起始年齡、PI教學法與外語音韻習得

Onset Age, Processing Instruction, and Foreign Language Phonological Acquisition

本研究旨在探討三個問題：（1）學習英語之起始年紀與台灣大學生對兩個英文母音（/I/ & /iy/）的感受及發音能力之關聯性；（2）外語習得領域中，對於聲音的感受能力與發音能力之間的優勝劣敗；（3）Processing Instruction（PI）此教學法對於改善晚學且低成就之英語學習者對於上述兩個母音之感受及發音能力改善之成效。研究對象為北台灣一所私立大學26位英語系學生。透過研究者所設計之英語母音聽力與發音測驗以及語言學習背景問卷來評估受試者對於受測母音之感受與發音能力及收集其開始學習英語之年齡。在本實驗的第二階段中，研究者由上述測驗的結果中，隨意挑選五位晚學英語且兩項受測成績低於平均值之學生，給予為期兩個禮拜的母音感受訓練（基於PI教學法）。本研究結果顯示：（1）受試學生學習英語之起始年紀僅與其對該兩母音之感受能力有顯著關聯性，而此關聯性並無延伸至其發音能力上；（2）受試學生對於受測母音之感受能力顯著優於其發音能力；（3）雖然PI教學法無法完全幫助晚學且低成就之學生達到像英語系國家人民之精確感受及發音程度，但至少顯著性地大大改善他們這兩方面的能力。

This study primarily investigated the following three questions: 1) the correlation of onset age of exposure to formal English instruction to Taiwanese university EFL learners' perception and production of two English vowels (/I/ and /iy/); 2) the relationship between FL perception and pronunciation; and 3) the effectiveness of Processing Instruction (PI) in improving late and low-proficiency EFL learners' perception and production of the two English vowels. In the first part of this study, a total of twenty-six English majors from a private university in Taiwan participated in this research. They were given a listening identification test and a pronunciation test to measure their perception and production of the vowels (/I/ and /iy/). The collected data were analyzed via SPSS along with their language background information (such as their onset age of learning English) obtained from the questionnaire administered to them. In the second part, five late and low-proficiency EFL participants were selected to receive a two-week perceptual intervention based on a teaching approach, Processing Instruction (PI), to examine the effectiveness of applying PI to the teaching of FL perception. The results of this study showed that 1) in the FL context, the earlier the Taiwanese university EFL learners started to learn English, the more accurately they could perceive the two English vowels (/I/ and /iy/). However, this relationship did not extend to their production of the vowels; 2) the Taiwanese university EFL participants perceived the two English vowels significantly better than produced them, which suggested that FL perception precedes production; 3) although the five selected late and low-proficiency Taiwanese university EFL participants did not reach a native or native-like perception and production of the vowels, they significantly enhanced their accuracies in perceiving and even producing the vowels. PI was, therefore, proved to be effective in teaching FL phonology.