1	Abstract……………………………………………………………………………..…
3	Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………………………………………………
3	1.0. Introduction………………………………………………………………………
4	1.1. Theoretical Framework……………………………………………………………
6	1.2. Statement of the Problem…………………………………………………………
9	1.3. Significance of the Study…………………………………………………………
10	1.4. Purpose of the Study………………………………………………………………
11	1.5. Research Question of the Study…………………………………………………..
11	1.6. Hypotheses of the study…………………………………………………………..
11	1.7. Definitions of Key Terms…………………………………………………………
12	1.8. Summary………………………………………………………………………………..
16	Chapter 2: Literature Review………………………………………………………..
16	2.0. Introduction………………………………………………………………………
19	2.1. History of listening in ELT……………………………………………………….
23	2.2. Definition of listening by different researchers…………………………………
26	2.3. The importance of listening………………………………………………………
29	2.4. Why is listening difficult…………………………………………………………
32	2.5. How to develop listening…………………………………………………………
35	2.5.1. Bottom-up process in listening……………………………………………..
37	2.5.2. Top down process in listening …………………………………………….
39	2.5.3. Interactive processing in listening………………………………………….
40	2.6. Material for teaching listening……………………………………………………
42	2.7. Designing listening activity for the classroom……………………………………

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

44	2.8. Some obvious and latent problems in L2 listening comprehension………………
45	2.8.1. Fast Speech (Speed of Delivery)……………………………………………
45	2.8.2. Distortion of word boundaries………………………………………………
45	2.8.3.Weak form……………………………………………………………………
46	2.8.4. Elision……………………………………………………………………….
46	2.8.5. Assimilation…………………………………………………………………
47	2.8.6. Gemination…………………………………………………………………
47	2.8.7. Stress and Rhythm……………………………………………………………..
48	2.8.8. Intonation……………………………………………………………………
49	2.9. History of pronunciation in ELT…………………………………………………
53	2.10. Definition and importance of pronunciation……………………………………
54	2.11. Components of pronunciation…………………………………………………..
56	2.11.1. Segmental features of pronunciation………………………………………
58	2.11.2. Suprasegmental features of pronunciation………………………………..
61	2.12. Teaching pronunciation…………………………………………………………
65	2.13. Factors influencing pronunciation learning……………………………………..
65	2.13.1. The role of mother tongue…………………………………………………
66	2.13.2. Age factor………………………………………………………………….
67	2.13.3. Learners attitude and sense of identity……………………………………
68	2.13.4. Motivation…………………………………………………………………
68	2.13.5. Amount and type of prior pronunciation instruction………………………
69	2.14. Pronunciation and contrastive analysis………………………………………….
71	2.15. Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis………………………………………………..
73	2.16. Developing listening by teaching pronunciation………………………………..
74	2.17. Summary…………………………………………………………………………….
75	Chapter 3: Methodology…………………………………………………………….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

75	3.0. Introduction………………………………………………………………………
75	3.1. The design of the study……………………………………………………………
76	3.2. Setting and Participants…………………………………………………………..
78	3.3. Instruments and Materials………………………………………………………..
79	3.4. Data collection procedures……………………………………………………….
83	3.5. Methods of Analyzing Data………………………………………………………
84	3.6. Summary………………………………………………………………………….
85	Chapter 4: Data Analysis……………………………………………………………
85	4.0. Introduction………………………………………………………………………
86	4.1. Data analysis and findings………………………………………………………..
90	4.2. Summary………………………………………………………………………….
92	Chapter 5: Discussion………………………………………………………………..
92	5.0. Introduction………………………………………………………………………
93	5.1. General discussion………………………………………………………………..
93	5.1.1. The experimental group…………………………………………………….
94	5.1.2.The control group……………………………………………………………
95	5.1.3. Difference between the developments of both groups……………………..
97	5.2. Pedagogical Implications…………………………………………………………
99	5.3. Limitations of the study…………………………………………………………..
100	5.4. Suggestion for further research……………………………………………………
100	5.5. Summary………………………………………………………………………….
101	REFERENCE……………………………………………………………………………….
115	Appendix………………………………………………………………………………
116	Appendix A: OPT Test………………………………………………………………..
123	Appendix B: Pre/ Post Tests…………………………………………………………..
132	Appendix C: Treatment……………………………………………………………….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIST OF TABLES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 4-1.The correlation coefficient between the random variables of listening comprehension ability (pre-test) and the independent variables…….	87
Table 4-2: Statistical characteristics of the dependent variable (post-test) of listening comprehension ability in the control and experimental groups…..	88
Table 4-3: Paired T-test to compare the mean difference between pre-test and post-test experimental and control groups…………………………………….	88
Table 4-4: Mean and the rounded mean of listening comprehension ability dependent variable…………………………………………………………….	89
Table 4-5: The correlation coefficient of listening comprehension ability with removing mutual effect in the experimental and control groups………………	89

  

 

LIST OF FIGURES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

یک مطلب دیگر :

بازی های بتل رویال؛ چرا محبوب و چرا دیگر بس است

 

56	Figure1. Features of Pronunciation…………………………………………………
57	Figure2. English Phonemic Chart………………………………………………….
73	Figure3. Three versions of Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis………………………
76	Figure4. Schematic representation of the design…………………………………..
77	Figure5. Participants of the study…………………………………………………..
81	Figure6. Overly of Persian consonants on the English Inventory………………….
81	Figure7. English and Persian vowels………………………………………………
82	Figure8. Errors and problems by EFL learners…………………………………….
83	Figure9. Data Collection Procedures………………………………………………
87	Figure 10: Listening comprehension ability of control and experimental groups
90	Figure 11: The post-test means of paragraph writing ability in the experimental and control groups………………………………………………………………….

 

 

 

Abstract

The present study has made an attempt to investigate the impact of contrastive-based pronunciation teaching on listening comprehension ability of Iranian EFL learners. Based on it, this study set out to focus on the phonological feature (segmental feature) and the pronunciation errors which are made by Iranian learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and the impact of such transfers and errors on their listening comprehension ability. To achieve this purpose, the researcher conducted an OPT test (Oxford Placement Test) to homogenize students. Then 40 female EFL learners attending general English course at Iran Language Institute (ILI) in Rasht, Iran whose score fell between 1SD±Mean were chosen to conduct the study. The participants were divided into experimental and control group.

Before starting the training, a pretest was applied to all students, and the treatment started the week after. Unlike the control group, the participants in the experimental one received special treatment. They were trained by contrastive teaching most frequent errors for Iranian EFL learners. The treatment lasted for 30 minutes class hours; one class hour – 90 minutes – a week for four weeks. By the end of the forth week, a post-test of listening was conducted and the results were analyzed through Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). To do the results quantitative data have been analyzed through descriptive statistical methods (mean and standard deviation), and the researcher ran inferential statistics (t-test) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The results showed significant difference between the control and experimental group. It was, therefore, concluded that using contrastive-based pronunciation teaching can improve the listening comprehension ability of EFL learners.

This study gives the curriculum designers, administrators, teachers and material developers the opportunity to draw on the findings to shape curricula, create syllabi, develop materials, and conduct classes accordingly.

 

KEY WORDS: CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS, PRONUNCIATION, LISTENING COMPREHENSION, EFL

 

 

 

Chapter1. Introduction

 

 

1.0. Introduction

Listening is one of the most problematic skills for foreign language learners (FLL) since it does not develop easily and plays an important role in communication as it is said that, of the total time spent on communication, it takes up 40-50% (Mendelsohn, 1994). In the early period of ELT this skill was not regarded as an important skill in communication but gradually, during the years of developing ELT field, listening comprehension (LC) has received the emphasis it always deserved. Second language educators now acknowledge it as a crucial in FLL and encourage language teachers to devote more class time to listening activities. So the importance of listening comprehension in language learning and language teaching has moved from the status of incidental and peripheral importance to a status of significance and central importance (Celce-Murcia, 1991).

To develop this skill many different methods have been applied and various activities have been employed in classrooms. Many courses now offer ways and many books and conferences claim to teach teachers how to improve their students’ performance in listening comprehension. Furthermore, many teaching techniques in this regard have been introduced. For example, Rost (1991) has suggested more than 30 activities with many variations. In addition to strategies, teachers and researchers try to use different techniques such as using visual aids and particular computer program. The use of these techniques depends highly on student’s learning capacity and also availability of suitable materials. With the help of technology, opportunities for classroom instruction arise and teachers try to take advantage of these opportunities.

Nevertheless, listening has remained one of the most difficult skills due to certain reasons. For instance, the materials use in class lack the strength to cover how the real listening process occurs (Brown & Yule, 1983; Rosa, 2002). Because the materials include reduced speech and usually modified according to the level of the FLLs. This causes they have problem in real life communication and have problem in comprehending ‘ real speech’. Chastain (1988) asserts that the ability to comprehend the spoken second language plays an essential role in second language learning and use.

One of the techniques for improving listening comprehension is pronunciation awareness and finding the nature of it on the learner’s language. In order to apprehend what is meant thoroughly, one has to be aware of the nature of spoken language which is directly related to the phonological features of the language and the absence of elements in their own language that causes the misunderstanding of spoken language and results in comprehension decline. Therefore, for FLLs contrastive based pronunciation teaching deserves consideration. With respect to this assumption, this study attempts to find if contrastive-based pronunciation teaching has any effect on developing listening comprehension.

1.1. Theoretical Framework