Teaching English pronunciation to Japanese English majors: A comparison of a suprasegmental-oriented and a segmental-oriented teaching approach.

摘要

Despite its acknowledged importance, pronunciation is an aspect of language teaching that has been given little attention, and it has not been taught effectively in second/foreign language programs.; The purpose of this study was to investigate which is more effective, a suprasegmental-oriented pronunciation teaching (Supra-OPT) approach or segmental-oriented pronunciation teaching (Seg-OPT) approach, in teaching North American English pronunciation to Japanese college students.; The subjects in this study (N = 89) were all female students, between the ages of 18 and 19 years, attending Shion Junior College in Ibaraki, Japan. They were divided into two treatment groups, Treatment Group A (45) and B (44), with two subgroups each, higher level subjects and lower level subjects, according to the results of the Secondary Level English Proficiency test.; Treatment Group A took the Supra-OPT lessons and Treatment Group B took the Seg-OPT lessons, respectively. Both groups were tested at the beginning and at the end of the semester with tests for the suprasegmental reception, suprasegmental production, segmental reception, segmental production, overall reception, and overall production.; Since the MANOVA showed that there were significant differences, further univariate analyses using ANOVAS and follow-up Scheffe tests were conducted. According to the results, the Supra-OPT approach was effective in improving suprasegmental receptive and overall receptive abilities, whereas the Seg-OPT approach was effective for the overall receptive ability. From this result and the literature, it seems reasonable to suggest that teachers should emphasize the suprasegmental aspect of pronunciation more.; However, the results did not convincingly demonstrate that the Supra-OPT approach is more effective than the Seg-OPT. Hence, a combination of these two approaches may be preferable. In addition to that, it seems reasonable to propose that pronunciation instruction should be integrated in language curriculum because it may facilitate listening comprehension ability. Limitations of global-method studies are also discussed.