Students’ Views on Web-based Pronunciation Training and Face-to-Face Workshops for Enhancing their English Skills

Abstract

The study investigates students’ views on the pronunciation training they received for four months from February 2006. During the training, students worked on the e-learning exercises via the Web-based Pronunciation Programme (WEPP). They also participated in a series of five face-to-face workshops. The data were collected by means of questionnaire survey and interviews during and after the training. This paper also discusses what works and what does not work on students.

Findings indicate that a majority of the participants considered both the WEPP website and the five workshops were efficient, helpful, effective, and satisfying. They also considered website and the materials provided them an ideal e-learning platform and content to enhance pronunciation skills. Most of them rated high for their experience working with the web-based pronunciation exercises and IPA lessons. As for the face-to-face workshops, most students enjoyed the interactive learning tasks and considered creating own poems increased their confidence and passion in learning English. However, students reported that they did not enjoy lengthy and non-activity based instruction.

In the light of the findings, it can be concluded that the purposeful immersion of students in receiving pronunciation training with multiplied means of inputs is a vital factor for effective learning. The multi-provision of the learning contents via the web-based materials, face-to-face lessons, group and peer interactions, poem creation, online tutorials, quizzes helped thrive students’ attention into acquiring details of sound production and eventually achieve the aim of developing the acquired skills.Background
With the exam-oriented learning culture in Hong Kong, the experience of learning English is mainly academic-based. English, as a core subject, is not meant for daily communication but for pursuing academic achievement. The situation has been changing with the recent education reform. The New Secondary Curriculum has also added an elective component to reinforce different aspects of English learning. Accordingly, the new curriculum takes up about 25% of lesson time to create more room for integrating language arts and non-language arts content to the curriculum. This implies adding some variety to the English language curriculum, broadening students learning experience, and catering for their diverse needs and interest.

Responding to the current change in the curriculum, schools start hunting around for various means for enriching the English curriculum. The Web-based English Pronunciation Programme is addressing the need in time. Most teachers and students who have joined the WEPP programme are appreciative about the in-time provision. The paper will investigate their views and explore its potentials in addressing the learning needs of the students.

Introduction
The paper describes students’ view and experience in receiving the training to enhance their pronunciation skills adopting a purposeful immersion approach. The training aims at helping lower forms students master the English 44 phoneme sounds and understand how the English prosody works. It also aims to enhance students’ overall word pronunciation and speaking skills. The target groups involved in the study mainly include forty Form 1 students from Ma Ko Pan Memorial College. The forty participants attended the workshops training in a voluntary basis within a period of 11 weeks.

The study also analyses the data of the questionnaire survey completed by 108 out of 2,758 school users who have participated in the Web-based pronunciation training programme in academic year 2006 to 2007. These data are used mainly for comparison purpose.

Participants & Curriculum for Ma Ko Pan Memorial College

Nearly half of the students started with some difficulty expressing themselves in speaking and working out the correct pronunciation of the unlearnt words. The lack of confidence in speaking and pronouncing unlearnt words was quite clear. About half of the students spoke with strong accents and could not express in appropriate English prosody. A lack of motivation to speak, and their fear to read English text have created obstacles for students making further progress in their overall English language skills.

To help the students, a simple but interactive curriculum was designed. The curriculum incorporates five English pronunciation workshops into 11-week web-based English pronunciation training. The aim of the curriculum is to help students deal with the anticipated difficulty adopting an immersion approach of training. This includes helping students to deal with their weaknesses in differentiating sounds in word pronunciation and learning of the 44 phoneme sounds that is considered to be time-consuming and complicated to teach in normal school lessons.

To ensure the enthusiastic participation of the students, students’ parents were also invited to join or accompany their sons or daughters to attend the workshops. The training materials include a phonics lesson booklet, Phonics Lesson 4 (Leong, 2006) together with the five sets of handouts, and the online Web-based English Pronunciation Programme, adopting the daily mode of training.

The Workshops
Each session of the workshop lasts for three hours providing pronunciation instruction and small group activities. The workshops aim at introducing English sound and spelling systems, raising students’ awareness on ways how English prosody works, and helping students see how English prosody or intonation differs from the Chinese. The lessons also address the difficult learning issues students are facing. The lessons introduce basic patterns of English prosody; i.e. identifying stressed syllables, applying the rhythm in sentence reading, by lengthening the stressed syllable, making the syllable sound louder, and changing its pitch of the stressed words. The in-class activities together with the assigned web tasks for students to complete during the 11-week of the programme were the multiplied training inputs available.

The workshop lessons also focus on introducing different phonemes selected from the 44 IPA sounds. The lesson usually starts by helping students learn and remember the 20 vowels and diphthongs, followed by introducing 24 consonants in terms of voiced and unvoiced sounds. Two sets of phonics and IPA card games were also used for small group activities. This helps students learn and work with the 44 phoneme sounds. They would then work in small groups to produce group poems and learnt to work on individual poems after they became confident with the skills to create their own poems.

The WEPP website
The WEPP is the pronunciation learning website developed by the English Language Centre, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The fund to develop the website was granted under the Incentive Scheme for the Developing Instructional Software by the Education Manpower Bureau of Hong Kong SAR government.

The Web-based English Pronunciation Program, WEPP is one of the few resources available to address students’ need. The overall aim and the objectives of the online course are to assist students to:
· learn pronunciation independently,
· recognise the IPA symbols and their frequently associated spelling patterns,
· understand the relationship between sound and spelling patterns in word pronunciation,
· differentiate the 44 phoneme sounds of English, and
· count the number of syllables in words and phrases
· read words or phrases with appropriate stress.

To address the specific learning issues and cater for the overall needs of the students, the contents of the programme provide both super segmental and segmental aspects of training with a focus to enhance the accuracy of speech and word pronunciation.

The overall facility is made up of 100 daily reading tasks and 11 units of weekly tutorials and tasks together with 10 quizzes to monitor the progress. The contents of various tasks are released on both weekly and daily basics. A top ten list and results of both weekly and daily tasks are also available to increase the momentum of the training program.

Literature Review I
¬ Pronunciation Instruction and Sound Production
Most literature addresses the issues of pronunciation instruction and training in terms of accuracy and fluency enhancement. To Hong Kong students, a good pronunciation instruction need to address the issues; such as students’ lack of confidence in speaking, poor pronunciation, inter-language effect on accent. It is also necessary to provide training in identifying and eliminating inappropriate habitual sound production.

One interesting findings from the literature regarding the pronunciation instruction dealing with accent reduction is a need for explicit instruction. Accordingly, the instruction should help to produce a range of specific language features that learners can apply the vocal-setting information to their sound production. Although the suggestion is still in the stage of exploration, the pedagogical implication is obviously valid in terms of theoretical rationale (Esling, 1990).

To speak with appropriate accent requires both knowledge and skills. Learners should be trained to produce right speech patterns both mentally and physically. The skills take account into the phoneme level of voice production, word pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm. Learners must be familiar with the basic sounds of spoken English, and able to identify the sounds that are challenging for them. Learners should also get training in ways to properly sound vowels and consonants.

To ensure the effectiveness of the training, teachers should take a careful consideration in preparing a suitable curriculum. The curriculum should be learner-centered, taking consideration to address various learners’ characteristics and language proficiency, the context of learning should also match well with their’ needs. It is also important to provide the high quality content.

Literature Review II
¬ Phonological Competence and Discourse Competence
The enhancement in accuracy and fluency training deals with learners’ phonological competence and discourse competence. Usually accuracy training comes before fluency training. However, Pennington (1990:549) argued that “the acquisition of phonological competence and discourse competence to hand-in-hand”. Leather (1990, cited in Pennington, 1994:100) comments that without the opportunity for testing a developing prototype in perception and/or production, the learner might cease at early stage to exploit potential for progressively modifying or fine-tuning model. In other words, it is necessary for trainers to provide learners with quality learning platform and tools to experiment both the phonological and discourse skills and knowledge in acquiring the English language.

Methods – Collection of Students’ Views

Data of the report were collected by means of a group interview conducted to selected students and parents of Ma Ko Pan Memorial School who joined the five weekend workshops. The video taped interview lasted for about 40 minutes. The format of the interview was in a form of questions and answers. Nearly all the participated students (95%) then completed a survey questionnaire made up by three sections: general information, web content evaluation, and workshop content evaluation.

Data received from the online questionnaire survey are another source of feedback information from student users who worked on the online tasks. Until June, 2007, 108 users out of a total 2,758 submitted their feedback and opinions via the online questionnaire available to them. There were 15 schools participated in the WEPP learning programme. About 87% of the schools were considered to be active users. There were 2758 student users together with 73 teachers engaged in various online learning tasks. Two-thirds of the schools operated the weekly and dynamic modes of learning. In other words, most of the school users were under the guidance of their teachers to work on the online tasks.

Findings 1 - Students’ View on Workshop Training

Data collected from the interview show that majority of the students received the systematic pronunciation training for the first time. Nearly all participants considered it a valuable learning experience. Their views regarding the overall learning programme can be summarized into at least eight areas of improvement. They considered that after joining the programme, their learning experience helped:
1. make English learning easier,
2. build confidence to use English,
3. enjoy learning English,
4. become more fluent,
5. read unlearnt words
6. divide words into syllables
7. improve their accent, and
8. appreciate the sounds and prosody of English

According to the interview results, most students enjoyed the interactive learning tasks and considered creating own poems increased their confidence and passion in learning English. They enjoyed making up the alliterative phrases and sentences. They named them “crazy sentences”. In fact, these phrases then formed drafts for their individual poems.
Here is an example of one of the students’ work.
Ben bought a big bunch of bananas.
Did Ben buy a big bunch of banana?
If Ben bought a big bunch of banana,
Where’s the bunch of bananas Ben bought?

While recalling their experience in the workshops enhancing their pronunciation skills, students said they enjoyed playing phonics and phonetics card games and poem reading exercises. Some commented that their sense of achievements over-flown when they saw the products of their poem writing. Their perception towards learning English poems changed after they started mastering phoneme sounds and understanding how rhyming and alliteration also work on their poems. The technique and skills provided in the face-to-face workshop had also helped them learn and appreciate rhymes and even create their own poems.

As for teachers, it is necessary to assist their students to find the words that they need in creating their poems. For example, they would ask for the words started with “b” sound. Teachers then showed and provided them words with the blended sounds to select, “bat, bet, bit, bought, but, bay, bee, buy, bowl, bull, bear, beer, boor, boy, bow.” Some students commented that teachers’ suggestions and corrections of their poems helped them a lot. They also enjoyed listening to themselves reciting their own poems. They said it was not interesting at all if they read aloud the poems created by others authors.

Another interesting finding mentioned by students is the supportive atmosphere and environment created during the lessons. They said the teacher talk, class handouts, and web resources formed an ideal learning scaffolding to assist them to cope with the challenging tasks, e.g. making their own poems. They also reported that having the data to support their learning was very helpful and important.

Findings 2 - Students’ View on Using the WEPP Site

Findings indicate that a majority of the participants considered working on the web tasks and tutorials available on the WEPP website helped raise their awareness of how the speech sounds work in English. For examples, they learnt how the 44 (20 vowels and 24 consonants) individual IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) sounds can be blended to make syllable sounds. They also learnt to identify syllable boundaries. They then learnt how to identify stressed syllables in word pronunciation.

Students mentioned that the systematic introduction of English pronunciation helped them to see the letter-sound correspondences. For students, the IPA learning device was an effective tool to help them see the correspondence between letters and sounds. In the beginning, students tried to finish the IPA typing tasks for getting the scores. It took them some time to see and really appreciate the experience of learning the letter and sound associations. They then knew ways to apply the blending skills to seek for right words when working on their own poems.

According to some students, one of the distinguish features of the WEPP is the use the sound-wave graphics to facilitate the learning. They considered the 50 pronunciation exercises first helped them to identify syllable boundaries, thus they learnt to identify stressed syllables with the help of the sound-wave graphics.

They said the weekly content and the materials helped them understand the ten areas in English pronunciation. They include: Word Pronunciation, Syllables, Stress Placement, Schwa Sound, Thought Groups, 20 Vowels and Diphthongs, 24 Consonants, Sound Blending, Minimal Pairs, Final Consonants. Students thought the teaching videos and tutorials were helpful. They also considered website and the materials provided them an ideal e-learning platform and content to enhance pronunciation skills. Most of them rated high for working with the web-based pronunciation exercises and IPA lessons.

They were also excited when they found that their accents and flat tones could gradually be removed after they learnt the skills of sentence chunking and started reading aloud poems and even stories created themselves. More than a half of students said they could better appreciate the beauty of sounds and became more willing to speak up in public. All students considered both the website and workshop helped to enlarge their vocabulary for better expression.

The way to intertwine both phonemic and prosodic elements in pronunciation instruction can conclude the positive experience of learners’ mastering pronunciation skills via the WEP programme. Interview comments also confirm students’ favourable opinions on the use of the illustrative sound-wave graphics to facilitate the training.

When comparing the two sets of data, one by the participants of Ma Ko Pan Memorial School and the other by the other 15 participated school users, it shows similar patterns of the results. The data collected by the other school users show about two percents higher than the Ma Ko Pan Memorial School.


Findings 3 – Areas to Improve

There are a number of areas suggested by students that they thought more work should be put into. They include adding more interactive exercises, interesting games to the site, and more classroom activities. It was also suggested by some students to improve both the web-based programme and the materials provided by teachers during the workshops. They preferred interactive exercises to the repetitive drilling of sounds. Though the interactive components of the programme were what they enjoyed most, they also thought the coverage could be narrowed and more guidelines should be provided.

Pedagogically, students were not in favour of the lecturing mode of instruction. A minority of the students viewed unfavorably towards the lengthy and repetitive drilling exercises and even choral reading. They rejected the ideas of having too many assigned work. A minority of students the content area was too wide for them to learn. Technically, they were relatively more alert towards the scores they gained or frustrated if they were not able to gain good scores.


Conclusion

In the light of the findings, it can be concluded that the purposeful immersion of students in receiving pronunciation training with multiplied means of inputs is a vital factor for effective learning. The multi-provision of the learning content via the programme, i.e. face-to-face lessons, group or peer interactions, online videos, tutorials, quizzes can effectively thrive students’ attention into acquiring details of sound production. This eventually facilitates and enhances learning.

The systematic presentation of training contents, and the interweaving instruction of English sounds and prosody also help achieved the course aim. While mastering the phoneme-level of pronunciation skill and diligently working on acquiring the English prosody patterns in speaking make the training different from the traditional pronunciation training.

Pedagogically and technically, there are still some areas to improve. They include adding more interactive exercises. Increasing interesting content to address students’ needs and producing more discourse level of training content is the direction to move on.


References

Benson, P. and Lor, W. (1999). Conceptions of language and language learning. System, 27(4), 459-472.

Brown, G. (1986). Investigating Listening Comprehension in Context. Applied Linguistics 7 (3), 284-302.

Brazil, D. (1994). Pronunciation for Advanced Learners of English. Cambridge University Press.

Celce-Murcia, M. Brinton, D. M. Goodwin, J. M. (1996). Teaching Pronunciation, A Reference for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Catford, J. C. & Esling, J H. (2006). Articulatory phonetics. In K. Brown (ed.), Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd edn.), vol. 9 (pp. 425-442). Oxford: Elsevier.

Esling, J. H. (1991). Sociophonetic variation in Vancouver. In J. Cheshire (Ed.), English around the world (pp. 123–133). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Leong Chan, T.P.H. (1996). Phonics Lesson 4. Phonics & Phonetics Learning Centre, HK.

Morley, J. (1994). Pronunciation Pedagogy and Theory. New Views, New Direction. Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. University Press.

Roach, P. (1988). English Phonetics and Phonology – A Practical Course. New York: Cambridge.

http://ict2007.ouhk.edu.hk/paper09.html

Process Writing

Knowing the acceptable features of specific genres, having an extensive knowledge about subject-matter, and developing ability in logical thinking are crucial in perfecting learners' proficiency in writing. Recent research indicates that a process-oriented approach of teaching writing which emphasizes the rationale of the genre, according to Swale (1990b:58 cited in Connor 1996:127), can be more effective than the end-product approach that stresses the end result of the writing.

Process Writing
The process approach does not treat writing or composing texts as a pure skill-based language activity. It is considered to be a process of exploration. Writers need to explore and challenge social reality while creating their texts. The approach emphasizes the need for cognitive or intellectual ability in developing and organizing ideas into discourse or texts. The processes of writing can be summarized in the following diagram:

Generating ideas, organizing them in a logical manner, selecting relevant ideas, drafting, and revising a draft are the stages usually adopted by process-oriented writers as their writing strategy. Obviously, the processes of generating, selecting and organizing idea stress on the importance of having the relevant and good content expected by the discourse community.

References

Connor, U. (1996). Contrastive Rhetoric, Cross-cultural aspects of second-language writing. USA: Cambridge University Press.

Holland, V. M., Kaplan J. D. & Sams M. R. (1995). Intelligent Language Tutors. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers. (pp 99-120).

Nunan, D. (1991). Language Teaching Methodology. U.K.: Prentice Hall. (pp 83-99).

Tomlinson, B. (1998). Materials Development in Language Teaching. UK: Cambridge University Press

Warschauer, M., Kern R. (2000). Network-based Language Teaching. UK: Cambridge University Press.

Intonation Teaching and Training in Hong Kong

Intonation Teaching & Training in Hong Kong
The teaching of intonation has its focus on interactive communication training. The interaction emphasises the need to act and communicate with each other. To Hong Kong speakers of English, they need to create for themselves the urge to communicate in English as English is the commonly used for daily communication. English is mainly learnt and studied in schools.


The communicative approach gains its support in the instructional design of the pronunciation teaching materials which is mainly achieved through kinds of role plays activities in the classroom.


The teaching of intonation takes the notion to negotiate meaning in conversation. In other words, speakers and hearers must co-operate, make joint efforts to understand, and repair misunderstanding. There are at least three approaches suggested by Kenworthy (1992). They are attitudinal approaches, functional approaches, and discourse approaches.

David Crystal's Scales of Linguistic Constrastivity

According to Crystal (1969:203), intonational units are 'more distinct and linguistically more replicable than others'. He illustrated the point with some figures that 'when native speakers were presented with the task of repeating an utterance, there was maximum agreement (84.8%) over the location of tone-unit boundaries, agreement over tonicity was 81.6%; onset locaiton yielded an agreement of 77.3%, and the exponent of nucleus an agreement of 74.4%.

Tone Unit Identification
Tone units are difined by Crystal (1969:204) as an audio description of grammatical contrast. A semantic approach works on the amorphous notion of the sense group. As the extra-linguistic phenomenon, it is treated as somewhat like a 'breath-group'.

Each tone unit consists of onepeak of prominence in the form of a nuclear pitch movement. the tone-unit boundary is indicated by two phonetics factors: a perceivable pitch change, rise or fall; the presence of junctural features at the end of each tone. The decriptors of the internal structure of the tone unit includes: prehead, head, nucleus, and tail.

The tonal system, i.e. nuclear tone is divided into three main types: simple, compound, and complex. The simple tone shows unidirectional pitch movement: rising, falling and level. Complex tone consists of fall-rise and rise-fall. Compound tone is known as correlative or binuclear tones. They are combinations of two kinetic elements of different major phonetic types acting as isngle unit.