An Empirical Study Of English Intonation Teaching At Junior High Schools Based On The Three-T Theory

The framework of three Ts was first established by Halliday(1967)and later developed by Wells(2006).They described the intonation from a phonological perspective and proposed the hierarchical system of intonation with three terms: tonality,tonicity and tone.The British three-T model then gained popularity in pedagogy.Based on the three-T theory,this research aims to find out whether the new intonation training is more effective than the traditional way of teaching.The teaching experiment lasted 8 weeks including a 6-week intonation instruction and the two tests.The subjects are 50 Grade 7 students who were divided into the experiment group and the control group and their pretest scores were not significantly different.The instruction of the experiment group involved the introduction of the concepts of the three-T theory and the way to put the theory into practice.Each test consisted of four dialogues and a short passage and the recordings of the students were graded from the perspective of the division of the chunks,the placement and the tone of the nucleus as well as sentence stress.The instruction began after the general analysis of the pretest and the lesson plans were adapted with reference to their problems.The introduction and recognition of the theory was taught in the first four weeks and the last two weeks was spent on practice.The teaching materials were composed of Oxford English(Shanghai Edition)7A and English Intonation: An introduction(Wells,2006).After the instruction,the posttest was arranged.This time the scores of the experiment group were higher than the control group and there was a significant difference in their mean scores.Besides the progress in marks,those who accepted the specific training also demonstrated some improvements in pitch patterns.First,the experiment group produced longer intonation phrases and made less division of chunks in sentences than the control group.Secondly,the students from the experiment group managed to apply the unmarked nucleus better.Considering the tone,their tone types were not restricted to fall,rise and level and their pitch curves in words with less than three syllables have become obvious.To sum up,the thesis not only encapsulates the research concerned with the three-T theory and English intonation teaching but also mentions the current situation of intonation teaching in junior high school.The author analyzes the participants' problems and the effect of the teaching experiment from the three aspects,tonality,tonicity and tone.Finally,the author concludes the pedagogical implications of the experiment,the limitations of the research and suggestions for further study.