A Survey On The Current Situation Of Middle School Students’ English Pronunciation Learning In Henan Province

Pronunciation plays an important role in communication in English, but pronunciation learning has been a long-standing problem of English learning in our country. Meanwhile, the stage of basic education is the critical period of English pronunciation learning. Thus the situation of middle school students’ pronunciation learning is worthy of our study. However, in our country, the researches in this field are inadequate and less of them are from the perspective of students. The most researches took English major students or college students as research subject, and the research on middle school students is rare.Therefore, this thesis did a research from students’ perspective, and 140 students were surveyed about their pronunciation learning motivation, pronunciation learning belief, and pronunciation learning strategy. All students came from Zhengzhou No.6 Middle School in Henan Province.Literature survey, questionnaire, and interview are employed in the study. All data were analyzed by SPSS 16.0, and the results were combined with the interview to answer the following questions:(1) The situation of middle school students’ pronunciation learning motivation, and the difference between different genders in Henan Province.(2) The situation of middle school students’ pronunciation learning belief, and the difference between different genders in Henan Province.(3) The situation of middle school students’ use of pronunciation learning strategy in Henan Province, and the difference between different genders.The findings are as follow.(1) The main motivation of their pronunciation learning is intrinsic motivation. There are two high-score motivations, Individual Development Motivation and Intrinsic Interest Motivation. And there are four medium-score motivation, Information Medium motivation, Learning Situation Motivation, Going abroad Motivation and Achievement Motivation. And Responsibility Motivation is the lowest motivation. There is no significant difference between boys and girls in the intensity of pronunciation learning motivation.(2)The formal practice view is a little higher than the functional practice view because middle school students lack recognition of pronunciation learning. They fail to pay attention to intonation and stress in conversation. And the research shows a positive correlation between the formal practice view and functional practice view. The data shows that gender has little influence on their pronunciation belief.(3)As for pronunciation learning strategy, Affective Strategy is what they use most frequently. They cheer themselves up when they meet difficulty or make mistakes so as to keep their learning. The one of lowest frequency is Compensation Strategy. Students began to study English from primary school, so they are not at initial stage anymore; they pay attention to the accuracy of pronunciation rather than use Compensation. The result shows that there is significant difference in Metacognitive Strategy and Compensation Strategy between boys and girls.This study attempts to give us a picture of the current situation of middle school students’ pronunciation learning from three aspects, and the researcher would give some advice to teachers at the end of this paper. It is hoped that this research can benefit subsequent research.