Deficiencies And Countermeasures In Phonetics Teaching Of English Majors In Higher Vocational Technical Colleges

Phonetics is the linguistic science which describes and classifies the sounds of human languages (Johnson & Johnson, 1999:235). Researchers both in China and abroad describe phonetics as an important part of speaking, listening, reading and writing experiences, an essential cueing system that L2 learners use along with other kinds of information (Dahl & Scharer, 2000;Sheng Jiufan, 2004).However, up to now, researches on phonetics in western countries have tended to focus on the variables that impede or enhance the acquisition of a reasonable pronunciation or focus on the process of pronunciation acquisition. In China, though in recent years, the interest in the research on phonetics teaching and learning has gradually drawn people's attention, the study on the perspective of Higher Vocational Technical College (HVTC) cannot be easily found. On the other hand, phonetics often seems to be deemed by English teachers in HVTC as something that is less in need of correction in English teaching and is often given little attention to, if not completely ignored, in many HVTCs. Traditional teacher-centered classroom instruction, monotonous way of presentation, meaningless mechanical drills and ineffective assessment system de-motivated students and made them feel bored and uninterested. And on the students' side, we found HVTC English majors generally encounter more difficulties and generate more errors in English learning than those in comprehensive universities and colleges, particularly on the phonetic aspect. Consequently, phonetics teaching and learning in HVTC became a hard nut to crack. Poor phonetic performance hindered the development of students' other skills, especially the ability of speaking and listening.For the reasons above, the present study intends to explore the problems from four aspects: 1) the importance of English phonetics to the study of English;2) general situation of English phonetics teaching andlearning in HVTC;3) cause analyses of the existing problems;4) countermeasures to the existing problems. Two empirical studies are included in the present thesis. One is the study on the general situation of English phonetics teaching and learning in HVTC. It concerns the following four aspects: 1) teaching time allocation;2) textbook and teaching material;3) basic facts about students;4) teachers and teaching methods. Five English teachers who have phonetics teaching experiences were interviewed (Appendix I) and their response to the questions were recorded. The investigation showed that: 1) Teaching time allotted to the phonetics instructions is rather limited compare to the other major-related courses offered. Some HVTCs even did not offer the course separately at all;2) Few unified and standard textbooks, audio-visual aids and teaching software, which are applied to HVTCs English majors, are easily obtainable. 3) English majors in HVTC who mainly come from rural area and achieved comparatively low academic scores generally encounter more difficulties in their phonetics study. 4) Misunderstandings in phonetics teaching still exist among HVTC English teachers due to various reasons. Based on the findings of the first study, the other study is on the cause of the existing problems. We suspect that, except teachers' misunderstandings, affective factors and mother tongue interference are the main causes that hinder HVTC English major's phonetics learning. Two instruments were employed to explore the problem: 1) a questionnaire (Appendix II) was administered in January 2005 to the first grade English majors of Loudi Vocational Technical College to study the students' affective factors in phonetic learning;2) an pronunciation test (Appendix III) was carried out in January 2005 to find out in what aspects does the mother tongue interfere with the students' phonetic study. The results of the study proved the hypothesis: 1) Affective factors and mother tongue interference do influence HVTC English majors' phonetics learning and the effects are mainly negative;2) The affective factors, mainly anxiety in phonetics learning, are obviously shown in lowpronunciation self-concept and communication anxiety;3) Some phonetic errors frequently made by the students at the segmental level are, except errors in articulating phonemes, mainly errors related to syllable structure. And at the suprasegamental level, the problem was concentrated on the stress and intonation.Based on the conclusion of the investigation, we put forward some countermeasures to promote the English phonetics teaching and learning in HVTC. We should increase the amount of instruction time, amplify teaching materials, inspire students' motivation, boost students' confidence, organize a supportive learning environment, aware the mother tongue interference and optimize teaching methods and techniques.