| Phonics is a teaching method that discloses the relationship between sounds and spellings of English words(i.e. word identification ability in narrow sense). It is helpful for learners to pronounce the word when seeing it and to write the word when hearing its sound. It is widely used and studied in English speaking countries. Since the introduction of this method into China, it has attracted the attention of some scholars to study the application of phonics. The research subjects mainly are students of elementary schools, middle schools and high schools as well as students of non-English majors in colleges, whereas students of English majors are seldom involved in this kind of research. In fact, even many freshmen of English majors have poor foundations of phonetics, low phonological awareness, incorrect pronunciation, wrong spelling of words and having difficulty in memorizing words. Therefore, it is necessary to use the English major students as the subjects for research. In the present research, the effectiveness of phonetic teaching mode with phonics is explored, in which phonics is integrated into the traditional phonetic class among English major freshmen so as to quickly enhance their phonological awareness and word identification ability, improving their pronunciation and word spelling, thus promoting phonetic study and word study. Hence, the research questions aimed at the teaching mode with phonics are raised as follows:1. Can it be helpful to the phonetic study and word study?2. As to the phonological awareness,(1) can phonological awareness of English major freshmen improve quickly?(2) can the low level student of phonological awareness improve quickly than the high level students?(3) which aspects of phonological awareness improves more greatly?3. As to the word identification ability,(1) can word identification ability of English major freshmen improve quickly?(2) can the low level student of word identification ability improve more quickly than high level students?(3) which aspects of word identification ability improve more greatly?In order to answer these questions, the quantitative approach was used in the experiment which lasted for three months in a local Normal College of Guangxi among the English major freshmen of Grade 2015. There were 59 students taking part in the experiment. Before the implementation of teaching, the questionnaire and pre-test of phonological awareness and word identification ability were carried out in two natural classes. The class of low total marks was chosen as the experimental class and had 29 students. The controlled class had 30 students. Both classes all had the same teaching contents in the sense of traditional phonetic teaching. The difference was that the experimental class was taught phonics, which included the use and training of short vowels and the long vowels, the closed syllables and the open syllables, the pronunciation of consonants, the division of syllables and the word formation knowledge. The controlled class was taught only traditional phonetic teaching, which included the practice of phonemes, correcting of the false pronunciation and the knowledge of intonation which included the study of the rhyme, the stress, the tone and the nucleus in words and sentences. After the implementation of teaching, the questionnaire was carried out again. The post-test of phonological awareness and the word identification ability were administered.The research findings are as follows:The analysis of the questionnaire results showed that it was helpful to phonetic study and word study for English major freshmen after the intervention of phonics in the phonetic class.As to the phonological awareness, the pretest and posttest of the total marks of phonological awareness were analyzed in SPSS 16.0. The ANCOVA showed that the teaching method of the experimental class is better than that of the controlled class. The marks of high level students made up of the top ten students, of the middle level students made up of the students ranked in middle and of the low level students made up of the students ranked in last ten had Independent-Samples T Test, which showed that the low level students improved more quickly than the high level students. It can be inferred that phonics teaching contributes to the quick improvement of the low level students. As to the different items of the phonological awareness, the total marks of each item had the Independent-Samples T Test and showed the difference of the results of syllable awareness between the pretest and posttest was significant, which indicated that syllable awareness improved more quickly.As to the word identification ability, the pretest and posttest of the total marks of word identification ability had the Paired Samples Test, which showed that the experimental class had made progress between the pretest and posttest. What’s more, the mean difference of the experimental class is higher than that of the controlled class. So was the value of t. So it can be concluded that phonics is helpful to the quick improvement of word identification ability. The marks of high level groups, middle level groups and low level groups of experimental class and controlled class had Paired Samples Test, which showed that the low level students made significant progress and the mean difference of experimental class is higher than that of the controlled class, so was the value of t. It can be concluded that phonics is helpful to the low level students to improve quickly. Among the different aspects of word identification ability, the Independent-Samples T Test showed the difference of the results of closed-syllable word identification ability between the pretest and posttest was significant, which indicated that closed-syllable word identification ability improved more quickly.The study has practical and theoretical meanings. Theoretically, it can make contributions to similar studies. Practically, it proved phonics is helpful to improve the phonological awareness and the word identification ability of the students,which contributes to phonetic study and word study. The research results had some reference value in promoting teaching phonics in phonetic class among the English major freshmen. It also offers a new method for phonetic teaching. |
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