The Effects Of Video Dubbing APP On Students' English Pronunciation At Junior High School

Pronunciation has been ignored in L2 learning classroom in China and it is difficult for Chinese students to learn.As pronunciation is playing a crucial role in second language acquisition,many scholars and language teachers have been trying to explore a practical way to implement phonetic teaching outside the TEFL classroom.With the smart phones connected to mobile network and the occurrence of apps developed,educational apps provide us with the possibility and feasibility of mobile teaching and learning.The English Fun Dubbing,an online app designed for English learning,exerts an enormous function on language teaching and learning.In this study,the author aims to investigate the effects of video dubbing on students' English pronunciation at Junior High School by implementing English Fun Dubbing APP.78 Chinese EFL learners(average age: 13 years old)at a junior high school in Hangzhou participate in this study.This research is conducted with the purpose of finding out the answers to the three research questions:(1)Does video dubbing app promote students' English pronunciation? What differences dose the app make between the experimental class and the control class?(2)What is the effect of video dubbing app on pronunciation in the aspects of sound,rhythm,stress,liaison and intonation?(3)What is the students' and teachers' perception on the application of video dubbing app in English pronunciation learning?The participants are from two different classes in Grade Seven taught by the same teacher.Class A and Class B are respectively the experimental class and the control class.The teacher teaches the English course in both of these two classes byusing the same textbook and the same teaching method.The only difference is that in the experimental class the teacher uses the online dubbing app software to assist pronunciation teaching,while in the control class no video dubbing app is used and some reading materials selected from EFD are used to practice.Before the study,both classes are given a pre-test that shows no significant difference in pronunciation.A post-test is given to both class at the end of the 12-week study.At last,the experimental class is given a questionnaire and a short interview.All data are collected and analyzed by Excel 2013 and SPSS 16.0.The results reveal:(1)The dubbing app has a positive effect on students' English pronunciation at junior high school;(2)The video dubbing app has a stronger effect on suprasegmental features of pronunciation than segmental features;(3)The video dubbing app meets learners' and teachers' needs;(4)The video dubbing app inspires the learners' interests and autonomy in pronunciation learning.The results of the study show that video dubbing app can not only assist pronunciation learning but also enrich the pronunciation pedagogy.Based on the findings,this researcher suggests that teachers can not only use English Fun Dubbing APP software to help English learner in pronunciation learning but also motivate students to improve their pronunciation especially in suparsegmental features.