Research On Integrating Meta-cognitive Strategy Training Into Pronunciation Teaching Of Non-English Majors-An Empirical Study In DUT

Metacognitive strategies have been proved to be the higher-order executive skill, which play a critical role in language learning. There is a close correlation between metacognitive strategies and language learning proficiency. Through training, those strategies can be learned and correspondingly impact language learning proficiency. English pronunciation teaching is a complex and often problematical one. Although everyone recognizes the importance of a "decent" pronunciation, there are many factors that conflict with and militate against the teacher's teaching target. Morley , Celce-Murcia et al and others have invariably expressed concerns that English-as-a-second/foreign-language (ESL/EFL) users, who have difficulties in pronunciation and intonation, may put themselves at a professional or social disadvantage. Changing views on language learning and teaching have influenced a move from teacher-centered to learner-centered classrooms. Concurrently, there has been a shift from specific linguistic competencies to broader communicative competencies as goals for teachers and students . This study is intended to seek a more effective and practical approach to improve students' English pronunciation by adopting a metacognitive strategy training approach to pronunciation learning both in and out of class.Seventy-four students who are freshmen of two College English classes from Dalian University of Technology participate in the one-term study, which actually lasts ten weeks, with one class as the experimental class engaged in metacognitive strategy training to improve their English pronunciation and the other as the control class receiving traditional pronunciation instruction. Both classes receive instruction from the same teacher and have the same learning hours. The difference lies in the fact that the control class has no metacognitive strategy training at all. Prior to the study, a pronunciation pretest is conducted for the purpose of ensuring that there are no significant phonetic differences between the two classes. In addition, a written questionnaire is administrated in both the classes to find out the differences in metacognitive strategy use frequency. Meanwhile, the students in the experimental class are supposed to write a report every other week about their problems and progress in learning English pronunciation. At the end of the study, both experimental class and control class are required to take a pronunciation post-test and the metacognitive strategy questionnaire again to see whether there are significant pre-post differences between the two groups. The data obtained are computed and analyzed via such software as EXCEL and SPSS. The results from the study indicate that incorporating metacognitive strategy training into College English pronunciation teaching plays a significant role in enhancing the students' English pronunciation and their mastery of metacognitive strategies. This new approach helps students to understand phonological features better, and more importantly, motivates them to find out their strengths and weaknesses in acquiring English pronunciation. The approach grasps the core of students' pronunciation problems and provides targeted solutions to those problems, thus having many implications for classroom teaching and learning.