| The New English Curriculum Standard points out that language realizes its social communicative function based on pronunciation.The natural and standard pronunciation will lay a good foundation for effective oral communication.Learning English pronunciation well can not only enhance students’ confidence and enthusiasm for learning English but also affect the learning of other language items,such as vocabulary and grammar.However,the current arrangement of pronunciation teaching content in junior high school is separate and the teaching process is long.Besides,letters and pronunciation symbols are taught isolated and the important element of phonemes is neglected,which leads to poor pronunciation learning effect of junior high school students.Task-based language teaching(TBLT)has been commonly adopted in junior high school English teaching.Nowadays,many studies have proved the effectiveness of TBLT in the practical teaching of English listening,speaking,reading,and writing.Given this,this research attempts to apply TBLT to English pronunciation learning(EPL)in a junior high school to explore the influence of TBLT on the phonological awareness and pronunciation accuracy of junior high school students.The research questions are as follows.(1)What are the effects of TBLT on the phonological awareness of junior high school students,in terms of phoneme awareness,syllable awareness,and onset-rime awareness?(2)What are the effects of TBLT on the pronunciation accuracy of junior high school students,in terms of vowels and consonants?A total of 82 students from two parallel classes in LongBen Junior High School in Yangzhou participated in the research.The students in the two groups were taught the same pronunciation content by the author.One group,labeled as the experimental group(EG),adopted TBLT,and the other,the control group(CG),adopted the 3P teaching method.The whole experiment lasted for eight weeks.In order to ensure the significant difference was produced by the different teaching models,the same questionnaire,phonological awareness test and pronunciation accuracy test were used before and after the experiment.Based on the data obtained from a questionnaire,a phonological awareness test,and a pronunciation accuracy test,the major findings are revealed as follows.(1)After the treatment,the means of CG in the post-test(M=58.85)was higher than that in the pre-test(M=58.76),and the means of EG in the post-test(M=71.73)was higher than that in the pre-test(M=58.37).The means of EG in the post-test(M=71.73)was significantly higher than the means of CG in the post-test(M=58.85)since there was no difference between EG and CG before the experiment(p>0.05),it demonstrated that TBLT has a positive effect on the phonological awareness of junior high school students(p<.001).Specifically,the post-test means of phoneme awareness in the EG(M=23.59)was higher than that in the CG(M=20.07);the post-test means of syllable awareness in the EG(M=16.78)was higher than that in the CG(M=12.49);the post-test means of onset-rime awareness in the EG(M=31.07)was higher than that in the CG(M=26.39).(2)After the treatment,the means of CG in the post-test(M=75.02)was higher than that in the pre-test(M=74.95),and the means of EG in the post-test(M=79.54)was higher than that in the pre-test(M=74.90).The means of EG in the post-test(M=79.54)was significantly higher than the means of CG in the post-test(M=75.02)since there was no difference between EG and CG before the experiment(p>0.05),it demonstrated that TBLT has a positive effect on the pronunciation accuracy of junior high school students(p<.001).Specifically,the post-test means of vowels accuracy in the EG(M=42.73)was higher than that in the CG(M=40.23);the post-test means of consonants accuracy in the EG(M=21.02)was higher than that in the CG(M=19.90).This study not only reflected the current situation of junior high school students’pronunciation learning,but also revealed that TBLT is an effective teaching approach in junior high school EPL,which can effectively improve junior high school students’phonological awareness and pronunciation accuracy.Meanwhile,it hopes to shed some light on the front-line teachers in EPL for junior high school students. |
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