Proposal rehearsal sze_chuliu 1021216(ver. 2.1)

Effectiveness Evaluation ofLearning Pronunciation WithComputer Assisted Pronunciation Instruction forVocational College Students

Presenter: Sze-Chu LiuAdvisor: Dr. Po-Yi Hung

Committee: Dr. Chin-Ling LeeDr. Chin-Ying Lin

Date: December 31, 2013

Content

Introduction

Literature Review

Methodology

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INTRODUCTION

3

Introduction

Background of the Study

Purposes of the Study

Research Questions

Significance of the Study42013/12/31


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(Education First, 2012)

EF English Proficiency Index 2012

Intermediate-low

30 ■ 台灣 52.42


Region and

Country

Total Reading Listening Speaking Writing

Score Rank Score Rank Score Rank Score Rank Score Rank

Singapore 98 1 24 1 25 1 24 1 25 1

India 91 2 22 2 22 2 24 2 24 2

Republic of Korea 84 8 21 6 21 6 20 19 22 8

Taiwan 78 20 20 9 19 13 20 21 20 21

Japan 70 28 18 23 17 25 17 30 18 30

6(Educational Testing Service, 2013)

Global TOEFL Scores in 2012

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Overall National Comp. Uni-

versities

Private Comp. Universities

National Tech. Universities

Private Tech. Universities

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

557638

567507

434

Average Scores of 2011 TOEIC

Background of the study

7(ETS statistics, 2012)2013/12/31


Common among Asian learners of English

Grammar-Translation Method

Joint University Entrance Examination

8(Cappelle & Curtis, 2000; Jones, 1995;Lin, 1995)

Taiwanese’s poor English speaking skill

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Speaking ability was considered as the one that should be improved by 83.7% of the college students.

University students in higher classes perceived speaking skill as more important than reading.

Most of the college interviewees thought of “poor English pronunciation” as the common problems encountered during English learning.

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(Wang, 2003)

(Chia, Johnson, Chia, & Olive,1999)

(Wu, 2000)


The importance of teaching pronunciation is emphasized by Audioligualism and Oral Approach.

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(Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin, 2010)


Computer assisted language learning has attracted interest from language teachers and learners because it can provide individual instruction and immediate feedback on the correctness of a learner’s response to computerized tasks.

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(Nagata, 1993)


In Taiwan, studies on the effectiveness of applying computer technology to teaching pronunciation have mostly focused on the learners in elementary schools and high schools.

Very few studies on applying computer technology to the pronunciation teaching of vocational college students are conducted.

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(Huang, 2003; Pang, 2005)

Purposes of the Study

To evaluate the effectiveness of learning English pronunciation with computer assisted pronunciation instruction for the students of private technological universities in Taiwan

To investigate the phonological awareness and perception of the participants on the usefulness of computer assisted pronunciation

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Research Questions

RQ1: Is computer assisted pronunciation instruction effective in improving pronunciation quality for students of private technological students?

RQ2: Are the students able to increase the awareness of the feature in their pronunciation after receiving computer assisted pronunciation instruction?

RQ3: Do the students think of computer assisted pronunciation instruction as useful tools to improve their pronunciation?

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Significance of the Study

To improve pronunciation

quality

To inspire passion of learning English

To enhance English

oral skills

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Students of private

technological universities

ComputerAssisted

PronunciationInstruction

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LITERATURE REVIEW

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Literature Review

Components of Teaching Pronunciation

Computer Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT)

Effectiveness of CAPT

Hypotheses

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An central idea of structural linguistics was that the primary medium of language is oral: “Speech is language.”

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(Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 55)


•Individual phones (phonemes)

Segmental

•Stress (force of articulation)

•Intonation (patterns of pitch on words or longer utterances)

•Rhythm(timing)

Suprasegmental

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The aspects of teaching pronunciation

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Segmental features

Phonological errors were the most frequent and the most difficult parts to resolve in inter-language communication.

Adult Japanese learners of English improved their performance at both controlled-speech as well as extemporaneous-speech tasks after receiving explicit instruction on a target sound of English.

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(Jenkins, 2002)

(Saito and Lyster, 2012)

Suprasegmental features

Suprasegmental features (e.g., stress, intonation, rhythm) are the key factors of predicting speakers’ proficiency and comprehensibility.

The suprasegmental instruction seems to provide the learner with skills that can be applied in extemporaneous speech production.

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(Kang, Rubin, & Pickering, 2010)

(Derwing, Munro, & Wiebe, 1998)

Balanced aspects

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Segmental Supraegmental

(Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin, 2010; Derwing,

Munro, & Wiebe, 1998)2013/12/31


Self-paced learning

Patient tutoring

Immediate and individualized instruction

Detailed records of achievement

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(Nunan, 2011)

The advantages of computer-based pedagogy


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Computer Assisted

Pronunciation Training (CAPT)

Exposure tooral demonstrations

Extension of the teacher’s speech in class

Virtual interaction with native speakers

(Derwing & Munro, 2005)2013/12/31

Effectiveness of CAPT

Pronunciation of difficult and unknown words was significantly improved after computer assisted pronunciation training.

Acquisition of second language prosody and generalization to segmental accuracy and novel sentences with automatic visual display of the speaker’s intonation was observed.

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(Neri et al., 2008)

(Hardison, 2004)

Hypotheses

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RQ1: Is computer assisted pronunciation instruction effective in improving pronunciation quality for students of private technological students?

H1: Pronunciation quality of students in a private technological university is significantly improved after computer assisted pronunciation training.

Hypotheses

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H2: The students’ perception on phonological features is increased after a training course using computer assisted pronunciation instruction.


H2: The students’ perception on phonological features is increased after using computer assisted pronunciation training.

Hypotheses

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RQ3: Do the students think of computer assisted pronunciation instruction as useful tools to improve their pronunciation?

H3: The students perceive computer assisted pronunciation instruction as a useful tool to improve their pronunciation after computer assisted pronunciation training.

Hypotheses

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Learning Pronunciation

with CAPT

PronunciationQualityH1

PhonologicalAwareness

H2

Perception onUsefulness

H3

Framework of the Study

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METHODOLOGY

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Methodology

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Experimental Design

Participants

Instruments

Procedures

Pilot Study

Data Analysis

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Experimental Design

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Experimental

GroupControlGroup

Pretest Pretest

12-week MyET No treatment

Posttest Posttest

Compare

Week 14

Week 1

Compare2013/12/31

Participants•No = 70•First-year in a

technological university•Aged 19•Below elementary-level

proficiency •Studied English for at

least 6 years•Chinese native

speakers

EFL Students

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Participants•No. = 3•Teach first-year

General English in the university

•At least 3 years of formal teaching experience

Teachers

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Participants•No. = 3•Expert

judges •To score the

productions of the participants in the pre- and post- tests

Raters

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Class A1

Class B1

Class C2

Participants

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A LevelClass A3

Class A4

College 1 & 2 College 3 College 4

B Level Class B2

Class B3

Class B4

Class B5

Class B6

C Level Class C1 Class C3

Class A2

Class C4

Class A5

Class A6

Class B7

Class B8

Class C5

Class C6

Sampled

Sampling

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~50%

Participants

37

Class B2

Class B6

Class B7

Pretest

Pretest Scores

Matching

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Participants

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Experimental Group Control Group

Class B2

Class B6

Class B7

Equal Pretest Score

Volunteers

Matching

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Instruments

MyET

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Instruments

Stage 1: Database

constructing

Stage 2: Phonic symbol labeling

Stage 3:

Pronunciation comparison

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The Scoring System in MyET

Instruments

•Personal information

Part 1

•Awareness of phonological features (8 items)

•Perceived usefulness (10 items)

Part 2

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Questionnaire

(Hardison, 2005; Tanner & Landon, 2009)

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Procedures

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Pretest TrainingProcedure

Posttest

Training Procedure

Items Experiment group Control groupNumber of samples ~35 ~35

Profile •19-year-old Chinese native speakers •At least 6 years of EFL classes

Course General English (2-credit, 2 hrs/wk)Teacher Same teacher (pairwise)Material Same curriculum and material (pairwise)Teaching activities Same instruction (pairwise)

Treatment 40-minute extra practice per week learning with MyET No extra treatment

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Training procedure•12-week extra-

class learning sessions

•Tasks•Repeating (4

lessons)•Answering

questions (6 lessons)

•Reading aloud(2 lessons)

•Mock tests (8 times)

Learning with MyET

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Testing Procedure

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Students hear:

Students speak and record:

An example item for MyET test

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Testing Procedure

Sentence#1

Sentence #2

Sentence #50

S2S1 S 50

Audio file #1

Audio file #2

Audio file #50

The pronunciation quality of each utterance is scored on a 100-point scale.

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Testing Procedure

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Score

Waveform of teacher’s sound

Waveform of student’s sound

Score of MyET

Pronunciation

Intonation

Fluency

Volume

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Testing Procedure

Item PercentageIndividual sound quality 35%Intonation 25%Fluency 25%Volume 15%

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Human rater’s score

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Pilot Study

Approximately 30 students

Take pretest provided by MyET

Respond to the questionnaire afterwards

Spring 2014

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Data Analysis

•To test the reliability of the scores given by three raters and MyET

•To test the reliability of the questionnaire

Cronbach’s α Test

•To examine the difference of pronunciation improvement•Between pre-

and post- tests

•Between the experimental and control groups

•Between overseas experience of different durations

ANOVA

(F-test)

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H1

Data Analysis

•On the questionnaire results

•To investigate the phonological awareness and perceived usefulness of the students

Descriptive Statistics

•To examine the relationship between phonological awareness, perceived usefulness and the improvement of pronunciation

Regression Analysis

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H2 H3

Thank you for listening!