A Study On The Present Situation Of Learning Attainment Of Phonetic Symbols By Grade Seven Students

Phonetic is the foundation of learning English while phonetic symbols are the basis ofstudying phonetic, so learning phonetic symbols is very important. Students who learnphonetic symbols in Grade Seven can get twice the result with half the effort, becausestudents have great interest in learning English in this period. Given the importance oflearning phonetic symbols in Grade Seven, the author will investigate the present situationof student’s learning phonetic symbols in order to ifnd problems and put forwardsuggestions.In this thesis，quantitative investigation and qualitative analysis were conducted.First of all, the author conducted the questionnaire survey among150students of GradeSeven from No.8Middle School in Linfen City and Zhang Ma Middle School in XiangningCounty. Then data was analyzed with SPSS19.0，including reliability and validity analysis，statistical description and independent sample t-test. Secondly, the author selected eightystudents from these150students ot attend the test in order to investigate the situation oflearning phonetic symbols objectively. Finally，14English teachers were interviewed tounderstand their attitude towards teaching phonetic symbols and relevant teaching methods.The results are shown as follows:Firstly, the results of the test show that the overall level of learning phonetic symbols ofstudents from the two schools is low in Grade Seven. These students are used to pronouncingthe sounds with the features of Chinese pinyin instead of accurate English pronunciation andotfen confuse similar sounds. The average of the test score of urban students is higher thanthat of rural students and the difference between the above two groups is critically significant.The mean of the test score of top students is higher than that of underachievers and thedifference between them is critically significant. Secondly，from the results of the questionnaire, the data shows that students lackinterest and motivation in learning phonetic symbols. These students also lack confidence tostudy phonetic symbols well and do not use learning strategies effectively to learn them. Thedifference in emotional attitudes between urban students and rural students is criticallysignificant and the difference in cognitive strategies between the two groups is signiifcant,which indicate that urban students learn phonetic symbols more positively than rural students.The mean of emotional attitudes of boys is lower than that of girls and the difference inemotional attitudes between the two groups is critically significant, which show that girls’attitude towards learning phonetic symbols is more positive than that of boys. The differencein meta-cognitive strategies between boys and girls is significant. The difference in emotionalattitudes and learning strategies between top students and underachievers is not significant.Thirdly, the data of the interview indicates that the results of teaching phonetic symbolsare not ideal. On the one hand, some teachers realize the importance of teaching phoneticsymbols in Grade Seven, however，they do not teach them effectively because they do notreceive formal training about phonetics systematically. On the other hand, the way to readafter teachers is regarded as the main method of teaching phonetic symbols，which makesstudents feel bored and lose interest in learning phonetic symbols.Though there are some limitations in this study，it is still expected that somefindings of this thesis can be shared with the readers and provide some suggestions forEnglish teachers in teaching phonetic symbols and students in learning phonetic symbols.