The Effects Of Recast And Metalinguistic Cues On The Production Of English Consonants By Junior High School Students From Xiang Dialect Background

Chinese learners’ pronunciation has mostly been influenced by the negative transfer of local dialects.Due to the influence of Xiang dialect,learners’ English pronunciation in Hunan areas has strong local characteristics,which are especially prominent in English consonants.Therefore,improving learners’ pronunciation is also an urgent task for English teaching in Xiang dialect areas.Corrective feedback is a common feedback method in pronunciation teaching,and its effect has been affirmed by many studies.But there has been no definite conclusion as to which kind of corrective feedback is more effective.Therefore,this study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of two different types of corrective feedback,recast and metalinguistic cues,on the English consonant production of junior high school students from Xiang dialect background.This study specifically explored the following three questions.(1)Does recast have an effect on the production of English consonants by junior high school students from Xiang dialect background?(2)Do metalinguistic cues have an effect on the English consonant production of junior high school students from Xiang dialect background?(3)Which feedback method is more effective in the production of English consonants by middle school students from Xiang dialect background?In this study,90 participants were selected from three parallel classes of Grade Seven in a middle school in Ningxiang County,Hunan Province.Three parallel classes were randomly divided into recast group(30 students),metalinguistic cues group(30 students)and control group(30 students).The mother tongue of the participants is all Ningxiang dialect and they have the similar English proficiency level.During the experiment,the recast group received recast feedback,the metalinguistic cues group received metalinguistic cues feedback and the control group didn’t receive any feedback.The experiment lasted eight days,with one pretest(on the first day),five training lessons(from the second day to the sixth day),one immediate posttest(on the sixth day),and one delayed posttest(on the eighth day).The test contents of the pretest,the immediate posttest and the delayed posttest were the same.The main test materials were 28 words from the word list of Volume 1 of Go for it for students in Grade 7,published by People’s Education Press.The following results were presented in this study:(1)The recast group scored significantly higher in the immediate posttest and delayed posttest than the pretest,which indicated that recast can facilitate the production of English consonants by junior high school students from Xiang dialect background and the effect was lasting;(2)The metalinguistic cues group also performed significantly better in the immediate posttest and delayed posttest than the pretest,which suggested that metalinguistic cues can improve production of English consonants by middle school students from Xiang dialect background and the effect was lasting;(3)In the immediate posttest,there was no statistically noticeable difference between the recast group and the metalinguistic cues group;while in the delayed posttest,it was found that the metalinguistic cues group had more significant effect than the recast group.Based on the above findings,this study puts forward some suggestions regarding English phonology teaching.Firstly,when using recast feedback,teachers should highlight the corrective nature of recast and pay attention to learners’ responses.Secondly,when using metalinguistic feedback,teachers should use English to explain English as much as possible so that develop students’ metalinguistic ability.Finally,teachers should provide students with more opportunities for oral output,prompt them to make self-repair for their production,and help them improve their speech.