| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立屏東商業技術學院 === 應用外語系 === 94 === Educators have suggested an urgent need to improve the basic English learning ability of students in vocational technological colleges and institutes is urgently needed to be improved. Also, it is noted that most of these students have not acquired pronunciation ability before they attend colleges (Su & Lin, 2004). On account that pronunciation ability has important effect on students’learning achievement, the purpose of this study was to investigate the pronunciation ability of four-year college students, to determine whether such ability affected their language learning achievement. With the aim of revealing the rationale for pronunciation learning, the study was conducted to provide intensive training for four-year college EFL students of lower English pronunciation ability. With the ultimate aim of optimizing instruction and making the learning process more beneficial for both learners and teachers, it was thought important to investigate whether or not such training would promote the pronunciation skills of these students. In order to pinpoint whether students’ pronunciation ability affects their learning achievement and furthers the level of students’motivation and attitude, it was necessary to explore whether students acquire better achievement scores and their motivation and attitude would thus be upgraded from the training program.
In the study, participants, 477 freshmen from an institute in Southern Taiwan, received an oral pretest to investigate their pronunciation ability, and a questionnaire was administered to probe into all the students’learning motivation, attitude and ability. In the oral pretest, each student was required to pronounce five words, and the total score was twenty-nine. The result exhibited that 20.9 % of the subjects are found to have acquired the adequate pronunciation ability (scored higher than 24.65), while 79.1 % of them still need further remedial instruction. In addition, the collected data were analyzed, which signified students’ English performance. In order to investigate the effectiveness of a teaching pronunciation program, 23 students, who needed remedial instruction, participated the program, after which, an oral posttest and a post-questionnaire were administered. Examining the results between the pre- and post- tests, a prominent improvement was observed, in which the levels of students’ motivation and attitude were also critically elevated. Further analysis indicated that students made marginally momentous improvement on their English performance after they had possessed the pronunciation ability. The study found that pronunciation ability was essentially related to students’English academic performance. Added to this, a pronunciation examination among vocational technological college freshmen's pronunciation ability and intensive pronunciation training were required in order to equip the students with the ability for better learning. Only when students mastered the pronunciation skills could they enhance their other abilities of the same language. In the research, pedagogical implications were discussed and some suggestions were provided.
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