The Effects Of Mass Repetition On Vowel Pronunciation Of Senior High School Students

Pronunciation is the foundation of learning a language.It can not only affect the development of people’s listening,speaking,reading and writing skills,but also has an important impact on daily communication.The system of exam-oriented examination in China has caused many students and teachers to ignore spoken English and phonetic learning,resulting in the phenomenon of "dumb English".The study of implicit memory found the repetition priming affects students’ pronunciation.Sixty senior high school students participated in the present experiment and questionnaire survey for investigating the effect of mass repetition on the quality of students’vowel pronunciation.The specific questions addressed include:1)Can mass repetition improve the quality of vowel pronunciation in senior high school students?2)Is there a difference in the effect of mass repetition on the vowel formant and vowel duration?The 60 subjects were randomly divided into two groups.The subjects in the experimental group(n=30)repeated the target words for 5 times and the subjects in the control group(n=30)repeated the target words once.The results of the study showed in terms of the formant,the gap between the experimental group and native speaker decreased,while the gap between the control group and the native speaker did not change significantly.In terms of vowel duration,the subjects’vowel duration in the experimental group and control group both became significantly closer to that of the native speaker.However,a significant difference exists between the two groups in the vowel duration of/I/,/ε/,/(?)/.There was no significant difference in the duration of the vowel/i:/between the experimental group and the control group.The overall vowel pronunciation of the students in the experimental group has been improved.Through the investigation,it is found that senior high school students have many problems in pronunciation learning,for example:inadequate time for pronunciation learning,insufficient emphasis on pronunciation,lack of scientific pronunciation learning methods and ample knowledge of pronunciation.Finally,suggestions on English pronunciation learning for senior high school students are proposed from the perspective of both teaching and learning.Teachers should pay attention to the status of pronunciation learning and teach pronunciation knowledge to students with poor foundations.What’s more,teachers should use flexible and diverse teaching methods to promote students’ interest in learning;students should build confidence,participate in oral activities actively,and learn pronunciation knowledge.Finally,they should imitate and follow English movies repeatedly.This study is of practical significance in facilitating Chinese students’ second language phonetic learning.