Graduation Thesis ☆ May 30

What results do I expect???

Teachers may not teach Sound Box.
I think some of the English teachers don't teach pronunciation using Sound Box. When I did student teaching I skipped teaching Sound Box as well since I didnt have enough time to teach it. Also, I felt teaching Sound Bow was a little bit difficult since I didnt have confident in my ability of pronunciation.

Students may hesitate to read the sentences like native speakers.
When I teach English at cram school, a lot of students hesitate to pronunce English like native speakers. I think some of them are too shy to speak English like English. I think they might do well for intonation, linking, and pause, but I think it might be hard for them to pronunce "r", "th", and "v" correctly.

Graduation Thesis ★ May 30

My methodology for the research.

I'm going to evaluate the pronunciation sections using my rubric.
Also I'm going to give a small reading text to students and see how they pronunce the sentences and how they mastered Sound Box.

[Reading Test]
I want to give a reading test to 10 9th grade students I teach English at the cram school from different junior high school.

1) Check Point
Segmental phoneme
Linking
Accent, Stress, Rhythm
Intonation
Pause


2) Examples of the reading test

A: Which do you like better, vegetables or meat ?
B: I like vegetables. How about you?
A: Me, too. I eat a lot of vegetables. Can you eat tomatos? I want to make a tomato cake to welcome you to our house.
B: That's great. Thank you.


Linking: about you [NH2SB3], lot of[NH2SB1], can you[NH2SB1]
accent, stress, rhythm: 質問内容に対する答えの強調 [NH2SB2],
Intonation: 疑問文の音調（A or B？） [NH1SB3], 疑問文の音調[NH1SB1]
Pause: コンマ前の区切り、不定詞の副詞用法の前での区切り[NH2SB4]
segmental phoneme: "v, th, r"の発音[NH2SB5], "tomato, cake"の発音

3) questionnaire
- When did you start learning English?
- Do you go to English Conversation school?
- Does your school English teacher teach Sound Box?
- Do you like learning English?
- Do you want to speak English like native speakers?
- How do you practice pronunciation at school?
- How do you practice pronunciation at home? ... etc

Graduation Thesis ★ May 9

My Rubric
1) Segmental phoneme
2) Linking
3) Accent, Stress, Rhythm
4) Intonation
5) Pause

I decided to use these rubrics to evaluate Sound Box. Because I read a couple books and every book mentioned almost the same areas of pronunciation.

Graduation Thesis ★ May 9, 2007

What are different areas of pronunciaton?

学習指導要領
・　現代の標準的な発音(segmental phoneme)
・　語と語の連結による音の変化(linking, Assimilation, Elision, weakening)
・　語、句、文における基本的な強勢(accent, stress, rhythm)
・　文における基本的なイントネーション(inotnation)
・　文における基本的な区切り(pause)

渡辺和幸(1994). 英語のリズム・イントネーション指導. 大修館書店
・　文の区切り方(pause)
・　語、句の強勢(accent)
・　文強勢とノーマル・ストレス(stress)
・　強勢移動と音声変化(stress, linking)
・　リズムとイントネーション(rhythm, intonation)

畑中 考實・久松 豊（1997）.　最新英語教育法. 成美堂
・　個々の音の正確な発音に慣れること
・　機能語の弱形に慣れる
・　内容語の弱形節
・　同化作用
・　無声化と有声化
・　Stress, rhytm, intonation

Hewing, M.(2004) Pronunciation Practice Activities. Cambridge
Higher priority features of proninciation to teach
・ Consonants　
・ Consonant clusters
・ Vowel length (ex. tins, teens)
・ Word Stress (ex. BABYsit, babySIT)
・ Tonic words (ex. A: Was it expensive? B: QUITE expensive.)
Lower Priority features of pronunciation teach
・ The exacy shape of vowels
・ Weak and strong forms
・ Using features of connected speech
・ Tones
・ The overall pitch of the voice

岡秀夫・赤池秀代・酒井志延（2004）. A Manual for Improving the Teaching Ability of English Teachers. 大修館書店
・単音：　母音、子音、子音の連続
・音声変化：　連続(Linking)、同化(Assimilation)、脱落(elision)、弱化(weakening)
・プロソディー：　文強勢、リズム、イントネーション

Graduation Thesis ★ May 9, 2007

Linking リンキング
NH1SB5(p97): get up, did you, went to, at two
NH2SB1(p9): gave it, lot of, can you, get it
NH2SB3(p27): want to, use it, could you, read it, about you
NH3SB3(p25): don't you, could you, did you

Pause 区切り
NH2SB4(p45): 接続詞の前、副詞句後
NH3SB2(p17): 不定詞の副詞的用法前、従属節（コンマ）後、接続詞の前

Graduation Thesis ★ May 9, 2007

New Horizon 1 's Sound Box
SB1(p31): 疑問文の音調（be動詞＆一般動詞の疑問文）
SB2(p55): 疑問文の音調（疑問詞で始まる疑問文）
SB3(p71): 疑問文の音調 (A or B?)
SB4(p89): 文における強勢　リズム
SB5(p97)： リンキング

※その他、New Horizon1でのみ、基本練習の項目で●印で強勢を表している。

New Horizon 2's Sound Box
SB1(p9): リンキング
SB2(p17): 文における強勢　
SB3(p27): リンキング
SB4(p45): 文の区切り
SB5(p55): Tongue Twister/ f&v, s&-, t&-
SB6(p63): 母音の発音???
SB7(p81): 音調???

New Horizon3's Sound Box
SB1(p9): 文における強勢　リズム
SB2(p17): 文の区切り
SB3(p25): リンキング
SB4(p45): 台詞文後の音調
SB5(p55)： 聞き返す際の音調
SB6(p63)： thatの発音???

What I found out...
- In 7th grade New Horizon they don't use IPA.　They only use IPA in the end of the book.
- They don't teach how to pronunce "r" and "l".
- They changed how to teach rhythm from "ター" to "●".
- I thought they should teach the difference between denizen and English. (ex. ボタン vs. button)

Graduation Thesis ★ May 6

1) My central question
"Which areas of pronunciation does the New Horizon Sound Box cover and what implications does this have for students' pronunciation development?"

2) Summary of the article I found this week
I found a really useful article called "発音教育をめぐる教育環境 -入門期の発音指導の現状" by 山本久仁子.
She investigated how the English textbooks (New Horizon, Total English, and One World English Course) of 7th grade deal with pronunciation and analyzed with 5 areas of pronunciation(Segmental Phoneme, Accent, Intonation, Pause, and Linking). She found that every textbook teaches the phoneme of each words well, but she figured that the teaching of suprasegmental phoneme is not enough for the English to communicate with foreign people. Each textbook have different approaches to teach intonation and stress, and especially New Horizon is making a new attack on the teaching the pronunciation.

3) How does this article relate to my thesis?
I want to investigate only about New Horizon becasue it is one of the most widely used textbook in Japan(it has a circulation of 2,000,000 in 1998). Also I want to analyze not only 7th grade but also 8th&9th grade textbooks to know how it teaches different areas of pronunciation in each grades. I still don't know how many areas of pronunciation I am going to use to analyze but I am sure the way she analyzed the textbooks will help my analysis.