king memorizing new words not easy and making students become more independent when studying as well as making students become polarized. For example, under the circumstance of without having the knowledge of English phonetic symbol, the majority of English beginners in China tend to use Chinese phonetic alphabet to help themselves memorize new English words as they think Chinese phonetic alphabet is similar to English phonetic alphabet; however, the truth is that the way to pronounce English alphabet is different from the way to pronounce Chinese alphabet, and thus those English learners are not able to completely recognize and pronounce words accurately. Moreover, Li (2010) also indicates that the current situation of Chinese middle school students’ pronunciation learning is not ideal even may lead to bad influence on students’ further English studying. According to Li’s teaching experience, most Chinese middle school students especially the seventh grade students could not pronounce the words with English phonetic symbol and do not know the corresponding relationship between each alphabet in a word and pronunciation of the word (e.g.most students pronounce “sanks” instead of “thanks” results from they do not know “th” normally pronounce like /θ/ in a word.). Apart from the problem that teaching materials have, there also exists another two factors that may cause less emphasis on pronunciation teaching and learning in English classes in Chinese middle schools. According to Zheng and Lin (2002), one is the lack of sound English education system in China which can be explained as there is no need to pay great attention to pronunciation teaching and learning as pronunciation would not be tested in some important examinations in China, and another one could be attributed to the teacher’s competence and the student’s motivation.
1.2 Aims of the Project项目目标
It is true that most Chinese middle school students consider English as a subject which is as the same as Chinese and Mathematics; however, English seem to be difficult to learn for some students results from various factors such as the differences between Chinese and English and learning environment as well as students’ self motivation. Pronunciation has always been seen as the neglected part of the teaching and learning of English, however it plays an important role in English learning. It could be said that there do exists problems of pronunciation teaching and learning in Chinese middle school. This project aims at finding out reasons and ways to improve pronunciation teaching in Chinese middle school.
1.3 Organization of the Professional Enquiry专业调查组织
There are mainly four parts in the professional enquiry. In the first part, a literature review of related issues will be demonstrated. It will give the definition of phonology and pronunciation initially. Next, it will talk about pronunciation teaching and learning from five aspects, which includes discussing whether pronunciation should be taught or not, giving the explanation of intelligibility and comprehensibility in terms of pronunciation, revealing the importance of pronunciation teaching and learning and demonstrating the roles of teachers and learners when teaching and learning pronunciation as well as indicating the goals of pronunciation tea
