A Study Of The Effect Of PIPA(Phonics + IPA) On Students' Vocabulary Learning At Primary School

PIPA is a newly developed teaching modebased on Krashen's input theory,the theory of language transfer and the theory of memory in the 1990s.PIPA is a combination of phonics and IPA,which is beneficial for Primary School students' vocabulary learning.The English curriculum standard requires that the students master the vocabulary spelling rules presented in English textbook.However,the traditional vocabulary teaching mode still takes up the dominant position atPrimary School,which usually emphasizes rote-learning and ignores the teaching of spelling rules.Most of the students atPrimary School generally find it difficult to memorize 700 English words required in the syllabus.Therefore,it is quite necessary to introduce PIPA into the process of vocabulary teaching atPrimary School in order to improve the effectiveness of students' vocabulary learning.The present paper reports a study on the effect of the application of PIPA on students'vocabulary learning at Primary School.It intends to explore the differences between the experimental class(PIPA vocabulary teaching mode)and the control class(the traditional vocabulary teaching mode)in terms of students' vocabulary reading and memorization skills and the reasons why such effects exist.The research questions addressed in this thesis are:(1)What is the effect of application of PIPA on students' vocabulary reading ability?And why?(2)What is the effect of the application of PIPA on students' vocabulary memorization ability?And why?The study is composed of two parts:quantitative and qualitative research.The quantitative research included a three-month experiment and a questionnaire.The experiment involved 30 students from two training classes of Grade 6 primary school students in Fuyang.The pre-test(three parts:write down the 26 alphabets from memory,30 words dictation and 30 words reading)was carried out at the beginning of the experiment.The results of the pre-test was computed and analyzed with the software of Statistical Package for Social Science(SPSS)20.0.The class with a slightly higher mean was the control class(CC),while the other one was selected as the experimental class(EC).In CC,the researcher adopted the traditional vocabulary teaching mode while the use of PIPA was employed in EC together with the traditional vocabulary teaching mode.The contents of PIPA include the vocabulary teaching material,mind map and graph(self-designed and based on phonics and IPA),which aimed to improve the students' words reading and memorization competence.After three months'teachingexperiment,the post-tests which included three vocabulary tests(Test 1:words reading without the help of IPA;Test 2:words reading with the help of IPA;Test 3:words memorization;)were held at the end of the experiment.The three vocabulary tests were also analyzed with SPSS 20.0.The questionnaire,consisting of 15 statements which covered three categories concerning students' vocabulary learning motivation,learning skills and learning effectiveness,was conducted among students at nearly the end of the experiment.The data were also analyzed with SPSS 20.0.The qualitative research was an interview which w is made up of 6 students from EC.The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed later.The transcriptions of the interviews were synthesized and categorized.Detailed analysis of quantitative and qualitative research yielded the major findings as follows:Firstly,the application of PIPA can improve the students' vocabulary reading skills.PIPA applies annotations and signs to deepen the memory and emphasizes the structure and letter-sound correspondences of the words,which are emphasized by learning PIPA mind map,graph,and music videos.Thus,the students can clearly identify the structure and letter-sound correspondences of the words at the first sight.Besides,the process of learning PIPA is a process of trainingbecause the students need to respond quickly and actively to read a series of new words with similar structure and figure out the connections among different letter-sound correspondences.In this way,almost all the structure and letter-sound correspondences have been practiced for many times.Thus,the students have the ability to select the correct letter-sound correspondences.All in all,PIPA can improve students' vocabulary reading skills.Secondly,the application of PIPA can promote the students' vocabulary memorization skills.To begin with,in the teaching process of PIPA,the teacher often leads the students to analyze the structure of the words and make the students focus on the letter-sound correspondences of the words.What the students need to do is to recognize the words' structure and combine each partof the words together according to the letter-sound correspondences.Secondly,equipped with the knowledge of PIPA,the students are able to memorize some long and difficult words according to the structure of these words.In this way their vocabulary size is naturally enlarged.Besides,PIPA provides the students with plenty of opportunities for memorizing 7 to 10 new words in 1 minute.They are accustomed to memorizing new words in a short time.Hence,memorizing words is an obvious advantage of PIPA,which shows PIPA can promote students' vocabulary memorization skills.The implications from the findings of the study are as follows:First of all,PIPA should be strongly advocated and widely enforced in school to improve students' vocabulary competence.Secondly,much attention should be paid to develop students'awareness of the application of PIPA in various ways.Thirdly,PIPA and traditional vocabulary teaching mode are complementary to each other in vocabulary teaching.It is advisable that teachers may employ both PIPA and traditional vocabulary teaching mode properly.