The Effectiveness of Interactive Instruction on the Intonation Learning of Chinese College Learners/EFFICACITÉ DE L'INSTRUCTION INTERACTIVE DANS L'APPRENTISSAGE DE L'INTONATION DES APPRENANTS DES UNIVERSITÉS CHINOISES

Abstract: The paper reported the findings from the study on the different effects of two form-focused instructional techniques on the EFL learner's learning of English intonation. The purposes are to investigate: 1) do the intonation instructions reset EFL leaner's interlanguage phonology, e.g., improving their intonation? ; and 2) if there were some improvements of the interlanguage phonology through the pronunciation instruction, do two types of explicit instruction, differing in the manner of instruction, have the same or different effects on EFL leaner's learning of English intonation? To which extent, the instruction is better than the other. The examination of F0 range and pitch contour in the study indicated that 1) most of the Chinese test subjects could improve their intonation performance after the instructions; 2) the experimental group input plus interaction(II) outperformed the experimental group input plus explanation(IE). The gain in intonation awareness leads to their (II group) significant improvement in the prosodic performance. Key words: Intonation instruction, cognitive approach, communicative approach Resume: Le present article reporte les resultats d'etude sur les differents effets de deux techniques d'enseignement focalisees sur la forme dans l'apprentissage de l'intonation anglaise des etudiants qui ont l'anglais comme langue etrangere (EFL). Le but de l'article consiste a investiguer : (1) Est-ce que l'instruction d'intonation influence la phonologie de l'interlangage des apprenants d'EFL, par exemple, ameliorer leur intonation ? (2) S'il y a des ameliorations de la phonologie de l'interlangage par l'instruction de prononciation, est-ce que les deux type d'instruction explicites, differant l'un de l'autre dans la maniere d'instruction, ont les memes ou differents effets sur l'apprentissage de l'intonation anglaise des apprenants. Dans cette mesure, l'instruction est meilleure que l'autre. L'etude indique : (1) la plupart des tests chinois peuvent ameliorer leur intonation apres l'instruction ; (2) le groupe experimental qui insiste sur l'interaction (II) depasse le groupe experimental qui met l'accent sur l'explication(IE). L'avantage du groupe II dans l'intonation les conduit a des progres signifiants dans la performance prosodique. Mots-Cles: instruction d'intonation, approche cognitive, approche communicative (ProQuest: ... denotes text missing in the original.) (ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) INTRODUCTION For many years, many SLA literatures that investigates the topic of critical periods in L2 learning, and particularly in pronunciation, suggest that pronunciation interventions in the L2 classroom are ineffective, which a foreign accent is inevitable (Flege, Munro & Mackay 1995; Hakuta & Wiley, 2003). However, with the increasing studies on the effectiveness of SLA instruction, a number of L2 pronunciation researchers appeared to claim that classroom instruction can better the pronunciation of learners (Denying, Munro, & Wiebe, 1998). Pennington and Ellis (2000) claimed that the classroom instruction should involve the systematic treatments to draw L2 learners' attention to phonetic forms to develop well-balanced phonological competence. Looking at an English as a foreign language ( EFL) classroom in China, L2 pronunciation researchers acknowledged the effects of the instruction on the pronunciation learning(Chen, 2002; Feng & Wu, 2000) and few researchers have examined which instruction approaches could better the learning of pronunciation, say, the communicative approach or the cognitive instructional approach. Most importantly, we need to know more about how and why classroom instruction promotes L2 phonological development. To obtain the data for this issue, the study investigated how the two form-focused instructions, in which input was enhanced by the teacher feedback and that by the interactions, affected L2 pronunciation learning. …

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