The Research On The Correlations Between Grade Six Students’Modifiable Factors And English Phonetics Scores

Phonetics is the medium and externalized form of linguistic competence and the material basis of oral communication. The National English Curriculum Standards (2001) states that "the period of Elementary school is critical to phonetics development and listening ability. More emphasis should be put on phonetics input during teaching so as to cultivate students’ listening and speaking ability". Since Elementary school is the key period in English phonetics teaching and learning, wide concern has been drawn to the investigation and exploration of Elementary school English phonetics teaching and learning. This thesis studies the correlations between Grade six students’ modifiable factors and English phonetics scores in Yangzhou urban Elementary schools, hoping to discover the internal relationship between the two variables as well as the underlying causes contributing to the difference of correlations.Three research questions to be addressed in this study are as follows:1. What are the correlations between Grade six students’ English phonetics learning motivations and English phonetics scores?2. What are the correlations between Grade six students’ English phonetics learning beliefs and English phonetics scores?3. What are the correlations between Grade six students’ English phonetics learning strategies and English phonetics scores?A questionnaire survey and an English phonetics test paper were conducted in this study. The subjects were145Grade six students in Yangzhou urban Elementary schools. Under the guidance of her supervisor, the author adopted and modified the questionnaire, which was based on Wen Qiufang’s (1993) classification of learners’modifiable factors. The English phonetics test paper, based on the second level requirements of The National English Curriculum Standards (2001) on phonetics knowledge, was designed by the author after she consulted with two excellent English teachers in Yucai Elementary school. The data of questionnaire was collected by the author and the subjects’ English teacher and data analysis involved calculating the mean score of each item of the questionnaire. The data of English phonetics test paper was collected by the author and a foreign teacher. Data analysis involved double scoring, calculating the scores of test paper and using Pearson Correlation Analysis to get the correlations between Grade six students’ modifiable factors and English phonetics scores.The major findings yielded from the study are summarized as follows:(1) There exist very significantly positive correlations between the two subcategories of Grade six students’English phonetics learning motivations and English phonetics scores. The correlation between surface motivation and English phonetics scores is higher than that between deep motivation and English phonetics scores.(2) There exist significantly positive correlations between the three subcategories of Grade six students’ English phonetics learning beliefs and English phonetics scores. Among them, management belief has the highest positive correlation with English phonetics scores, next is formal practicing belief, while functional practicing belief has the lowest positive correlation with English phonetics scores.(3) There exist significantly positive correlations between the three subcategories of Grade six students’ English phonetics learning strategies and English phonetics scores. Among them, formal practicing strategy has the highest positive correlation with English phonetics scores, next is management strategy, while functional practicing strategy has the lowest positive correlation with English phonetics scores.These findings provide both teachers and students with some implications. For teachers, first of all, they should try to stimulate students’ motivation for English phonetics learning. They should encourage students to keep their surface motivation, and meanwhile, to strengthen the cultivation of their deep motivation. Secondly, teachers should deepen students" understanding of English phonetics learning concept. Thirdly, teachers should guide students to form proper English phonetics learning strategies. For students, firstly, they should deepen their deep motivation for English phonetics learning. Secondly, they need to reflect on their own preconceived beliefs regularly. Thirdly, students should employ effective English phonetics learning strategies, for "Any proper learning strategies will be more likely to promote successful language learning"(Wen&Johnson,1997).This study has two limitations. One is that the present research scope just focused on two representative schools in Yangzhou urban areas, not exploring more Elementary schools, so the results may be not large enough to be generalizable to the whole population. Besides, the data from questionnaire are only based on students’self-reports, so they may be less reliable due to some reasons.