Case Study On The Effect Of Reading Aloud Training On Middle School Students With The Low "English Pronunciation Self-concept"

English Pronunciation Self-concept, an evaluation and description on one'pronunciation is derived from the Foreign Language Self-concept under the categories of Academic Self-concept proposed by Marsh et al. Professor Wang Chuming(2004a)first formulated the Foreign Language Pronunciation Hypothesis about the significant correlation between one's English pronunciation and English proficiency. The researches of English Pronunciation Self-concept show an upward trend in recent years and most of them concentrate on its correlation to other factors. However, the relevant empirical studies are scarcely found and especially rare in the case study on low English Pronunciation Self-concept learners.Given the research background, an interventional case study was designed to conduct three-month English Pronunciation training on four high school students of Grade One with low English Pronunciation Self-concept. This training attempted to enhance four participants' English Pronunciation Self-concept by activities to improve their English pronunciation and regulate their affective factors. The research concentrated around the following three points:(1) To probe the training efficiency on the improvement of English Pronunciation Self-concept;(2) To observe whether there are any differences between male and female learners' English Pronunciation Self-concept development after training;(3) To testify the training effect on participants' English proficiency. In that, a five-stage read-aloud training program,which included Mentality Adjustment, Pronunciation Improvement, Imitative Reading,Peer Role-play Reading and Oral Presentation, has been carried out.Two groups of pre-tests and post-tests(which are the tests on English Pronunciation Self-concept and tests on English proficiency), certain interviews and the evaluations from four participants were the data resources for this study. From the analysis of collected data, the results of this study were generated as follows:(1) Four learners with low English Pronunciation Self-conceptual showed progress with the growth of 35%, 25%, 33% and 21.4% on their EPSC post-test after the read-aloudtraining;(2) two groups of tests data indicated that there was no obvious gender difference on the development of English Pronunciation Self-concept while there did exist certain apparent individual differences;(3) Data also indicated that this training was effective in facilitating participants' English proficiency, three of them have respectively gained 2%,6% and 4%increase on their ranking in class, the ranking of Student D showed a mild retrogression of 2% which can be viewed a rational float.This study provided some pedagogical implications in two aspects: Firstly, the cultivation of English pronunciation should not only emphasis on the accuracy and knowledge acquirement of pronunciation but also focus on learners' self-concept so as to make up a training plan commensurate with their affective factors. What's more,reading aloud is an effective way to develop positive English Pronunciation Self-concept so that we should make further innovative research on it to obtain new results out of old method.