Abstract

Pronunciation is the one element of language and has been attracted by many Chinese college students have more difficulties in learning pronunciation than vocabulary and grammar. Thus, some necessary strategies of learning pronunciation are suggested in this study. Since The Theory of Multiple Intelligence is adapted to English teaching in 1970s, there are some studies about the influence of intelligence on second language learning. Musical intelligence has been put into second language learning and has been proved that it has an influence of listening and speaking ability . This study is aimed to examine the influences of musical intelligence on English language pronunciation skills among college students. In order to examine this influence, three types of tests are designed : musical intelligence questionnaires, productive EFL phonological skills test and receptive EFL phonological skills test. The musical intelligence questionnaire is used to divide students into different musical intelligence level. Beside, productive EFL phonological skills test and receptive EFL phonological skills test are used to test the ability of product and receive phonological skills. All the participants are non-English major and they perform equal well in the test. Through analysis, we come to the following results: First, there is a small difference among different gender on musical intelligence. Second, participants with high musical intelligence were able to pronounce English better than the participants with low level of musical intelligence. Third, we can predict student’s ability of English pronunciation based on their level of musical intelligence. Therefore, effective musical training is needed to help college students improve English pronunciation. This study is a further research to examine the influence of musical intelligence on English pronunciation and give a teaching methodology to English pronunciation learning. 

Keywords: English pronunciation,  music,  musical intelligence,  college students,  productive EFL phonological skills test,  receptive EFL phonological skills

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1. Introduction-4

1.1 Background of the research-4

1.2 Significance and purpose of the research-4

1.3 Organization of the research-5

2.  Literature review-5

2.1 English Pronunciation-5

2.1.1 Significance of Pronunciation-5

2.1.2 Difficulties of Pronunciation-6

2.1.3. Strategies of Learning Pronunciation-7

2.2 Music-7

2.2.1. Music and brain-7

2.2.2 Music and emotion-8

2.2.3. Music and Language-8

2.2.4 Music and English pronunciation-9

2.3. Musical Intelligence-10

2.3.1 Multiple intelligence-10

2.3 .2 Musical intelligence-10

2.3.3 Musical intelligence and language learning-11

2.3.4Musical intelligence and English pronunciation learning-11

2.4 Summary-12

3.  Research Methodology-12

3.1 Research questions-12

3.2 Participants-12

3.3 Instruments-13

3.3.1 Musical intelligence questionnaire-13

3.3.2 Tests-13

3.3 Data processing instrument-14

3.4 Research Procedure-14

4. Results and Discussion-15

4.1 Results and discussion of the Musical intelligence Questionnaire-15

4.2 Results and discussion of the productive EFL phonological skills test-15

4.3 Results and discussion of the Receptive EFL phonological skills test-16

5. Conclusion-17

5.1 Major findings-17

5.2 Pedagogical Implications-18

5.3 Limitations and future expectation-18

References-20