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The study focuses on the effects that phonological awareness may have on students’ learning of tones in Sixian Hakka in elementary school. Due to the lack of a Hakka-speaking environment and the strong influence of Mandarin Chinese, elementary students nowadays encounter many pronunciation problems, including tones. In this study, chanting materials compiled by the author are used to improve students’ phonological awareness and several phonogical tests, including listening and speaking, are used to see whteher the new materials will have positive influence on students’ perception and production of the six tones in Sixian Hakka. The subjects of the experiment were divided into the experimental and control groups. Both pre- and post-tests are similar in terms of degree of difficulty. A Statistic Package for Social Science (22.0) is used to calculate the data gathered from all stuents during the study. The results showed that the experimental group performs much better than the control group and most of their test results indicate that their improvement is statistically significant. This study suggests that the incorporation of phonological awareness into the teaching of tones is feasible and this combination may bring positive effects on students’ aural comprehension and oral production of the six tones in Sixian Hakka, which may hence enhance students’ confidence in speaking Hakka.
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