| A common misconception by Korean learners of English (KLE) is that English /i/ as in heed is the same as /I/ as in hid, and /u/ as in who'd is the same as /upsilon/ as in hood, and that the former sounds are just longer than the latter sounds. KLE are not aware of the quality differences between the vowels sounds in each pair. In order to correct this problem, the researcher designed a teaching method using manipulated words with various vowel durations and investigated the effect of formal pronunciation instruction using this method on the acquisition of the four English vowel sounds, /i/, /I/, /u/, and /upsilon/ by pre-service Korean teachers of English.;One control (N=25) and two experimental (N=49+37=86) groups of pre-service Korean EFL teachers took a pre-test and a post-test on perception and production of English high vowels, and only the experimental groups received formal pronunciation instruction. The results show that (1) the experimental groups' perception test scores improved significantly, whereas the control group's scores did not, (2) the experimental groups' production test scores significantly improved only in /i/ and /I/ sounds, and (3) the experimental groups performed significantly better in the generalization test of perception than the control group. These findings suggest that this pronunciation instruction with manipulated sounds is highly effective for KLE to improve their perception of the target sounds, but that, for better production, explicit production instruction needs to be incorporated into the pronunciation instruction. More pedagogical implications are discussed. |
