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1. Introduction

 
Having the whole world in view, we can see the association between country and country is becoming more and more intimate. English, a current language, is becoming more and more popular with people. In our country, English lessons are offered generally in primary three, even in grade one in few developed areas.     
However, with the overall development of English teaching in our primary schools, different kinds of problems are increasingly arising, among which phonetic teaching is extrusive one. That whether it is suitable to teach International Phonetic Alphabet (I. P. A) at elementary period, how to teach and what extent it should be taught to is often referred to but has not been solved yet. In our whole English teaching process, textbooks have not any systemic and efficient plans for English phonetic teaching. As the English linguist Henry Sweet(1888) said, phone is an essential basis in learning all languages, so English phonetic teaching is an important section in English teaching. In fact, in the three elements of language, which are phone, vocabulary and grammar, many teachers just pay more attention to the teaching of vocabulary and grammar. Based on a survey on English phonetic teaching in Xiao Zhao Primary School by means of questionnaire and interviews, the paper aims at helping students correct their pronunciation, form a good habit of phonetic learning, solve the fear in English phonetic learning and improve the efficiency of English learning.
The structure of the paper includes six chapters. The first chapter provides an overall introduction, including the background, current situation and structures. The second chapter offers a brief introduction of phonetic symbols, the history and the methods of English phonetic teaching in primary school. The third chapter provides the current situation, problems, results and necessity of English phonetic teaching in Xiao Zhao Primary School. The fourth chapter introduces the research subjects, goals, instruments and procedure, and the data collection. The fifth chapter is the statistical analysis based on the data collection and the discussion of findings, limitations and suggestions. The last chapter will make a summary.
 

2. Literature Review

 
2.1 Introduction to International Phonetic Alphabet
 International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA for short, is generally used in the world, which was announced by International Phonetic Association (IPA) in 1888. As a sign marking Phoneme, it possesses the only directive property that is one phoneme corresponds only one symbol, vice verse. In addition, by means of the IPA, it will be quite easy for scholars to summarize and represent the sounds of any languages accurately. The IPA is widely used all over the world.
    At the end of the nineteenth century, a reform in foreign language teaching appeared, the controversial focus of which was what should be taught in foreign language teaching, spoken-based language or written-based language. Through the reform, language scholars came to realize that the English reform should begin with right phonetic markings that are based on Phonetics. Language scholars should get good phonetic training so as to keep the standardization of English sound.
In 1886, “Phonetic Teachers’ Association” was founded in France. Several language scholars, founders of the association, would like to take this opportunity to introduce their teaching experience that phonetic symbols are very useful in language teaching. In August 1888, the first edition of IPA( the IPA chart) was developed. In 1897, the “Phonetic Teachers’ Association” was changed to “ International Phonetic Association(IPA)”. Then, the International Phonetic Alphabet was amended several times. The IPA we are using now is the edition of 1993 and was revised in 2005. The IPA, as universal phonetic symbols used internationally, can be employed conveniently to record sounds of any languages in the world. Thus, Phoneme, the minimal unit of sound, plays an important part in phonetic learning. It obviously becomes a necessity   for a foreign language learner to study a foreign language well and better understand the difference between his(her) mother language and foreign language.
2.2 History of Phonetic Teaching
    English phonetic teaching’ status in language teaching is directly influenced by the schools of language teaching of different periods. M.Celce-Murcia(1996) put forward the reform in foreign language teaching at the end of nineteenth century in the book Teaching Pronunciation, which had a great influence on phonetic teaching. Henry Sweet, Wilhelm Viëtor and Paul Passy founded International Phonetic Association in 1886 and set the international phonetic symbols, which had reached a vital basis for standardization of English phonetic symbols and scientification of phonetic system(Luo Lisheng, Zhang Laixiang, 2002). Between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, the emergence of the Direct Method of Teaching made people start to attach importance to English phonetic teaching. During the 1940s and 1950s, the Audio Method was becoming increasingly widespread, which further accelerated the development of English phonetic teaching. To the 1960s, the Cognitive Teaching Method emphasized English teaching in grammar and vocabulary and phonetic teaching was neglected to a certain degree. To the 1980s, the appearance of Communicative Language Teaching made people begin to emphasize phonetic teaching once more and the way of phonetic training developed diversely.
In terms of phonetic teaching, Underhill(1985), James(1986), and Adam Brown(1992) pointed out the importance of International Phonetic Alphabet in phonetic teaching. Once a learner mastered phonetic symbols, he(she) could look up dictionary to grasp the pronunciation of the word and could have a written record of new words he(she) heard. In addition, some scholars, such as Penny Ur(2000), also pointed out English was a language in which corresponding relation between sound and form was relatively clear. If a learner mastered this relation, he(she) would relax in grasping and memorizing the pronunciation and spelling of words. Therefore, lots of scholars and teachers suggested the rules of pronunciation of English letters and combinations of letters should be regarded as important content of English phonetic teaching.
As to the status of English phonetic teaching in China’s English phonetic teaching, Wang Qiang(2000) stated that the students in China mostly learned English in classroom teaching, and they had not enough opportunities to contact English, so phonetic teaching should draw high attention.
Since the reform of education courses carried out, primary schools in most places in our country have offered English lessons in the third grade. With English teaching in primary school developing in an all-round way, problems and puzzles in practice highlight in succession, among which the phonetic teaching is concentrated. In different levels of teacher training and teaching reforms, some teachers often point out the problems of English phonetic teaching in primary schools. As to the aims of phonetic teaching in primary schools, English New Curriculum Standard (Experimental Draft), issued by the Ministry of Education in China(2001), makes explicit provisions. Learning English under the guidance of the IPA will achieve the aims of interest inspiring, self-confidence building and communication skills developing. Besides, a good grasp of pronunciation and intonation will help strengthen their sense of language learning, which may make possible for their further study of English. The new curriculum put forward the following demands:
　　1. Know the pronunciation of letters.
　　2. Can read simple words according to spelling rules.
　　3. Know the stress of words.
　　4. Know wrong pronunciation can have an influence on communicating.
　　5. Have fluent pronunciation and natural intonation in oral expression.
However, for pupils who can easily to accept new things, the facts of English teaching are that very few pupils can be catchy to read the textbooks; they can’t read and remember the words, which is the biggest obstacle in their study. They work with difficulties. The causes of contradiction between teaching and learning may be various, but one important reason is that we neglect English phonetic teaching.
2.3Approaches to English Phonetic Teaching in Primary School
    One method is phonics. Phonics originated from America in seventeen nineties in the earliest. It prevailed since the twentieth century. In order to have a complete understanding of phonics, the researcher collects some information about the definition of phonics. Some scholars view phonics as a sort of relationship between letters and sounds. Durkin(1993)claimed that “Phonics refers to a body of information about connections between letters and speech sounds which are designed to facilitate readers to figure out the pronunciation of words unknown in their written form.” Phonics, which emphasizes the mastery of letter-sound correspondence, is considered as one of the most powerful tools in improving spelling (Blevins, 1998). Some scholars regard phonics as one of the teaching methods. “Phonics is merely one of several methods that children may use to unlock words” (Artley, 1996). According to Hsu (2000), phonics is not only considered as the knowledge about the letter-sound correspondence relationship, but also as a part of pronunciation teaching. Others believe that phonics is related to reading instruction. “Phonics is not a method of teaching reading but an essential ingredient of reading instruction” (Heilmam, 1985). To sum up, phonics, as the knowledge about letter-sound correspondence relationships, refers to a teaching method or reading instruction that helps learners understand letter-sound correspondence relationship as well as sound words out.
    At present, schools in countries like Korea, Singapore, Canada, Australia and areas like Taiwan, Hong kong, Macao all take practice in phonetic rules and spelling teaching. It integrates regularly and systemically according to the pronunciation of letter itself and pronunciation of combination of letters. According to Xi Lina(2014), by means of the sounds of English letters, the students who begin to learn English can constantly practice to develop their sound sensation of letters, starting basically from the combination of sounds. According to phonics, the pronouncing rules of letters and combinations of letters in words should be studied from sounds. Generally speaking, it goes through three stages, as following:
The 1st stage: Learn the pronunciation and its rules of 26 letters and establish the corresponding relation between letters and phonetic sounds.
The 2nd stage: Learn the pronunciation rules of letter groups and establish the corresponding relation between letter groups and phonetic sounds. Students can directly read the words that cohere with pronunciation rules of letter groups. Students can judge the spelling of the words by the pronunciation of words.
The 3rd stage: Based on the preceding two stages, use multiple teaching methods to make students use Phonics proficiently, strengthen the spelling rules of letters and combinations of letters and use the rules to memorize more words. And then, increase their vocabulary and improve their ability of autonomic learning.
    Another method is “Trinity Teaching Plan” of letter, phoneme and phonetic symbol. This method demands that students should firstly learn 26 letters. It will give phoneme teaching on the basis of thorough reading of letters, and will also give phonetic symbols’ teaching while teaching how to spell and read words. Then it combines phoneme with phonetic symbols. The aim of this “Trinity teaching Method” is to help students solve the problems of pronouncing and memorizing words.
The “Trinity teaching Method”of letter, phoneme and phonetic symbol pays attention to inner link and crossing relation among letter, phoneme and phonetic symbol.  This method regards the teaching of the sounds of 26 letters as the basis of phoneme learning and looks on phoneme learning as the precondition of phonetic symbols’ learning, which simplifies the process of phonetic symbols’ teaching. After grasping the corresponding relation of letters and phonemes, students can remember words by combining the sound, form with the meaning of words. In the end, students can read the words they write and write the words they read. In this way, their language sense forms early and this can greatly improve their activeness of learning English. Meanwhile, it starts from training students’ reading abilities, increases the quantities of vocabulary and helps students lighten their burden of memorizing mechanically.
 

3. A Survey of Phonetic Teaching in Xiao Zhao Primary School

 
3.1 Current Situation and Problems
According to the English teaching in Xiao Zhao Primary School, the students had a sense of fresh when they began to learn English. At that time, their learning enthusiasm ran high and their examination papers always got full marks. However, with the time passing by, the students began to feel that it was difficult to learn English. The first obstacle is that they can not read correctly. At grade six, many students lose the interest in learning English. It is very difficult for them to recite so many words, phrases and sentences by rote. As a result, they are weary of studying English. In addition, many teachers find students use partial tone of Chinese characters to help themselves remember words, which twists the right pronunciation of English letters, phrases and sentences. It is also difficult for them to prepare and review lessons. In elementary period, although students in Grade Five are not demanded to grasp all phonetic symbols, there are questions about judging phones. Some students sometimes give their judgment by guess, which often proves to be wrong. In the long course of time, they will have fears, which is bad for students’ English learning.
In the ordinary day of English teaching, many elementary English teachers always think that the contents and tasks of English teaching are numerous, and ignore the teaching of phonetic symbols. However, they hardly realize they will make the English teaching and learning get half the result with twice the effort. Some students are not able to read words until the graduation of primary school. Usually, the harder the teachers’ tasks are, the slower the students’ learning process will be. So laying the foundation for phonetic symbols is the basic condition for learning English well. No matter what mode our English teaching adopts, as for the students living in the non-English environment the most scientific, reasonable and efficient way of learning English well is the most basic factor: phonetic symbols. Learning phonetic symbols well can be said to be the stepping-stone and will benefit students all through their life.
3.2 Possible Results
The 1st consequence is that students can not remember the words, which will have a great influence on the improvement of their English reading abilities. In fact, our English teaching has taken a wrong road since it neglected the pronunciation and if we don’t realize the serious problem, we will keep straight on this wrong road. If we pay less attention to the study of pronunciation, we will not obtain the rules of reading, but recite the words by rote. Thus, students spend their time in remembering the words instead of reading English articles and improving their reading skills, which will have a great influence on learning efficiency of students in primary schools.
The 2nd result is that “Dumb English” and “Deaf English” will come out and exist in the long term. When some teachers see the students can not speak English, they will encourage the students not to be shy and bravely speak. That, in fact, will make the students be more uncomfortable and agonizing. Even if the students do not keep on face-saving and are brave enough to speak English, they will still feel the pains of losing faces and fail to learn English well, because these students who do not get lessons of English pronunciation have great pronouncing barriers, and they are easily affected by the pronunciation of Chinese language. Moreover, if the students can not learn pronunciation well, they will not have good senses of English sound and intonation. Then they will not be able to speak out standard English and distinguish sounds by ears.
    The 3rd consequence is that some students may appear “fossilization”. Selinker(1992) gave the definition of fossilization, which referred to the fixed state of some language items, syntactic rules and systematic knowledge of foreign language learner’s interlanguage. Besides, the increase of age and change of the amount of study had no effect on this fixed state. Interlanguage is between the native language and target language. The reasons of the fossilization include the negative transfer of Chinese language and the effect of dialectal accent. Thus, it is essential to carry out phonetic teaching in primary school in order to lower the effects of fossilization. Having a good knowledge of phonetic symbols, students will correct their wrong habits of pronunciation. After constant practice, they will form good habits of pronunciation and be less influenced by the negative transfer of Chinese and dialectal accent.
3.3. Necessity
According to many years of English teaching practice, we should carry on the phonetic teaching in elementary period. If not, it will be difficult for students to keep the words in mind and will have great influence on stimulating the learning interest.
In addition,  non-diglossia environment in English learning makes it necessary to offer phonetic lessons in primary schools. At the end of the twentieth century, Stephen D Krashen(1981) put forward two different ways of Second Language Acquisition in The Monitor Theory. One is that the learners consciously pay their attention to the form characters of target language, namely conscious learning. Another way is that learners communicate by means of the subconsciousness of target language. Just as kids learning the first language, this way does not emphasize the meaning but the language forms, namely subconscious form. In the Chinese language environment, English teaching lacks a natural language environment and good conditions of language acquisition. Students have limited time in studying English. Students can not learn English as they learn their mother tongue. However, the aim of phonetic teaching is making students know and use the combining and spelling rules. So we can come to a conclusion that it is totally necessary to offer phonetic lessons in primary schools in non-diglossia English teaching. Based on the definite rules, students can continue to learn English more freely. Phonetic symbols can be used as an important tool for learning vocabularies and pronunciation and phonetic teaching should be accomplished at the beginning period of language learning. Except the particular cases, once students grasp the methods of reading words, they will not need other guides. Of course, the emphases of learning should lay on using phonetic symbols to deal with the pronouncing problems, instead of generalizing.
 

4. Research Design

 
4.1 Question
The paper hopes to carry on empirical study from the perspective of the author’s personal practice and on-the-spot investigation. Based on the current situation and main problems of English phonetic teaching in Xiao Zhao Primary School in Yuci county, the paper tries to put forward scientific, reasonable and constructive suggestions.
4.2 Aims
 English learning is based on the learning of phonetic sounds, of which phonetic symbols are the essence. Whereas, the arguments about whether pupils should learn the international phonetic alphabet and how to start phonetic lessons in elementary period have not been solved yet. By means of the research, the author hopes to find out  practical evidence and effective solutions in English phonetic teaching in primary school, which will help students learn English phonetic sounds efficiently as well as promote students’ abilities of English learning.
4.3 Subjects
All the subjects in this investigation are from Grade Five of Xiao Zhao Primary School. There are 6 English teachers. All the students of two classes are chosen. Altogether there are 60 students, which consist of 35 girls and 25 boys. Their ages are from 9 to 11. These students have two classes a week. Ninety five percent of the students are from the countryside. Their families are ordinary and not very rich. Only 5% students attend the English training after class. In addition, the educational degree of their parents is not very high whose English ability is mostly poor. And most parents have not learned English before and seldom care about their children’s learning performance, which means that it is impossible for these parents to help their children learn English. According to the background of these families, we can draw a conclusion that the atmosphere in which all the learners begin to study English is in a Chinese language environment and they all learn English as a foreign language that they have not ever learned. The classroom English teaching is the only channel for most students to study English. All of the students have studied English at least two years. They are able to read simple English dialogues and can remember some words and write some simple sentences. These 60 chosen students were not taught English phonetic lessons in class at school because there is nothing about phonetic content in the English textbook.
    The author divided the students in this school into three different levels named basic level(score below 60, 3%), medium level(score between 60-84, 20%) and advanced level(score between85-100, 77%) in them. The number of students in each level is not fixed because of the limited number of students in Xiao Zhao Primary School, but the levels of these two classes are almost similar. There are no obvious disparities between the two classes. In the previous examinations, the learning performances of the two classes are about the same, such as the aspect of the average points. The English levels can make our research more available. Choosing students from these three different levels can make the research more reasonable and precise.
4.4 Instruments
Two tools are used in this paper: interviews designed for the teachers and the students, and a questionnaire for students.
4.4.1. Interview
The interviews include one for the English teachers and one for the students. The author interviews 6 English teachers and 6 students who are randomly chosen from three levels, and there are 2 students in each level. The aim of these interviews is to survey the current situation of the phonetic teaching in Xiao Zhao Primary School. There are ten questions for teachers and nine questions for the students. Teachers and students should give their answers to the questions practically.
4.4.2 Questionnaire
The questionnaire is made to have a knowledge of students’ genuine ideas about the desire of learning phonetic symbols and their actual level in the acquisition of English phonetics. Both the 60 students of the three different levels are required to participate in. Nineteen multiple choices are designed for students to choose. All these questions on the questionnaire are written in Chinese language in order that primary students can understand.
4.5 The Procedures
The preparation of the research instruments is conducted after systematic consideration. In terms of the questionnaire, the questions of multiple choices questions are relatively simple and meaningful. Among the nineteen multiple choices, nine of them designed for students to choose are questions of words’ pronunciation and phonetic symbols which aim to check the real phonetic standard of the students. The words chosen in the nine questions of multiple choices all are the simple and representative words that the students learned in previous English lessons. At the end of the questionnaire, the author designs some blank space for students to write the ideas or suggestions of phonetic teaching and learning. Since the 60 students in Grade Five are too young to complete the questionnaire independently, the author emphasizes the purpose of the research and explains each item in the questionnaire to them patiently. And then the students are instructed to pick up “A”, “B” or “C” for each item based on their true feelings and thus the result of the questionnaire is expected to be true and objective. The order of these multiple choices is arranged from the shallower to the deeper.
    In terms of the interview, the author designs nineteen pointed questions, ten for the 6 teachers in Xiao Zhao Primary School and nine for the 6 students. These questions are all related to the phonetic teaching and learning. And every subject interviewed is invited individually and expresses their own true feelings without being disturbed by other subjects. The order of these questions is arranged from the easier to the more advanced. According to the answers, the researcher can have a general awareness of the real situation of the phonetic teaching and real levels of the teachers in phonetic aspect. In addition, the students invited are from three different levels and thus the outcome is more overall and convincing.
4.6 Data Collection
The questionnaire was conducted on January 20th, 2016. Since the students were aware of the purpose of the survey and the meaning of each item in the questionnaire, they chose the answer to each item seriously. In the end, 60 copies were all collected and they were all valid.The interviews were also conducted on January 20th, 2016. After the interviews for both teachers and the students, the author recorded the details and analyzed them.
 

5. Data Analysis and Discussion

 
5.1 Findings
The demands of English Curriculum Standards by Ministry of Education(2001) have been discussed above. However, according to the questionnaire results, the English level of most students in Xiao Zhao primary school is far from the requirement of the standards. Many problems of the English phonetic teaching exist in this rural primary school.
Table 1: Questionnaire of English phonetic teaching in Xiao Zhao Primary School

Questions		Number	Percentage
Learn phonetic symbols systematically		31	52%
where to learn	school	6	10%
	tutorial class	21	35%
	self-study	2	3%
know voiced consonants and voiceless consonants	yes	20	33%
	no	40	67%
when they can’t read words	skip over	3	5%
	check up	35	58%
	by feeling	22	37%
9 multiple choices	right	27	45%
	false	33	55%
think phonetic symbols are important		52	87%
need improvement		53	88%
There are test items in examination		24	40%

 
According to the questionnaire, 52% of the 60 students systematically have English phonetic learning. Ten percent of the students learn phonetic symbols in school, 35% of them learn in extracurricular tutorial class and 3% learn by themselves. About half of the students admit that their English teachers teach them phonetic symbols, but only 33% students can figure out what is the difference between voiceless consonants and voiced consonants. Fifty eight percent of them will look up the English dictionary as they meet new words. However, in the nine questions of multiple choices involving the phonetic check, only about 45% students can give the correct answer. Eighty seven percent of the students think the phonetic teaching is quite important. Eighty eight percent of the students think phonetic teaching needs to be improved. In addition, 40% students say that the questions of phonetic content often appear in English examinations. Thus, it is very important to develop the English phonetic teaching in primary school. Teaching methods should be improved to be more and more interesting and various.
Table 2:  Teachers’ views about phonetic teaching

Questions	Number
Have taught English for more than 10 years	2
Teach students English phonetic symbols	4
It is important to teach phonetic symbols in primary school.	3
Admit that some teachers omit phonetic teaching	6
Students can grasp phonetic symbols accurately	2
Students are active in learning phonetic symbols	3
Learned phonetic knowledge systematically before	5
Phonetic symbols are related to words’ memorizing	5

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 




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