Explicit phonetic instruction in pronunciation teaching and learning in higher education settings: the case of voiceless dental fricatives /Ɵ/ and rhotics /r/ for Chinese learners of English

• Main Authors: Hamzah, Mohd Hilmi, Mohd Nashuha, Nurul Mardhiah, Abdullah, Abdul Halim
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: L Education (General)
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/22565/1/ICSoTL%202017%20130%20140.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/22565/; http://www.seml.uum.edu.my/images/Proceedings/Proceedings.pdf

In the development of effective pedagogy in English language classrooms, little attention is given to pronunciation teaching and learning, especially in higher education settings in Malaysia.This paper attempts to explore this issue by investigating the pronunciation of Chinese learners of English after receiving an explicit instruction in English phonetics.The subjects were undergraduate Chinese students of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) who were grouped according to their countries of origin, i.e., Malaysia and China. 20 participants were recruited for this study and these participants had two distinct learning backgrounds: [1] English as a second language (ESL) for the Chinese participants from Malaysia; and [2] English as a foreign language (EFL) for the Chinese participants from China. The target phones were voiceless dental fricatives /θ/ and rhotics /r/ that are known to be problematic for both groups of Chinese speakers learning English.The participants’ production of the target phones was measured in a pre-test and post test design using a word-list reading task and technology-enhanced materials, i.e., computer-assisted language learning (CALL).The findings revealed that explicit phonetic instruction facilitated effectively in speech learning improvement. This empirical data will be seen as a contribution to SOTL research in pronunciation teaching and learning.