, it could not only cultivate t

40、he dependence and autonomy of the students, but also come up with a new way to solve the incorrect pronunciation problem which puzzled the english major students for a long time by taking the peer tutoring program into phonic work.chapter 3 the process of the “peer tutoring program” which took in he

41、nan normal university in 2009 as we all know, we cant have a convenient or correct conversation unless we learn the pronunciation well. however, in the research, we found that most freshmen dont have the ability to pronunciation correctly because of the influence of the exam-oriented education, much

42、 of the worse scores students in the research admit that they missed the practice of voice to get more higher mark, while it need not consider the score, so they can have more chance to improve their ability of pronunciation. there are three main stages of the peer tutoring program in henan normal u

43、niversity in 2009-2010, which are “preparing stage”, “tutoring stage”, and “assessing stage”. the total time of this item is set into one semester (from april to june in 2010) by considering the lack of longitudinal empirical study to the english major students autonomous learning by now.1. preparin

44、g stage (april in 2010) the preparing stage is just like a rpg game, some people play the role of the tutor while some others play the role of the testee. the former contains 191 students from grade 2008, 12 freshmen from grade 2009 and 9 postgraduates (212 people of all), the latter contains 271 fr

45、eshmen from grade 2009 and five students from grade 2008 (276 people of all). the tutor and the testee are both come into being by two approaches which are voluntary application and recommended by the english course teacher, then the members of our “the detection and counter plan to the incorrect pr

46、onunciation of english major freshmen” scientific research item take a random sampling to the students who take part in this program as the testee by considering the english course teachers advices, then we take a voice pronunciation collecting work as long as a week to 78 students whose pronunciati

47、on problem is obviously serious before the beginning of this program. testee: the testee is divided into two classes, the experimental group and the control group completely random (). the former group is to get the training while the latter group will not. each group has 138 persons and the 78 stud

48、ents whose pronunciation problem is obviously serious are also divided into the two groups completely random (each group has 39 persons). in the total item project, the experimental group people are asked not to tell another group that they are getting training and told that another group people are

49、 getting the same training while the control group people will be asked to learn the book english pronunciation exercises by themselves in a certain place at a certain time to avoid the pygmalion effect (the pygmalion effect, or rosenthal effect, refers to the phenomenon in which the greater the exp

50、ectation placed upon people, often children or students and employees, the better they perform. the effect is named after pygmalion, a cypriot sculptor in a narrative by ovid in greek mythology, who fell in love with a female statue he had carved out of ivory. the pygmalion effect is a form of self-

51、fulfilling prophecy, and, in this respect, people with poor expectations internalize their negative label, and those with positive labels succeed accordingly. within sociology, the effect is often cited with regards to education and social class. which is said in the wikipedia ).the content of the v

52、oice pronunciation collecting work is based on the book english pronunciation exercises which is edited by zhang guanlin who is a vice professor of the english major in beijing normal university. the test is divided into three parts named vowel, consonant, and rule of reading and the skill of pronun

53、ciation. the location of this test is in a quiet classroom. we will give the students questionnaire before the test to build a basic information file. the students have five minutes to know well the content without knowing it before which not only make sure the authenticity of this test but also mak

54、e the students show their true ability. the people who are in charge of the test are ordered not to show their feelings and emotions while being in test to avoid the experimenter effect (is a term used to describe any of a number of subtle cues or signals from an experimenter that affect the perform

55、ance or response of subjects in the experiment. the cues may be unconscious nonverbal cues, such as muscular tension or gestures. they may be vocal cues, such as tone of voice. research has demonstrated that the expectations and biases of an experimenter can be communicated to experimental subjects

56、in subtle, unintentional ways and that these cues can significantly affect the outcome of the experiment -rosenthal 1998. robert rosenthal has found that even slight differences in instructions given to control and experimental groups can affect the outcome of an experiment. different vocal intonati

57、ons, subtle gestures, even slight changes in posture, might influence the subjects.) all the voice data is saved in the matching file. then we members of the scientific research item will take the work of transferring the voice data into text data after getting a training of the theoretical course o

58、f the voice. the following is the standard of the transferring.a. vowelit contains the jaw height, the tongue position, and the lip configuration; they could be described to the words: lower/higher, front/ central/back, round/unrounded. among the former three standards, the tongue position is the mo

59、st difficult and important, for the front, center, and back of the tongue are distinguished, as are four levels of tongue height:the highest position the tongue can achieve without producing audible friction (high or close);the lowest position the tongue can achieve (low or open); andtwo intermediat

60、e levels, dividing the intervening space into auditorily equivalent areas (mid-high or open-mid, and mid-low or close-mid). (crystal, 1997;155-156) the ipa system defines eight “primary” cardinal vowels, in relation to which a further set of “secondary” cardinal vowels can be defined. by convention,