Research On Problems And Countermeasures In English Pronunciation Teaching For Grade 7 Students

Pronunciation has a great influence on vocabulary, listening, reading and communication. New Course Syllabus for English(hereinafter referred to as “NCSFE”)(2011) represents level-5 phonetic goal for those junior high school graduates. It claims that the junior high school graduates need grasp English phonetics knowledge including pronunciation, stress, linking, intonation, rhythm and etc.As so far, the textbook Go for It published by People Education Press is widely accepted in junior high schools in China. Its first edition(2007) was adapted from the original American version and aimed to be in accordance with the requirements of NCSFE. But the actual effect of application especially in terms of phonetic teaching is still far away from the requirement of level-5 phonetic goal stipulated in NCSFE. With the New Course Syllabus for English(2011) issued in 2001, Go for It had been adjusted, corrected and renewed. And strengthening the phonetics guide is one of the focus of this revision. it has become a hot topic to make a research on teaching phonetics effective with the textbook Go for It.In order to improve the quality of pronunciation learning and teaching under present situation of junior high school, in this paper, the author took the users of the textbook from Huangzhou Middle School as research subjects, carried out three different methods—literature methodology, questionnaire investigation and pronunciation test experimentation to make a survey on pronunciation teaching of textbook Go for It. Based on literature methodology, data analysis from questionnaires and pronunciation test the author discovered and confirmed problems as follows: the English teachers are lack of effective teaching methods to teach pronunciation and some students suffer from the innate language learning ability, negative transfer of mother tongue, students’ inner emotional factors and lack of English language environment to pronunciation learning.After analyzing these problems above and combining the background of group management mode in experiment class, the author puts forward suggestion such as follows: the connection of phonetic teaching contents between primary school and junior high school should be ensured, a correct and active phonetic input environment should be established, the implementation of NCSFE should be strengthened and the teachers’ concept for English phonetic course design should be renewed according to NCSFE. Then the author put forward to the student-cooperated and group-competed English pronunciation teaching method which is under the guide of the Attribution Theory and the Communicative Language Teaching Theory to help with problems mentioned above. This teaching method not only helps arouse student’ study interest but also brings their initiative and enthusiasm into full play through mutual learning in group and contests among groups. The teaching steps as follows: represent knowledge, practice in class, practice in groups, compete between groups and assessment.Finally, with both theory and practice being closely integrated, the author combines the students’ actual needs with teaching and carries out the pronunciation teaching mode for four months. The experiment’s results verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the student-cooperated and group-competed English pronunciation teaching pattern.