A Preliminary Study On Primary School English Teachers' Performance In Rhythm

This thesis aims at studying the relationship between non-native speakers'(NNS)vowel production and their rhythm performance,based on comparing their vowel production characteristics with those of native speakers(NS).The purpose of this study is to explore:(1)the vowel production characteristics of NNS and NS;(2)the rhythm performance of NNS according to NS' rhythm rating;(3)the relationship between NNS' vowel production and rhythm performance.The participants of this study are 23 primary school English teachers(NNS group)and 5 native English speakers(NS group).During the experiment,both groups were required to read a diagnostic passage and record it.Then the NS group graded the rhythm performance of NNS.The findings of this study are as followed:1.(1)NNS are quite good at the duration of word stressed syllables(TWS)and secondary-stressed syllables(TWSS),but they are not good at word unstressed syllables(TWU)and sentence stressed(TSS)and unstressed syllables(TSU).In general,the duration of stressed syllables for NNS is not long enough while the unstressed syllables are not short enough.As a result,the duration difference between stressed syllables and unstressed syllables is not obvious.(2)The pitch of NNS is higher than that of NS,especially in word stressed(WS),secondary-stressed(WSS),unstressed syllables(WU),and sentence stressed syllables(SS).(3)The tongue position of NNS in word stressed syllables(WS),secondary-stressed syllables(WSS)and sentence unstressed syllables(SU)is quite close to that of NS.But there is significant difference between NS and NNS in word unstressed syllables(WU)and sentence stressed syllables(SS),which means that the tongue position in WU and SS is much higher than that of NS.(4)There is significant difference between NS and NNS in all the stressed or unstressed syllables of word and sentence(WS,WSS,WU,SS and SU).The F2 of NNS is much higher than that of NS.All this shows that the tongue position of NNS is more forward than that of NS in stressed or unstressed syllables of word and sentence.2.NNS rhythm performance is moderately good in words and sentences.With the increase of the number of syllables,the rhythm performance score of NNS decreased gradually.Besides,the rhythm performance of NNS declarative sentence is no better than that of interrogative sentence.But in different types of subordinate clauses,the rhythm of attributive clauses in NNS is obviously better than that of object clauses,and the difference of rhythm performance between other types of subordinate clauses is not obvious.NNS rhythm performance in word is much better than sentence and paragraph.However,their sentence performance is not better than paragraph.3.The performance in length,F0,F1 and F2 of the NNS high-level group is generally better than the low-level group and is closer to NS.To be more specific:(1)The length of stressed syllables of the high-level group is longer than that of the low-level group and the unstressed syllables is shorter than the low-level group,too.(2)The pitch of the low-level group is higher than that of the high-level group.(3)The tongue position of the low-level group is higher and more forward than the low-level group.The better their vowel production(the closer to NS),the better the rhythm performance(the higher the rhythm score).