A Study of Articulatory Problems in English of Hearing-Impaired Junior-High School Students

• Main Authors: Hsu, Wen-chen, 許紋禎
• Other Authors: Chung, Raung-fu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 1999
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/40635681738931272792

碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 英語學系 === 87 === ABSTRACT Children with hearing loss have greater speech and language problems than children with normal hearing. Hearing-impaired students absolutely have more difficulties in learning a foreign language (English) than normal students. Pronunciation is a crucial element to learn a language successfully. For this reason, finding out the problematic pronunciation errors of hearing-impaired students is believed to be helpful in their English learning. This study aims to find out the articulatory problems that hearing-impaired students have in learning English. In addition, we would also compare the linguistic characteristics that normal students and hearing-impaired students share in learning English as a foreign language. Also, the error patterns of both normal and hearing-impaired students are interested. Five instruments are implemented in this study, namely English Listening Test, English Speaking Test, Chinese Listening Test , Chinese Speaking Test and a questionnaire. After the analysis of the four tests and the questionnaire, we found that the problematic linguistic characteristics of hearing-impaired students are systematic. Also, hearing-impaired students have similar articulatory problems in their native language, namely Chinese. Moreover, normal students and hearing-impaired students have some errors in common. Hearing-impaired students also have some articulatory and listening (perception and production) problems of their own. This study is contributive to the fields of special education and EFL teaching. In terms of contributions to the field of special education: (1) The results of this research provide special educators with the fact that, with proper guidance and instruction, hearing-impaired students have the potential to learn English. (2) Understanding hearing-impaired students'' learning difficulties will offer practical help to the teachers in remedial teaching and curriculum design. (3) This study proves that perception and production is related. For this reason, special educators may have more ideas when training the students to speak. In terms of the contribution to the field of EFL teaching: (1) Pronunciation is heavily tied with the students'' performance in learning English. English as a sound language, requires students to be able to pronounce every single word, in order to be correct in spelling. (2) This research provides EFL teachers with the information of the students'' listening and speaking difficulties in learning English. This might be helpful for improving English instruction and English curriculum design for both normal and hearing-impaired in the future.