A Study on Effectiveness of Imitation Drill in Teaching Pronunciation

Abstract

This study attempts to find out the effectiveness of imitation drills in teaching pronunciation to the students of grade three by taking the students of government school of Budhanilkanth Secondary School, Kathmandu. The researcher prepared a list of words and sentences which contained targeted vowel sounds both short and long and diphthong with closing nature and some consonant sounds especially those which are difficult for the Nepalese learners of English of primary level grade three. They are / /, / /, / /, / /, / /, / /, / /, / /, / /, for vowel sounds and / /, / /, / /, / /, / /, / /, / /, / /, / /, / /, / /, for consonant sounds. Some words were selected for stress. The words have stress on the first and second syllables. Some sentences were selected for the falling intonation, the rising + falling intonation. All the words and sentences were taken from the students' textbook of grade three- 'Our English Book Three'.There were 50 items for 50 full marks. Then the researcher becamepresent at the proposed school and collected the data that consisted of oral responses on the part of informants (students). To do the experimental study, he took pretests among 30 students, divided them into two groups as the experimental group and control group, took classes for both groups according to proposal and also took post tests. While taking both tests the voices of students were recorded and the measurement was done on thebasis of correctness under the headings of item wise and sex wise comparisons. The effectiveness of the imitation drill in teaching pronunciation is found to some extent. The dissertation comprises four chapters. Chapter one encompasses general background, review of the related literatures, objectives of the study and the significance of the study. Chapter two deals with the methodology adopted while carrying out the research. It includes sources of data primary as well as secondary, population ofthe study, sample population, tools for data collection, process of data collection and limitation of the study. Chapter three consists of analysis and interpretation of the data. While analyzing the data sex wise and item wise comparison is made where some statistical tools such as percentage, average, etc. are used. Chapter four includes findings and recommendations drawn on the basis of analysis and interpretation of data.