An inaccurate pronunciation is a major problem to communication and leads to the misunderstanding of the listener. English learners should learn about not only the grammar and vocabulary of the target language but the exact pronunciation of it. Specif...
An inaccurate pronunciation is a major problem to communication and leads to the misunderstanding of the listener. English learners should learn about not only the grammar and vocabulary of the target language but the exact pronunciation of it. Specifically, Korean learners who learn English as a second foreign language are likely to be thrown into confusion when they pronounce English fricatives due to the different sound system of Korean and English. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a variety of activity-centered pronunciation instruction using multimedia programs on school children's understanding and pronunciation skills of English fricatives. The subjects in this study were 19 fifth-grade English learners in G elementary school in Seoul. After domestic and foreign multimedia programs were analyzed, activity-centered vocabulary education was provided based on the basic vocabulary lists of the 7th national curriculum. And then the conversation of the speakers was recorded, and two English native speakers evaluated their pronunciation in respect of intelligibility and comprehensibility. The findings of the study were as follows:
First, as a result of analyzing the correlation between their distinction skills of English fricatives and pronunciation accuracy before the experiment, there was no statistically significant relationship between the two. It indicated that the ability to discriminate the phonemes of the fricatives had nothing to do with another ability to pronounce them accurately, which proved the necessity of efficient pronunciation education.
Second, as for changes in the pronunciation of the fricatives, they showed an improvement in pronouncing /v/, /s/ and /Θ/ after the experiment was conducted, but no change was found in their pronunciation of /f/. It showed that the students were better at unmarked pronunciation, as it could be inferred from the hypothesis about markedness. The various sorts of activity-centered pronunciation lessons that utilized multimedia program turned out to have a positive impact on the improvement of their pronunciation accuracy.
Third, whether they underwent any changes in understanding of fricative pronunciation was checked, and they made progress in the pronunciation of /s/ and /Θ/. They found it relatively easier to understand the pronunciation of /f/ and /v/ from the beginning, and they showed an improvement in the understanding of /s/ and /Θ/ after they received the activity-centered pronunciation instruction. It suggested that learners will be able to get a better understanding of the fricatives when they learn how to pronounce particular fricatives they are likely to mispronounce.
Fourth, as a result of analyzing the correlation between the pronunciation accuracy and understanding of the fricatives, there was a strong correlation between the two of /f/ sound(.625), and a very close correlation was found between the two of /v/ sound(.828). Yet there was no statistically significant correlation between the two of /s/ and /Θ/ sounds(.-168, .143). As Munro and Derwin(1997)'s study and Matsuura and two others(1999)'s study found that the pronunciation accuracy and understanding affected each other but were separate and independent dimensions, accurate pronunciation didn't necessarily lead to good understanding.
Given the findings of the study, English teachers should teach students to get the right understanding of the sound system of English that is different from that of Korean first of all, and they should make use of diverse multimedia to provide intriguing activity-centered pronunciation instruction tailored to the level of elementary schoolers. And every party concerned involving teachers should try to prepare systematic English curriculums and textbooks to ensure the efficiency of pronunciation education.