傳統的英語發音教學強調母音與子音的正確性，然而近年來的發音教學研究指出，許多學習英文為外語的學生，接受近四、五年的傳統發音訓練後，在口語表達上仍然呈現一種平板、不自然的聲調(Chen, Fan, & Lin, 1996; Kuo, Chiang, & Wang, 2000)。再者，其他研究也顯示，對於以英文為母語的人來說，節奏(rhythm)是決定非母語使用者口語理解度最重要的因素(Anderson-Hsieh, Johnson, & Koehler, 1992)。因此本研究主要是透過實驗教學，探討以節奏為主的發音教學對於學生英語發音表現的影響。
在平均每次約十至十五分鐘，一星期四次，共十星期的實驗教學過程中，共有兩個班級，七十位台灣中等程度的高中學生參與本研究，實驗組三十二位學生，接受傳統式強調母音與子音的發音指導；控制組的三十八位學生則強調以節奏為主。此研究的資料蒐集是來自於教學前施予前測與教學後的後測，在這兩次的前、後測中皆包含有單字、片語、句子及短文四部分的朗讀，並加以錄製。錄製後的學生發音交由五位以英文為母語人士，就口語表達感覺方面(impressionistic evaluation)進行評分。實驗結果發現，實驗組在整體發音的表現上與控制組有顯著差異，尤其是在單字及短文兩項的發音表現與控制組相較則是有顯著的進步。

此外，本研究亦探討學生的英文程度和性別與發音表現間的影響。實驗結果顯示，就英文程度而言，實驗組中，除了較高級組學生外，中初程度的學生皆有顯著的進步；而對照組則無論是較高級或中初級程度的學生，皆沒有顯著的進步。就性別而言，實驗組的男性發音有顯著的進步，而實驗組的女性、對照組的男性及女性學生則發音皆無顯著的進步。此外，這項研究結果也應證了以節奏為主的發音教學對於以英文為外語的學生在發音表現上是十分有幫助。

最後，本研究對於不同的發音教學法做深入的探討，同時也提供英文教師在從事發音教學一個新的方向。

The traditional way of teaching English pronunciation focuses on individual sounds — vowels and consonants; however, studies in Chinese EFL learners’ pronunciation show that though many learners have fairly good pronunciation of individual sounds, their speaking of English sounds unnatural and sometimes even not understandable (Chen, Fan, & Lin, 1996; Kuo, Chiang, & Wang, 2000). In addition, other studies also indicated that rhythm is the most important factor for judging a good pronunciation (Anderson-Hsieh, Johnson, & Koehler, 1992). These findings arouse my interest in investigating whether or not the pronunciation instruction with a focus on English rhythm can improve Chinese EFL learners’ pronunciation.
In this study, there were 70 senior high school students at intermediate proficiency level participating in the study. 32 students in the experimental group received pronunciation instruction with a focus on English rhythm while 38 students in the control group received pronunciation instruction with a focus on English consonants and vowels. The participants in the experimental group received 10 to 15 minutes pronunciation instruction in each period, four periods a week. The pronunciation instruction in the control group received the same amount of time as the experimental group, and the duration of the experiment was 10 weeks consecutively.

The pre-test and post-test reading material included four major categories: a list of English words, phrases, sentences and a passage, and all speech samples were submitted to five native speakers for the impressionistic evaluation of students’ pronunciation.

Results showed that (1) the participants in the experimental group made statistically significant progress in their overall performance, especially in the Word List and Passage Reading tasks, (2) lower proficiency learners in the experimental group made significant progress in overall pronunciation performance whereas higher proficiency learners showed the least improvement; however, no significant improvement was found in the control group, and (3) male participants in the experimental group progressed significantly better than females; however, there was no significant improvement found for both females and males in the group that received segmental instruction.

The results of the study provided a close investigation of the effect of different types of pronunciation teaching and implications for EFL teachers for the effective pronunciation instruction as well as directions for future studies.

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