A Remedial Approach To Phonological Errors Of First-Year English Majors

After at least six years' of English study, first-year college English majors display the following characteristics in their interlanguage phonological systems: they have learned all English phonemes and the basic prosodic features therefore have become advanced learners in terms of phonological acquisition; however, their phonological competence is far from being satisfactory, making various pronunciation errors in their speech. These errors stem from these sources-the interference of Chinese, learners' insufficient knowledge of English phonology and phonetics and mistaken pronunciation in communicative contexts.In considering how to improve the teaching effectiveness, we need to be consciously aware of the nature of pronunciation teaching to the first-year college English majors and accordingly work out targeted solutions. The standard of Intelligibility and acceptability are not enough for English majors. A correct and appropriate if not perfect native-like accent is one of the future career requirements for them. On the other hand, a good pronunciation can benefit English majors in the sense that the phonological competence to a large extent affects the acquisition of other language skills. The first year in college is a critical period to build a solid foundation of pronunciation for English majors. Undoubtedly pronunciation must be taught deliberately in class. The question lies in methodology of pronunciation teaching. The pronunciation teaching of colleges must be connected properly with that of middle schools in order to avoid wasting resources.Through a thorough analysis of learners pronunciation errors in isolated phonemes, prosodic features and connected speech, and an investigation of the sources and nature of those errors, this paper proposes an alternative approach-a remedial approach to teach pronunciation to first-year college English majors in a systematic and scientific way. The remedial approach recognizes both the correct and erroneous elements that the learners constructed for their interlanguage phonological systems. This approach systematicallyanalyzes learners' phonological errors, diagnoses the sources and nature of the errors and correspondingly remedy those errors by presenting to the learners the differences between Chinese and English, putting more emphasis on the teaching of English phonological and phonetic knowledge and raising learners' awareness of the communicative functions of phonological units. This approach is effective because it targets at remedying those mistaken aspects in learners' pronunciation without neglecting the positive reinforcement of the correct production. The remedial approach attempts to solve those pronunciation problems using contrastive analysis of Chinese and English, phonological knowledge of English and pragmatic perspective for the sake of enhancing teaching effectiveness, saving time and resources and connecting the pronunciation teaching of middle schools and that of colleges.