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Effect of proficiency on Taiwanese EFL learners' pronunciation
Shu-Chu Chen1, Ming-Nuan Yang2
1 National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
E-mail: ChenSC@yuntech.edu.tw
2 Chang Gung Institute of Technology, Taiwan
E-mail: jessica@gw.cgit.edu.tw
Received: 10 October 2007 jewing editor Andi-ey G. KirilW p^^ online: 20 December 2007
Accepted: 15 November 2007
Abstract
In light of the concern in understanding EFL learners' learning difficulties in pronunciation teaching, we investigated Taiwanese EFL Learners' perceptions on suprasegmentals and segmentals of English. Two research questions were proposed: (1) what are learners' difficulties in perceiving the suprasegmentals and segmentals of American English? (2) Does learners' proficiency influence their performance in perceiving the suprasegmental and segmental aspects of English? Using TOEFL listening test as screening, 94 students were classified into proficient and less proficient groups. The instrument was developed with reference to Focus on Pronunciation (Lane 1997) and Targeting Pronunciation (Miller 2006). The results showed that proficient learners outperformed their counterparts in overall performance on pronunciation diagnostic assessment, similar to the findings of Gardner (1980) and Rivera (1984). However, proficient learners had difficulties in the perception of focus words, phrases or compounds [e.g. hot dog], and intonation. The top five difficult categories for less proficient group were: focus words, syllables number, perception of tense/lax vowels, understanding compounds (e.g. hot dog), and perception of mid tense/lax vowels. We also found that suprasegmentals caused greater difficulties for both groups than segmental aspects of pronunciation, which was related to their L1 influence. Relevant pedagogical implications were suggested.
Keywords
pronunciation difficulties; segmentals; suprasegmentals
For citation
Chen, Shu-Chu, and Ming-Nuan Yang. 2007. "Effect of proficiency on Taiwanese EFL learners' pronunciation." Language. Text. Society 1 (2): e26-e42. https://ltsj.online/2007-01-2-chen-yang-01. (Journal title at the time of publication: SamaraAltLinguo E-Journal.)
1. INTRODUCTION
A review of history shows that it is a hotly debated issue as to whether the goal of pronunciation learning is to achieve native-like pronunciation for L2 adult learners, or whether the goal is to obtain intelligibility (Acton 1984; Avery and Ehrlich 1992; Scarcella and Oxford 1994). The goal to be native like in pronunciation is related to the Critical Period Hypothesis with strong and weak versions. The strong version of the critical period hypothesis claims that for adults to be native-like in pronunciation after puberty is impossible. Similarly, the weak version of the hypothesis states that after puberty the learning process will be more difficult, and a native-like accent will not be acquired (Lightbown and Spada 1999). Both versions of the Critical Period Hypothesis agree that it is unlikely for adults to be native-like in pronunciation in learning L2.
Studies have been done to test the hypothesis of the Critical Period, and there is conflicting evidence. According to Jones (1997), several researchers have shown that adults are superior to children in pronunciation, sound discrimination (Snow and Hoefnagel-Hohle 1977; Neufeld 1977; Nikolov 2000). However, some studies have supported the notion that adults can not achieve native like pronunciation in a foreign language, and children have an advantage over adults in learning the pronunciation of a second language (Asher and Garcia 1969; Burrill 1985; Scovel 1969). Consistent with those researchers' position regarding pronunciation, Gass and Selinker (2001, 337) argue that "there is a critical period for pronunciation, and adults can't achieve a native accent in a second language." Furthermore, with the spread of English as an international language, native accents have become almost irrelevant to cross-cultural communication. One's accent is another symbol of that heritage as the world community comes to appreciate the value of people's heritage (Brown 2001). Since the conclusion is that it is generally believed to be impossible for adults to acquire native-like pronunciation of a second language, then the goal of intelligibility rather than native-like pronunciation seem to be a better choice.
Since the goal of pronunciation teaching is intelligibility, EFL teachers should consider what are the pronunciation problems that learners might encounter and pay more attention to learners' pronunciation problems. It has been reported that the understanding of the teaching and learning targets based on learners' learning difficulties may accelerate their learning in social interactive situations (Goodwin, 2001). Therefore in language teaching, teaching objectives need to reflect the needs of the learners and their learning difficulties. Also since it is generally believed to be impossible for adults to acquire native-like pronunciation of a second language, then the next issue for teachers to consider before formal instruction is which aspect of pronunciation should be taught: segmental or suprasegmental.
Over the past decades, perspectives on pronunciation teaching have changed dramatically. The popularity of the direct method and audiolingualism resulted in the" listen and repeat" approach and emphasized the accurate production of discrete sounds in the teaching of pronunciation. However, students who showed accuracy in controlled practice might fail to transfer what they learned to actual communicative language use (Cohen, Larson-Freeman and Tarone 1991). With the rise of communicative approach, the focus of teaching concentrated more on the communicative aspects of connected speech. Under this trend, pronunciation teaching focused more on a "top-down" approach instead of the original "bottom up" method of teaching isolated sounds. In other words, the focus of teaching pronunciation seemed to shift from mastery of segmentals (e.g. vowels and consonants) to fluency, highlighting the importance of elements of suprasegmentals (Pennington and Richards 1986). This approach of pronunciation teaching seemed to put all aspects of English pronunciation into a communicative interactive whole language view of human speech. Since an emphasis on meaning and communication as well as accuracy were of equal importance, there was no longer a struggle choosing between segmentals and suprasegmentals but focusing on what will be the most useful in the communicative situations (Pennington and Richards 1986).
While some researchers were trying to find out the most effective ways to facilitate L2 learning, in the meanwhile, others focused the reason why EFL adult learners can't be like Children and why individuals learning an L2, particularly in an educational setting, can meet with great difficulties and sometimes failure. For instance, in comparing children and adults, Long (1990) and Oyama (1976) have found that young L2 learners had an advantage over adults in acquiring native-like pronunciation of a second language, but such an advantage of ultimate attainment in pronunciation only applied to second language learners exposed to the target language daily. Their ESL situation was very not like EFL learners, whose exposure to the target language was limited to the language class. Without sufficient input, many EFL learners were encountering numerous pronunciation problems, some of which could be traced back to their L1 influence (Min 2001). For instance, Taiwanese EFL learners tended to add a schwa to a word final consonant such as *booka for book. Though the problems could be regarded as developmental forms, we can't assume that these development forms will disappear gradually as the children grew mature. In fact, it was very likely that these developmental forms may become habitual incorrect pronunciation and adversely impact on their pronunciation. Therefore, it is imperative for language teachers to understand the source of EFL learners' pronunciation problems: whether it was a result of incorrect perception in order to assist them in every possible way.
Given lot of discussion on the best ways in pronunciation teaching and which aspects should be emphasized, we then should consider the factors that might cause L2 failure. As review of the literature, we found that motivation, psychological and social distance, and L1 influence, to name a few, will result in L2 failure (Piske, MacKay and Flege 2001). For instance, in terms of the relation between foreign accent and motivation, the strength of motivation varies with learners. If learners' intrinsic motivation is high, then the necessary effort will be paid to pursue the goal (Asher and Garcia 1969; Burrill 1985; Scovel 1969). Similarly, Krashen (1985) also claimed that learners needed to be motivated, feel confident and have low anxiety to achieve better performance in his input hypothesis. Thus, if learners are motivated to improve their pronunciation, they will try hard on English learning.
Psychological and social distance (Brown 1989) refers to one's attitude toward speakers of the target language. It has been reported that the more learners identify with native speakers of the target language, the more likely they are to sound like native speakers. Conversely, learners who wish to retain identification with their own culture may consciously or unconsciously retain his own accent as a marker of in group affiliation (Dowd, Zuengler and Berkowitz 1990). All these factors suggest that learners who want to learn to pronounce English clearly and comprehensibly, teachers should assist in the process in their L2 learning. In addition to those factors that might result in L2 foreign accent, it is believed that learners' first language affect the acquisition of second language sound system (Krahnke and Christison 1983). According to Swan and Smith (1987), the pronunciation errors made by EFL learners are not random attempts to produce unfamiliar sounds but reflections of the segmental and suprasegmental of the native languages. Therefore an examination on phonological differences between Mandarin and Chinese in segmental and suprasegmental aspects of both languages suggests the critical need for EFL teachers to be aware of the impact that learners' L1 backgrounds would bring to the learning of English pronunciation, and it also provide explanatory account for learners' error that teachers encounter in teaching (Celce-Murcia and Hawkins 1985).
Comparisons of American vowels and Mandarin Chinese showed that vowels in American English varied significantly from those in Mandarin in tongue advancement, tongue height, and lip rounding (Gimson 1989). Lax and tense is not a phonemic feature in Mandarin Chinese while it is in English. Secondly, vowels like I, x, U do not exist in the Chinese vowel system, and schwa does not stand in isolation in Chinese. It is followed by nasals n or ng to form vowels in Chinese. These vowels do not exist in the Chinese sound inventory and could be a challenge for learners.
In terms of English consonant, Wu (2005) indicated that all plosives of English have their counterparts in Chinese. Thus, Taiwanese learners will not encounter difficulties in pronunciation of English plosives. In addition, sounds like v, d, d, and palatal affricate and palatal fricative do exist in English, but not found in Mandarin Chinese. These sounds might trigger a problem for Taiwanese EFL learners. To sum up, pronunciation learning is best when considered learners' learning difficulties before instruction. A fairly large body of literature exists on the teaching of pronunciation; however, there appears to be comparatively fewer published studies to date that focuses on the relationship between pronunciation and learners' learning difficulties and the effect of proficiency before a pronunciation teaching.
In light of these concerns and motivated by learner-oriented approach in understanding their pronunciation problems, the study aimed to investigate 45 proficient and 45 less proficient EFL learners' pronunciation difficulties in response to a pronunciation diagnostic assessment revised from Miller (2006) and Lane (1997) to evaluate Taiwanese EFL learners' problems in segmental and suprasegmentals aspects in pronunciation learning (Miller 2006; Burgess and Spencer 2000). Pedagogical implications in which teaching of pronunciation reflected the spirit of communicative language teaching were also suggested.
2. METHODOLOGY
The study investigated Taiwanese EFL learners' pronunciation difficulties by using questionnaire designed by Miller (2006) and Lane (1997). The methodology was described as follows.
2.1. Research Questions
The research questions are (1) What are Taiwanese EFL learners' pronunciation difficulties based on the result of the assessment in pronunciation learning? (2) Do learners' proficiency influence their performance in perceiving the suprasegmentals and segmentals of English?
2.2. Subjects and Instruments
Before the experiment proceeded, a TOEFL listening test was used to determine learners' proficiency level before the experiment. The 94 participants were selected from 180 students, who are all native speakers of both Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese. The higher proficiency group included 47 proficient students and the lower proficiency group was composed of 47 less proficient EFL learners. Two groups of participants were freshmen of Yunlin University of Science and Technology in Taiwan. Their age ranged from 19 to 21, and they did not have any studying abroad experiences in any English speaking countries.
The pronunciation diagnostic assessment with 63 items was developed with reference to Focus on Pronunciation (Lane 1997) and Targeting Pronunciation (Miller 2006). The design of the instrument was listed below.
Table 1. Design of the Pronunciation Diagnostic Assessment
Part 1: segmentals (from section A—to section Q)—24 items Part 2: suprasegmentals (from section R to section Z)—38 items
The pronunciation diagnostic assessment was designed to understand EFL learners' pronunciation learning difficulties. Two major sections were included in the test. Embedded with 24 test items, part 1 was designed to test students' understanding about segmentals, and part 2 focused on learners' perceptions in suprasegmentals. The test was done before the course began. Based on the result of the survey, the identified pronunciation problems that Taiwanese EFL learners encountered could be used for pedagogical purposes.
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Phonology included two aspects of analysis and description: the segmental and the suprasegmental level. The segmental level describes the individual sounds that use to form words and larger utterances, or sentences by speakers. Suprasegmental level, which forms the
framework and basis for the segmental level, includes duration, rhythm, stress, pitch, intonation and loudness. To answer questions concerning EFL learners' perception on their segmentals and suprasegmentals, we presented the results below and t tests were performed on learners' perception in each part.
Table 2. Part II: Perceived Pronunciation Difficulties
Group
Overall (mean)
Part 1:
Segmentals (mean)
Part 2:
Suprasegmental (mean)
P Proficient
53.73
28.09
25.64
Less-proficient P value
44.58
0.00*
24.02
0.00*
20.56
0.00*
Note: *** p<0.001
In terms of learners' overall performance of their perceived pronunciation difficulties for two groups, we found that proficient group performed better than less proficient one and was with significant effect (p<0.001). In addition, both groups performed significantly better in segmentals (e.g. consonants and vowels) than in suprasegmentals (p<0.001). The results in the present study seemed to echo the reports found in other studies. It was at the suprasegmental level where EFL students encountered particular difficulty than segmentals, which might be related to L1 influence (Clennell 1997; Morley 1994).
Unlike English, which is an intonation language, Mandarin Chinese is a tone language. Based on their L1 influence, EFL learners usually listened for pitch changes over single words in order to distinguish lexical meaning. Thus, when speaking English, they had difficulty in distinguishing pitch changes over clauses or sentences (Clennell 1997; Morley 1994). In a similar vein, segmentals are the smallest units used to distinguish words from one to another. On the other hand, suprasegmentals transcend the level of segmentals, and cover feature like stress, rhythm, prominence, intonation, and adjustments in connected speech. With many features covered in suprasegmental aspect of English, it was not surprising that learners tended to have more difficulties with suprasegmentals and were harder to acquire its features than the pronunciation of consonants and vowels (Celce-Murcia, Brinton and Goodwin 1996; Hewing 1995; Munro 1995).
3.1. Result of Part 2: Learners' Perception on Segmentals
As shown in Table 8, higher achievers outperformed low achievers in most of the segmental sections (14 out of the total of 17 sections). Also significant differences were displayed in sections B, E, F, H in that proficient group performed significantly better than less-proficient one in the discrimination of mid tense/ lax vowels, high back tense/lax vowels, sounds and spelling, and stress assignment on words with different part of speech, etc (p<0.05).
Table 3. Groups' Performance in Part 1: Mean of Segmentals for Groups_
Sections and example Item # High Rank Low Rank
group group
A. vowel contrasts: high tense vs. lax vowels; e.g., eat vs. it
B. vowel contrasts: mid tense lax vowels; e.g., mate vs. met.
C. vowel contrasts: front mid /low vowels; e.g. past vs. pest
D. vowel contrasts: central low vs. mid vowels; e.g. box vs. bucks
E. sounds and spelling; e.g. hear/ here
F. vowel contrasts: high back tense/lax vowels; e.g. suit vs. soot
G. word final voiced /voiceless consonant /t/ vs. /d/
e.g. hat vs. had
H. word endings:
past tense -ed; e.g. need/needed
I. word final interdental vs. word- final alveolar; e.g., math vs. mass
J. word initial bilabials vs.labio-dental; e.g. berry vs. very
K. word -final s/z e.g., race vs. raise
L. word -initial voiced vs. voiceless affricate e.g. choice vs. Joyce
M. word-initial lateral vs. retroflex liquids e.g. lay vs. Ray
N. Beginning consonant clusters e.g. parade vs. prayed
O. Stress on words with different part of speech; e.g., convict the noun vs. convict the verb
P. Common reduced words (and/or);e.g. red or white vs. red and white
Q. Common reduced words (can/can't);e.g. She can't swim vs. She can swim
1.64 1.69 1.49
1.73
1.60 1.29
1.64
1. 93 1.89 2.00 1.47 1.96 1.80 1.58 1.53
1.84 1
9 8
13
10 15
3
4 1
14 2 6 11 12
5 16
1.56 1.02 1.29
1.71
1.29
0.96.
1.46
1. 44 0.94 1.98 1.54 1.98 1.69 1.40 1.17
1.58 1.02
5
12
10
10 13
8
14 1 6 1
3 9 11
4 12
P value 0.494 ***0.00 0.14
0.801
*0.015 **0.01
0.073
***0.00
***0.00
0.336
0.538
0.525
0.220
0.094
**0.009
*0.03 0.336
Note: the rank order is arranged from the easiest to the most difficult
* p<0.05;**p<0.01;***p<0.001
In terms of rank order on the sections from the easiest to the most difficult one, both groups almost had no difficulties in discriminating the pair of word initial bilabials versus labiodental as well as the pair of word initial voiced sounds versus voiceless affricates (Section I; J). For the rest of the sections, group variations can be found. For instance, the most difficult section for high group was in section Q, which included reduced words can versus can't. The difficulty rank order for high group was 16 whereas the rank order for the lower one was 12. According to Prator and Robinett (1985, 34-35), they stated that:
There is a strong tendency to weaken the vowels of the most common unstressed words of
one syllable just as the unaccented vowels of polysyllables are weakened...The verbs are
can .are usually obscured or weakened, but are given their clear pronunciation whenever
they receive sentence-stress.
Thus, contrary to what was taught in many EFL classes, the stressed can't were pronounced as /k^nt/ whereas the weak form can was pronounced as /kan/. In other words, verbs like are, can, had, has, have, and was have weak forms and stressed forms in pronunciation (Prator and Robinett 1985, 35), but this rule was rarely taught in an EFL class. Therefore EFL learners had difficulties in correctly perceiving their differences.
Vowels
Significant difference was found between two groups in section B with discrimination of mid tense versus mid lax vowels (e.g., mate vs. met). Comparing the Mandarin vowel system with that of English revealed that significant differences in tense/lax distinctions and in the number of vowels were found.
First of all, one feature that differentiated the English vowel system from the Mandarin vowel system was the distinction between lax and tense vowels. According to Ladefoged (1982), the difference between tense and lax vowels is made according to how much muscle tension in the mouth is involved in vowel production. Thus, vowels produced with extra muscle tension were called tense, whereas vowels produced without that much muscle tension were called lax vowels. Wu (2005) pointed out that vowels in Chinese do not have any distinctive feature similar to lax or tense, while vowels in English do. Due to the L1 influence, learners might have difficulty in the area.
Furthermore, in Section F for the vowel discriminating in high back tense vowel (e.g. suit) versus high back lax vowel (soot), both groups encountered a higher level of difficulties compared with learners' performance in other sections of vowel contrasts ranging from sections A to D. As indicated above, Wu (2005) pointed out vowels in Chinese do not have any distinctive features similar to lax or tense, while vowels in English do. Secondly, English vowel like [U] in book does not exist in Mandarin. Thus due to the fact that the lax/tense feature is not evident in Chinese as well as no counterpart for the vowel [U] in Chinese vowel inventory, both groups tended to have more errors in correcting perceiving vowel contrast in Section F.
Additionally, L1 influence was also evident in vowel contrast in Section C, which mainly focused on the discrimination of low front vowel [^](i.e. past) and mid front vowel (i.e. pest).
Due to lacking a counterpart in the vowel inventory in Mandarin Chinese, learners had higher frequency of incorrect rating in this section since no sound was found in Mandarin vowel inventory.
Consonants in Word Initial vs. Word Final
Compared with learners' perception on consonants in word initial positions (section L; J) and consonants in word final positions (either section I or section K), we found that word initial consonants were easier to perceive for both groups than consonants in word final positions. The reasons for a higher score on correct rating was obtained in word initial consonants could be learners' mother language influence, which was evident in other study as well (Kenworthy 1997). For instance, it was reported and found in the present study that most consonants in word-final and word-middle positions were harder to perceive than in the word-initial consonants for Chinese EFL learners. This might be their L1 influence because few Chinese consonant occurred word-medially and word-finally (Cheng 2004).
Consonant Cluster and Syllable Structure
Though high achievers outnumbered low achievers in discrimination of the consonant and vowel combination (e.g. parade) versus consonant cluster (e.g. prayed) in section N, we found that the performance of two groups in this section still posed a learning problem for them with a rank order of 11th (mean=1.58) for high achievers, and 9th for low achievers (mean=1.40). These students' learning difficulties might be due to differences in syllable types and structures between Mandarin Chinese and English.
Languages can be classified into either open syllables and closed syllables. An open syllables ends in a vowel while a closed syllable ends in a consonant. Languages like Chinese and Japanese have only open syllables, whereas language like English has a closed syllable type (Hsin 2000).
In terms of syllable patterns, unlike the various syllable patterns in English, there were only three types of syllables in Mandarin Chinese, namely V, CV, CVC. Even so, the CVC pattern is very restricted in allowing nasal consonants of n and ng in the final consonant positions. Thus the majority of syllables in Mandarin Chinese are V and CV syllables. Therefore, it is common to hear Chinese EFL learners, when encountering a CVC syllable, tend to drop the final consonant or insert an extra schwa after a final consonant (Hsin 2000).
In terms of phonotactic rules, they are simpler in Mandarin Chinese than they are in English. According to Hsin (2000), the consonant cluster in a single syllable in English can be made up to three of four consonants, whereas Chinese admits no consonant clusters and has at most one consonant at the onset position of a syllable. Due to the fact that English has comparative complexity in English consonant clusters and vowel types in closed syllables, and the majority of syllables in Mandarin Chinese are V and CV syllables, we could expect that the interference from their L1 will let EFL learners tend to insert an extra schwa after p in prayed (Hsin 2000). So learners had another learning difficulty in perceiving these words in a consonant cluster parade versus consonant+ vowel prayed (Hsin 2000, 75).
The Stress Placement
When it comes to learners' performance in Section O, we could find high group outperformed than the low group in assigning different stress to words with different part of speech (e.g. convict the noun vs. convict the verb). This topic on stress placements on English has received a great deal of attention since 1990s. Many studies of stress have tried to deal with the question of its placement in various syllables, and the placement of stress is frequently affected by many factors. Syntactic category was one of the reasons that motivated the placement of stress in English disyllabic noun and verb pairs. For instance, there are some pairs of words that are segmentally identical but distinct in terms of stress placement, in particular a number of disyllabic noun and verb pairs, where the placement of stress tends to by syntactically driven. The noun-verb pair like survey/survey is distinguished by their stress patterns: the nouns having non-final as opposed to the corresponding verbs final stress. Since the locating the stress on the wrong syllable in disyllabic noun and verb pairs usually causes the misunderstanding in their conversation (Hsu 2001), EFL teachers should raise learners' awareness and explicit instruct the stress rules, so that learning could be highly facilitated.
Intonation
Intonation can be one of the most difficult parts of English for students to master, and also one of the least favorite topics for teacher to address in classroom One possible reason to this situation is that most accounts of English intonation are too complicate and detailed. As Taylor (1993) pointed out, in the preparation of most English language teachers, considerable attention to intonation has been aroused in courses such as phonetics and phonology, but it rarely seems to be transferred to the classroom. In a similar vein, the reason why intonation may pose a difficult to EFL learners can be traced to the L1 influence. As Clennell (1997) explained that tonal and rhythmic structures of oriental languages are sufficiently different from English, and it may be extremely difficult for their speakers to have even basic competence in the discourse features of English intonation (p. 118).
Result of Part 2: Learners' Performance on Suprasegmentals
Similar to their performance in segmental section, higher achievers were better than that of low achievers in most of the suprasegmental sections (7 out of the total of 9 sections). Significant group differences were found in sections R, S, U and Y for the categories of syllable number, word stress, underlined focus words, and Intonation.
In terms of rank order on the sections from the easiest to the most difficult one, both groups almost can correctly perceive whether the speaker has finished talking or not based on the variation of intonation (Section X). The rank order for both groups was 1st. Likewise, both groups can read between the lines and understand what the speaker was trying to convey with the changes of intonation (Section Y).
Table 4. Part 2. Mean of Suprasegmentals for Groups
Section and example # of items High Rank Low Rank P value
R. Number of syllables (e.g. illustrate) 5 3.53 4 2.35 8 ***0.00
S. Word stress (e.g. forgot vs. visitors) 6 4.49 3 3.15 6 ***0.00
T. Important ending -ed (e.g. They look over all the books vs. They looked over all the books). 6 4.82 2 4.83 3 0.954
U. Underlined focus words (e.g. What are you doing?) 8 3.58 8 1.88 9 ***0.00
V. Compound nouns (e.g. a social worker vs. a social worker) 4 2.11 6 1.96 7 0.481
W. Thought group (e.g. The twenty $9 books are left. vs. The $29 books are left.) 3 1.89 5 1.69 5 0.274
X. Intonation (the speaker is finished talking or not), e.g. I went to the last conference. 2 1.98 1 1.88 1 0.103
Y. Intonation (mean what the words seem to be saying or sth different), e.g. I bet she wants to work all weekend. 2 1.98 1 1.69 2 ***0.003
Z. Intonation (mean what the words seem to be saying or sth different), e.g. Do you like the red sweater or the blue one? (1) Yes, they are beautiful. (2) I like the blue one. 2 1.04 7 1.15 4 0.462
Note: Rank order was arranged from the easiest to the most difficult one * p<0.05;**p<0.01;***p<0.001
However, the most difficult category for both groups was in the categories of finding the focus words (Section U). Native speakers of American English always divide sentences into two or more parts, or termed as thought groups. A though group is a portion of a sentence set off from the rest by pauses. Usually native speakers of American English use a pause to make meaning clear and for emphasis (Prator and Robinett 1985). To distribute and perceive pauses intelligently, it was necessary that speakers understand the meaning of what they said. However, foreign students' most frequent error with regard to thought group was a failure to organized sentences into thought group or failure to perceive where the pauses rested due to not fully understand the meaning (Prator and Robinett 1985), and not aware of the function and use of
focus words in L2 learning. This could find its support in the present study. Among nine sections for the suprasegmentals, two groups had the same rank order in their perception of though group (5th). Correcting distinguishing sentences like" The twenty $ 9 books are left" versus "The $ 29 books are left," was a little harder for them (5th).
With regard to focus words, we found that different languages may use different grammatical devices to signal focus. For instance, French and Chinese often use word order, and English used intonation as the device for indicating focus (Prator and Robinett 1985). Usually speakers raised their voices on the stressed syllable of the words, which the speaker wishes to single out. By doing so, speaker's attention is focused on the elements in a thought group (Prator and Robinett 1985, 75-76). As shown in Table 9, both groups found it difficult to perceive the focus words in a thought group, and they had the lowest means in this section with significant group difference. Therefore EFL teachers should focus on the importance of emphasizing the focus word in EFL teaching through explicit instruction. Concerning Sections R and S for the identification of the numbers of syllables and word stress, higher achievers were significantly better (rank 3rd; 4th) in performance than that of low achievers (6th; 8th).
Furthermore, compound nouns ordinary have the primary accent on the first component and secondary accent on the second (Prator and Robinett 1985). Sentences like "She is a 'social worker," means that she makes her living by helping people solve social problems, while "She is a 'social 'worker"' means that she is a worker who enjoys social relationships with other people (Prator and Robinett 1985, 32). Without awareness of the rule of stress assignment, EFL learners found it hard to correctly rate the compound based on the context. Therefore EFL learners should be explicated instructed the stress assignment in compound: whether the compound has received a normal stress on the first or whether any special meaning derived with different placement of stress, so that their L2 learning can be facilitated.
4. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
To sum up, proficient learners could catch the meaning differences with the variation of intonations, and correctly rate the important endings of word pairs. However, they still had difficulties in the perception of focus words, phrases or compounds (e.g. hot dog), and intonation. In terms of less proficient group's pronunciation difficulties, the top five difficulty categories for less proficient group were: the perception of focus words, the identification of syllables number, perception of tense or lax vowels, understanding meaning differences of phrases or compounds (e.g. hot dog), and perception of mid tense or lax vowels. A comparison of both groups in the subcategories of the test, we also found that suprasegmentals cause greater difficulties for both groups than segmental aspects of pronunciation (e.g. Pennington and Richards 1986). This could be traced back to their L1 influence.
Based on the results shown, there were some implications can be drawn from the results of the pilot study. First of all, based on the observation of L2 pronunciation errors above, it was suggested that the critical need for EFL teachers to become more aware of the impact that learners' L1 backgrounds would bring to their L2 English learning. Thus in order to identify specific areas of pronunciation difficulties caused by L1 phonological transfer, teachers needed to cultivate solid knowledge in phonetics and phonology and understand the differences between
English and the native language of the learners so that they could provide the greatest benefit to their students in language learning (Burgess and Spencer 2000). Also EFL learners should have basic understanding phonetic and phonological differences between English and Mandarin in segmentals and suprasegmental. Just as Anderson-Hsieh (1990) said, improving learners' segmental discrimination can also benefit their production skills in suprasegmental. Thus, the intelligibility of learners' speech in English could be increased, and students' L2 learning could be more facilitating.
Identifying specific pronunciation difficulties for Chinese EFL learners does not necessarily lead to the dramatic improvement of their pronunciation; however, having such knowledge could be a prerequisite for teachers in designing teaching activities that helped students more aware of the differences between English and Mandarin Chinese sound systems. EFL learners' needed to improve their pronunciation by themselves (Kelly 2000; Celce-Muricia, Brinton and Goodwin 1996). Based on this concept, a large number of pronunciation teaching materials included sections of contrastive analysis or directing teachers to problems likely to be encountered by particular L1 speakers (e.g. Pennington 1996; Tarone 1978). So using consciousness-raising activities which sensitized learners to the differences between L1 and L2 systems might be beneficial in L2 pronunciation teaching learning (Brown 1989). Furthermore, subjects' proficiency was a relevant factor affecting their perception in segmentals and suprasegmentals. Therefore it was strongly recommended for EFL teachers to adopt different teaching methods toward subjects of different proficiency level. Also the selection and ordering of the phonological features needed in an EFL classrooms should be considered from the perspective of language learners in terms of their potential learning difficulties. Additionally, certain aspects of segmental and suprasegmental features, e.g. word stress, important endings, clustering and rhythm constitute part of pronunciation difficulties. In order for EFL learners to speak fluently and to understand spoken English at a normal speech, teachers should design more interactive activities on segmental and suprasegmental phonology in EFL teaching and integrated them with other skills into a broadly communicative framework of language learning.
Despite some preliminary findings, there were, however, some limitations in this study. As Goodwin (2001) suggested, there were two levels of integrating pronunciation practice in pronunciation teaching (Goodwin 2001). At the lower level, pronunciation practice was integrated into a broadly communicative framework of language learning. It moved from the teaching of a more bottom level such as the correct pronunciation of single sounds, the blending of sounds into higher phonological patterns of prosodic aspects including stress, vowel reduction, sentence accent; intonation pattern etc. At the higher level, termed as top-down approach, the practice of these skills was integrated with each other. Sound inventory was taught in the flow of the discourse instead of as isolated phenomenon. Skills were integrated to create strong relationships between listening and speaking, i.e. perception and production, in order to achieve maximum efficiency in language teaching. Although perception data in this pilot study could be used to complement production data and to generate hypothesis that could be tested using other data gathering procedure, it can't represent the production of real conversation. Therefore, it was recommended including the context of the full speech event or conversation in future studies.
Furthermore, for future study, random subject selection instead of the intact group design and more subjects were needed to help put the research on firmer grounds and to make the
claims more generalizable. Additionally, identification of students' pronunciation difficulties might not necessarily lead to the dramatic improvement of their pronunciation, but rather can only constitute a prerequisite for teachers in creating actual teaching activities. In other words, whether pronunciation teaching could become effective or not largely depended on how teachers can utilize the results of learners' difficulties in designing the teaching materials or activities that helped students improve their pronunciation. Hence, in addition to teaching accurate production of discrete sounds, more emphasis should be given to learners themselves to the broader, more learner-centered communicative aspect of speech so that it can reflect the spirit of learners' autonomy and help EFL students produce more comprehensible output.
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The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of
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Author information
Shu-Chu Chen is an Instructor, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology & Ph.D student, National
Chengchi University, Taiwan.
Ming-Nuan Yang is an Associate Professor, Chang Gung Institute of Technology.
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