Abstract:
This project aims to develop a corpus-based training program to help teachers, learners and researchers have a better understanding of the major problems in learning English pronunciation by Hong Kong, Mainland Chinese and non-Chinese speakers in Hong Kong. According to Aston (2000), there are basically three fields for which corpus data can be used in English language teaching: a) Introduction: Teaching corpora. Equipping teachers with the basic skills for corpus-based language analysis; b) Exploitation: Helping teachers teach with speech corpus; and c) Transformation: Helping teachers discover ways of using corpora in their teaching. Based on this model, a learners’ pronunciation corpus was expanded and analysed based on the framework built in the previous TDG project. By discovering learners’ pronunciation features through spoken corpora, teachers can identify learners’ recurrent difficulties in using segmental features and suprasegmental features of English and design lessons with that focus on reducing such difficulties.
The project expanded an existing learners’ corpus, revamped a corpus-aided English pronunciation learning website, and developed a corpus-based pronunciation training program for pre- and in-service teachers (including training lesson plans and materials) as well as eleven sets of corpus-based sample lesson plans and teaching materials for primary and secondary students. The research findings and products would inform English language teaching and enhance teaching quality.
Code:
T0200
Principal Project Supervisors:
Keywords provided by authors:
Start Date:
01 May 2018
End Date:
30 Apr 2020
Status:
Completed
Result:
The expanded corpus contains 136 sets of high-quality recordings, providing speech data collected from 20 Hong Kong learners, 96 mainland China learners from 9 dialectal regions (i.e. Mandarin, Yueh, Wu, Kan, Northern Min, Southern Min, Hsiang, Jin, and Hakka) and 20 non-Chinese learners (i.e. Philippino, Pakistan, Indian etc.), who were university students in local universities aged from 18 to 30. For pedagogical purposes, broad phonological annotations of both segmental and suprasegmental features are provided for the users. Frequent phonological features of English pronunciation by different groups of learners are categorized (See Appendix VIII).
A corpus-aided pronunciation teaching framework was developed to integrate the corpus as a tool for teaching English. Eleven sets of lesson plans and teaching materials was developed based on the teaching framework and placed on the learning system website for free access. A teacher training program on using the corpus as a tool in corpus-aided language teaching was developed and delivered by means of workshops and online session. Majority of corpus and website users and training programme participants provided positive evaluation.
Impact:
English learners in Hong Kong are not only local Hong Kongers but also learners from different ethnic groups and from different provinces in mainland Chinese. Given the complexity of language backgrounds and the fact that second language acquisition is influenced by L1, the spoken learner corpus can serve as an effective tool for both teachers and learners. Establishment of the corpus could identify pronunciation problem patterns of English learners in Hong Kong who are local residents, mainland Chinese speakers, and non-Chinese speakers, present speech data and phonological annotations and be used as teaching tools in ESL classrooms. Sample corpus-aided lesson plans and materials could raise teachers’ awareness of the corpus-aided teaching approach. The corpus-aided teacher training program could help pre-service and in-service teachers understand corpus-aided teaching approach and use the spoken learner corpus as a tool to optimize their teaching effectiveness.
Deliverables:
Seminars/Presentations/Sharing Sessions
Chen, H. C. R. (2019, October). A Corpus-aided English Pronunciation Training Programme I, Workshop presented at the Education University of Hong Kong. (Number of participants: 52 participants)(https://repository.eduhk.hk/en/publications/a-corpus-aided-english-pronu...)
Chan, K. Y., & Tian, J. X. (2019, October). A Corpus-aided English Pronunciation Training Programme II. Workshop presented at the Education University of Hong Kong. (Number of participants: 52 participants)(https://repository.eduhk.hk/en/publications/a-corpus-aided-english-pronu...)
Chen, H. C. R., & Tian, J. X. (2019, November) A Corpus-aided English Pronunciation Training Programme III. Workshop presented at the Education University of Hong Kong. (Number of participants: 52 participants) (https://repository.eduhk.hk/en/publications/a-corpus-aided-english-pronu...)
Teaching and Learning Resources/ Materials (including online resources)
Chen, H. C. R. (2019, October). A Corpus-aided English Pronunciation Training Programme Online Session I. Workshop presented via the Schoology Platform. (Number of participants: 106 participants via real-time online streaming) (Video recorded at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utpv48zuPXM)(https://repository.eduhk.hk/en/publications/corpus-aided-english-pronunc...)
Chen, H. C. R. (2019, November). A Corpus-aided English Pronunciation Training Programme Online Session II. Workshop presented via the Schoology Platform. (Number of participants: 106 participants via real-time online streaming) (Video recorded at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utpv48zuPXM) (https://repository.eduhk.hk/en/publications/corpus-aided-english-pronunc...)
Enhancement of the Corpus website (https://corpus.eduhk.hk/esl_learner_corpus/#/home)
Financial Year:
2017-18
Type:
TDG