毕业论文——同伴辅导教学
学号：0705114064
“同伴辅导”对提高英语专业新生英语发音的
作用研究
——以河师大外国语学院英语教育专业08、09级学生的实验为例
学院名称：外国语学院
专业名称：英语教育
年级班别：2007 级8 班
姓名：李鹏宇
指导教师：王彩琴
2011年 4 月
A Study on the Influence of “Peer T utoring
Program” in Improving English Pronunciation of the Freshmen in English
Major
—A Trial in Grade 08&09 students of the Faculty of the International Studies in Henan Normal University
A Thesis Submitted
to Faculty of International Studies of
Henan Normal University
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts
By
Li Pengyu
Supervisor：W ang Caiqin
March 24th, 2011
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all those who have given me their generous helps, commitment and enthusiasm, which have been the major driving force to complete the current paper. This thesis based on a scientific research item “The detection and cou nter plan to the incorrect pronunciation of English major freshmen” which was guided by Li Wenzhong, the president of the Faculty of International Studies and lead by Wang Zhenxing（王振兴）, a junior of English major, this item contains three other English major students, Tang Hongwei（汤宏伟）, Li Jingchao（李竞超）and Jiao Jian（焦健）. Besides, we asked many freshmen of English major to help us to carry out this research. Every member takes his great effort to this item and makes a significant contribution to it. As an elder student, I have a prior chance to take a conclusion and write a thesis. So, I should praise all the members of our team who taught me the importance and benefits of teamwork, and thank the freshmen who took part in our research item.
Finally, I should appreciate my great respect and tribute to my tutor, Professor Wang Caiqin; she gave me the most help in this thesis.
摘要
语音是语言的基础，我国高校英语专业无一例外的对新生进行语音训练。在此背景下，为了找到一条切实有效的训练方法，考虑到在学术界有一定影响的“同班辅导教学”模式，并基于河南师范大学外国语学院国家级创新性实验项目—“英语专业学生发音困难的跟踪调查及对策研究”，笔者通过对河南师范大学英语专业08、09级新生随机分组进行语音采集分析，对实验组采取同伴辅导教学活动。
本文简要介绍了同伴辅导的历史和理论背景，并描述了在2009~2010学年秋季进行的该项活动的过程和结果，总共分为三个过程：准备阶段、辅导阶段和评估阶段。通过对本次教学活动的分析和讨论，结果显示，不难看出，作为一种自主学习的模式，同伴辅导对于解决英语专业学生发音困难有积极作用。
关键字：自主学习；同伴辅导；发音困难；语音训练；
Abstract
As the basis of langue and interpersonal communication, the correct pronunciation is prerequisite and the training is widely proceeding without exception. In this background, to find a useful way to train them and consider that the “Peer Tutoring Program” is really have a great impact in education circle, we took a peer tutoring trial on the testee, which based on the nation innovational research item, then took a sound collecting and analysis after a random allocation to them.
This article introduces the history and background of the “Peer Tutoring Program” briefly, and describes the process and result of this trial in the autumn in 2009-2010, there are three stages in this trial: preparing stage, tutoring stage and assessing stage. It’s easy to find that the peer tutoring program which as a autonomous learning model has a positive effect to solve the incorrect pronunciation problem of the freshmen in English major after the analysis.
Key word s: autonomous learning; Peer Tutoring Program; incorrect pronunciation; pronunciation training;
Table of Contents Acknowledgements (Ⅰ)
摘要 (Ⅱ)
Abstract (Ⅲ)
Table of Contents (Ⅳ)
Introduction (1)
Chapter 1 General Principles (2)
ⅠThe background and emotions of our research (2)
ⅡThe general frame of the study (2)
Chapter 2 The history and background of the “Peer Tutoring Program” (2)
Chapter 3 The process of the “Peer Tutoring Program” which took in Henan Normal University in
2009 (5)
1 Preparing stage (6)
2 Tutoring stage (10)
3 Assessing stage (10)
Chapter 4 T he discussion and achievements of the “Peer Tutoring Program” (11)
Chapter 5 Conclusion (17)
Bibliography (20)
Introduction
The abroad expert had started the autonomous learning towards foreign language and got a
lot of research and discussion since the 1970s. While the local scholar expects after beginning from the 80's in 20th century to the discussion of English independence study and gets a value and expands in the end of 90's. Most of them confirm the positive effect of cultivating the ability of autonomous learning in the education of University English, and discuss about the training methods in different perspective, Almost 71% them are theory introduction, while 29% of them are based on their empirical studies. The research target is confined within the middle and primary school students, open universities and Night College students, at the same time, their research scope is focused on the features of the autonomous learning class, lacking of the empirical studies which aim at a certain abilities about the developing of autonomous learning in English majors. So, some researchers who have studied the foreign language education in universities for many years believe that it’s especially important to learn the autonomous learning methods for the foreign language students.
A Study on the Influence of “Peer T utoring Program” in Improving English Pronunciation of the English
Major Freshmen
—A Trial in Grade 08&09 students of the Faculty of the International Studies in Henan Normal University
Chapter 1 General principles
Ⅰ The background and emotion of our research
Thus, as we said in the Introduction, we, who belongs to the “The detection and counter plan to the incorrect pronunciation of English major freshmen” item, took a tracking survey to the underway “Peer Tutoring Program” in Henan Normal University for hal f a year, aiming to know whether it is suitable to solve the incorrect pronunciation problem of English major freshmen and try to find and solve some problems which happened in the process to make it better.
Ⅱ The general frame of the study
This article will describe the following details:
1. The history and background of the “Peer Tutoring Program”;
2. The process of the “Peer Tutoring Program” which was taken in Henan Normal University in 2009;
3. The discussion and achievements of the “Peer Tutoring Program”.
4. Conclusion
Chapter 2 The history and background of the “Peer Tutoring Program”
The first recorded use of an organized, systematic peer tutorial learning project in the Western World didn't come about until the late 1700's. Arising from school budget woes in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, peer tutoring became an effective way of giving underprivileged (at this time, sadly, only male) children a reasonable shot at an education. The first systematic approach to peer tutoring is credited to Andrew Bell, who was the superintendent of the Military Male Asylum at Egmore, in England (Goodlad et. al. 23). When Bell took the reins at this
institution, the asylum was run as a school for boys whose fathers had been killed during wartime. Bell transformed the asylum into more of an official school.
Many teachers feel that they do not have enough time in the school day to work one-on-one with every student. Peer Tutoring is a way for all students to get one-on-one help and enough time to practice and learn. For Peer Tutoring, every student in the class is paired with another. The teacher writes lessons that one student uses to teach or tutor another. During the tutoring, one student explains the work to another student, asks the student to answer questions, and tells the student whether his or her answers are correct.
Peer tutoring is usually considered less threatening and intimidating. There are many benefits for both the peer tutor and tutee in this relationship, one aspect of this is that the tutor can establish a rapport with the tutee in a way that a teacher cannot. A peer tutor may have taken the same class recently, or have taken similar classes.
Because the peer tutor is seen by the tutee as being more at their own levels, advice given by the tutor may be accepted more readily than advice from a teacher. Another key reason for this is that a peer tutor does not give any grade on the paper, whereas a teacher serving in a tutor role may still be perceived as someone who grades papers.
Peer tutors can be trained through on-the-job training, as well as through formal workshops. New tutors can be paired with more experienced tutors for their first few tutorials, and after the tutors are satisfied that the new tutors can operate alone they can give one-on-one tutoring. A key aspect of tutor training is the reflection on tutorials with other tutors. This reflection looks at what could have gone better as well as the tutor's progress in giving tutorials.
There is a realistic example of the “Peer Tutoring Program” in the River East Collegiate in Canada and they said, “The Peer Tutoring Program is a service runnel by the students, for the students. Students with an average of 80% or higher in a course offer their talents by signing up for this program in hopes of helping other students meet their goals. This service is available to all grades for both tutoring and being tutored. Once a tutor and a tutee are matched up they simply choose a specific time to meet and then they are all ready to go. The program is monitored by the River East Collegiate resource teacher. Students who volunteer to be a tutor are awarded by the school at the end of the year.” But there is no English learning example for the Chinese students.
In higher education tutorial settings, the benefits of peer tutoring programs also extend to class
tutors (a website about peer tutoring at RMIT University). Using grounded theory techniques, it was found that the following five themes underlie their experiences: role exploration, sharing responsibility, regulation of the peer tutored groups, harnessing the peer tutors’ role and community (see article for further detail).
ESL training can be separated from regular tutor training as a subject that contains special difficulties that must be dealt with on their own. Tutoring in an Online Writing Lab can also be separated from normal training.
The critical importance of youth having the opportunity to participate in meaningful roles such as youth-helping-youth is a salient factor in preventing social problems, including substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and delinquency. The need exists to expand the opportunity to have all students experience the helping role. The new model:
* Calls for in-depth preparation and training of peer tutors and their ongoing reflection on the tutoring process;
* Removes the negativity usually associated with receiving help, since all students participate in giving and receiving help;
* Sees being a tutee as preparation for becoming a tutor;
* Leads to the creation of student-centered, peer-focused schools (Gartner, 1992). (An ancillary aim is the spread of other peer opportunities: peer mentoring, peer mediation, peer education, peer helping.)
Above all, a peer tutor is anyone who is of a similar status as the person being tutored. In an undergraduate institution this would usually be other undergraduates, as distinct from the graduate students who may be teaching the writing classes; in a K-12 school this is usually a student from the same grade or higher. There are some basic rules to establishing your peer tutoring program, the key to success is a clear objective. Thorough planning and evidence gathering activities will contribute to substantiation of the decisions you will make.
Zimmerman believes that the emotion of the autonomous learning should be inherent and self-motivated essentially, the study process should be planned, the students could realized the results of the autonomous learning, and control themselves in the course. Some local researchers took a conclusion about the common features of autonomous learning (as follows) based on Zimmerman’s viewpoint. We can find that “Peer Tutoring Program” suits these common
features.
At the same time, the “Peer Tutoring Program” could teach students the methods of autonomous learning and give them more free learning time according to Sinclair Goodlad and Beverley Hirst’s studies, besides, it takes great advantage of ameliorating the relationship between the peer tutor and tutee.
With all the above viewpoints and comparison, it could not only cultivate the dependence and autonomy of the students, but also come up with a new way to solve the incorrect pronunciation problem which puzzled the English major students for a long time by taking the peer tutoring program into phonic work.
Chapter 3 The process of the “Peer Tutoring Program” which took in Henan Normal University in 2009
As we all know, we can’t have a convenient or correct conversation unless we learn the pronuncia tion well. However, in the research, we found that most freshmen don’t have the ability to pronunciation correctly because of the influence of the exam-oriented education, much of the worse score’s students in the research admit that they missed the practi ce of voice to get more higher mark, while it need not consider the score, so they can have more chance to improve their ability of pronunciation.
There are three main stages of the Peer Tutoring Program in Henan Normal University in 2009-2010, which a re “Preparing Stage”, “Tutoring Stage”, and “Assessing Stage”. The total time of this item is set into one semester (from April to June in 2010) by considering the lack of longitudinal empirical study to the English major students’ autonomous learning by n ow.
1. Preparing Stage (April in 2010)
The preparing stage is just like a RPG game, some people play the role of the tutor while some others play the role of the testee. The former contains 191 students from grade 2008, 12 freshmen from grade 2009 and 9 postgraduates (212 people of all), the latter contains 271 freshmen from grade 2009 and five students from grade 2008 (276 people of all).
The tutor and the testee are both come into being by two approaches which are voluntary application and recommend ed by the English course teacher, then the members of our “The detection and counter plan to the incorrect pronunciation of English major freshmen” scientific research item take a random sampling to the students who take part in this program as the testee by considering the English course teachers’ advices, then we take a voice pronunciation collecting work as long as a week to 78 students whose pronunciation problem is obviously serious before the beginning of this program.
TESTEE: The testee is divided into two classes, the Experimental Group and the Control Group completely random (). The former group is to get the training while the latter group will not. Each group has 138 persons and the 78 students whose pronunciation problem is obviously serious are also divided into the two groups completely random (each group has 39 persons). In the total item project, the Experimental Group people are asked not to tell another group that they are getting training and told that another group people are getting the same training while the Control Group people will be asked to learn the book English Pronunciation Exercises by themselves in a certain place at a certain time to avoid the Pygmalion Effect (The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, refers to the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, often children or students and employees, the better they perform. The effect is named after Pygmalion, a Cypriot sculptor in a narrative by Ovid in Greek mythology, who fell in love with a female statue he had carved out of ivory. The Pygmalion effect is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy, and, in this respect, people with poor expectations internalize their negative label, and those with positive labels succeed accordingly. Within sociology, the effect is often cited with regards to education and social class. — Which is said in the Wikipedia ).
The content of the voice pronunciation collecting work is based on the book English Pronunciation Exercises which is edited by Zhang Guanlin who is a vice professor of the English Major in Beijing Normal University. The test is divided into three parts named vowel,
consonant, and rule of reading and the skill of pronunciation. The location of this test is in a quiet classroom. We will give the students questionnaire before the test to build a basic information file. The students have five minutes to know well the content without knowing it before which not only make sure the authenticity of this test but also make the students show their true ability. The people who are in charge of the test are ordered not to show their feelings and emotions while being in test to avoid the experimenter effect (is a term used to describe any of a number of subtle cues or signals from an experimenter that affect the performance or response of subjects in the experiment. The cues may be unconscious nonverbal cues, such as muscular tension or gestures. They may be vocal cues, such as tone of voice. Research has demonstrated that the expectations and biases of an experimenter can be communicated to experimental subjects in subtle, unintentional ways and that these cues can significantly affect the outcome of the experiment ---Rosenthal 1998.
Robert Rosenthal has found that even slight differences in instructions given to control and experimental groups can affect the outcome of an experiment. Different vocal intonations, subtle gestures, even slight changes in posture, might influence the subjects.)
All the voice data is saved in the matching file. Then we members of the scientific research item will take the work of transferring the voice data into text data after getting a training of the theoretical course of the voice. The following is the standard of the transferring.
A.Vowel
It contains the Jaw Height, the Tongue Position, and the Lip Configuration; they could be described to the words: Lower/Higher, Front/ Central/Back, Round/Unrounded. Among the former three standards, the Tongue Position is the most difficult and important, for the front, center, and back of the tongue are distinguished, as are four levels of tongue height:
●The highest position the tongue can achieve without producing audible friction (high or
close);
●The lowest position the tongue can achieve (low or open); and
●Two intermediate levels, dividing the intervening space into auditorily equivalent areas
(mid-high or open-mid, and mid-low or close-mid). (Crystal, 1997;155-156)
The IPA system defines eight “primary” cardinal vowels, in relation to which a further set of “secondary” cardinal vowels can b e defined. By convention, the eight primary cardinal vowels
are numbered from one to eight as follows: CV1 [i], CV2 [e], CV3 [?], CV4 [a], CV5 [ɑ], CV6 [?], CV7 [o], CV8 [u]. The first five of these are unrounded vowels while CV6, CV7, and CV8 are rounded ones.
B.Constant
The categories of constant are established on the basis of several factors and the most important of these factors are: (a) the actual relationship between the articulators thus the way in which the air passes through certain parts of the vocal tract, and (b) where in the vocal tract there is approximation, narrowing, or the obstruction of air. The former is known as the Manner of Articulation and the latter as the Place of Articulation. Besides, there is another part called the Work of V ocal Cords which can be described as V oiceless/V oiced.
The MANNER OF ARTICULA TION refers to ways in which articulation can be accomplished: (a) the articulation may close off the oral tract for an instant or a relatively long period; (b) they may narrow the space considerably; or (c) they may simply modify the shape of the tract by approaching each other. It contains STOP/NASAL/FRICA TIVE/APPROXIMANT/LA TERAL/TRILL/TAP and FLAP/AFFRICA TE. And it can be described to Plosive/Fricative/Affricative/Nasal/Glide.
The PLACE OF ARTICULA TION refers to the point where a constant is made. Practically constants may be produced at any place between the lips and the vocal folds. Eleven places of articulation are distinguished on the IPA chart as following: BILABIAL, LABIODENTAL, DENTAL, ALVEOLAR, POSTALVEOLAR, RETROFLEX, PALA TAL, VELAR, UVULAR, PHARYNGEAL, GLOTTAL. And it can be described to Bilabial/Labiodental/Dental/Alveolar/ Alv-palatal/V elar/Glottal/Bi-velar/ Lingua-palata/Retroflex-alveolar/Glottal-labiovelar.
Now the constants of English can be described in the following way:
[p] V oiceless bilabial stop
[b] V oiced bilabial stop
[s] V oiceless alveolar fricative
[z] V oiced alveolar fricative
C.The skills of pronunciation
While in our research item, we usually label the testees’ sound with the XML as follows:
<1> Head information make-up
of the transferring”, “the ID number”, “the disk number”, “the end of the transferring”.
for male
<2> Discourse information tagging
[1] Turn: it refers to the amount of words one speaker say in one talk, it expressed by
[2] Repeat: it doesn’t need to label designedly, just to writ e the words that are repeated;
[3] Pause: in the system of labeling, a short pause (about 2-3 seconds) is expressed by
“…” while a longer pause is expressed by “……”
[4] Cramped voice: the words that are difficult to understand are exp ressed by “?”, and
one “?” stands for one syllable.
<.3> Mispronunciation tagging
At first, we should confirm the tagging scheme, the treatment to four basic errors are as follows, [1] Wrong pronunciation: which is expressed with “W”, and t hen labeling the words that are mispronounced after “W”;
[2] Plus pronunciation: It is expressed with “P” before the syllables that are added with a “-” between them.
[3] Sound absorbing, it’s called slurring words, too, which is expressed with a “M” befor e the syllables that are slurred.
[4] Stress displacement which means that the stress is altered or changed. It is expressed with an “S” before a number which stands for the syllable that is moved uncorrected.
TUTOR: All the “tutors” learned the followin g training course before the item:
[1] How to motivate and keep the enthusiasm of the both;
[2] How to take the autonomous tutorship by using every kind of sources effectively;
[3] How to describe the project of the tutorship normatively (filling in the KWL form
correctly);
[4] Some basic skills of communication.
To make sure the quantity of the tutorship, it’s formulated by the representative of the tutor and the testee that the meeting number of the tutor and the testee should be no less than two every week and the total time should be no less than 3 hours. Besides, to confirm that every testee could have the same tutoring time by consider the extraneous variable, the total time is limited into 8 hours in a week and the tutoring time should be regular such as take a settled schedule. .
2. T utoring S tage (May and June in 2010)
At this stage, we did the following work,
1. Autonomous tutoring between the tutors and the testee;
2. The excogitation and organization of the tutoring project: the English Island and the Experience Exchanging Meeting. The aim of the English Island is to offer a open and weekly English communication platform to the students who take part in the program. The Experience Exchanging Meeting is hold every two weeks which aims to talk over and solve the problems such as the skills of tutoring, the best way to make use of the book and some other problems met in the project;
3. The monitoring of the quantity and progress of the tutoring: it’s mainly to ok by the KWL Form (one piece of per head and weekly) and the trace of the reports that the tutors handed in. at the same time, we five interviewed the 78 students (in each group) every week to note their improvement of their pronunciation and put forward relevant advises.
3. The Assessing Stage
After the tutoring program, we collect the sound data again to all the students in the same environment with the same standards immediately and take an assessing about this program by consult the contents of the KWL Form, the reports of the tutors and the interview data.
By now, the total program is end and the following is the result, discussion and achievement to
it.
Chapter 4 The discussion and achievements of the “Peer Tutoring Program”
A. The positive effe cts of the “Peer T utoring Program” to solve the testees’ incorrect pronunciation problem
At first, we collect test data of the seventy-eight students in both two groups and take a comparison between them and then get the following forms, in this form, w e list the former three parts of the pronunciation and some details inside them, and then calculate the percentage of the incorrect pronunciation in the total voice pronunciation (nobody pronounced completely wrong after all).
The thirty-nine students who are in the experimental group (in the next page):
The thirty-nine students who are in the control group:
These are the seventy-eight students whose pronunciation is incorrect and uncomfortable obviously, while the other students’ data will not be showed by consider the limit of the article.
Now, let’s compare the two groups that get the different treat. As the forms show, it’s convenient and suitable to calculate the difference between these two of using the Statistics Methods (A common goal for a statistical research project is to investigate causality, and in particular to draw a conclusion on the effect of changes in the values of predictors or independent variables on dependent variables or response. There are two major types of causal statistical studies: experimental studies and observational studies. In both types of studies, the effects of differences of an independent variable on the behavior of the dependent variable are observed. The difference between the two types lies in how the study is actually conducted. Each can be very effective. An experimental study involves taking measurements of the system under study, manipulating the system, and then taking additional measurements using the same procedure to determine if the manipulation has modified the values of the measurements. In contrast, an observational study does not involve experimental manipulation. Instead, data are gathered and correlations between predictors and response are investigated.)