“Guru-Guru” One-on-One Pronunciation Training via E-mail:
Strengths and Weaknesses Relative to its Standard Face-to-Face Counterpart
靜 哲人（SHIZUKA Tetsuhito）
Abstract
The guru-guru method refers to a technique of one-on-one pronunciation practice/evaluation intended for a class of 10 to 30 students. The students stand forming a circle and the instructor walks around (hence its name, which means “round and round”), checking and correcting their pronunciation. The students try saying one of the designated sentences or items when the teacher comes around. When a student gets one item correct, she can proceed to the next one in her next turn; when she gets a fail, she has to keep attempting the same item in her subsequent turns. This activity ends when the time limit (typically 20-30 minutes) expires or at least one student passes the last item. This arrangement necessitates one guru-guru session’s ending without most of the students reaching the last item. To compensate for this limitation, an e-mail-mediated version of guru-guru, in which audio-recordings are evaluated outside of class, was attempted. Forty English-major undergraduate students were instructed to record their reading of a 42-word sentence and e-mail the audio file as an attachment to the instructor, who would immediately text back his feedback. The students were instructed to keep submitting new recordings until they got a pass mark. During a six-day period, the 40 students submitted a total of 321 files. Within the deadline, 29 students (72.5%) received a pass mark. The post-assignment survey revealed both strengths and weaknesses of this e-mail-mediated guru-guru activity relative to its standard in-class counterpart.
5 考察とまとめ
質問紙に対する回答から、対面グルグルと比べた場合のMGの強みと弱点が明らかになった。文字ベースの返信という限界はあるものの、普段は授業中に対面でグルグルしている教師／学生の間であるならば、音声もフィードバックも後に残ることの利点は大きい。「フィードバックの意味がわかりづらい」という声も多いが、たとえば「R」とだけ書いてどの単語のRが問題なのかを書かなかったのは、教育的な意図に基づいていたこともある。また本論文では実証データを示す紙幅がないが、肝心の音声の質も確かに向上したことは指摘しておきたい。教室での指導と相補的に用いられるMGは、学生の発音スキル改善に大きな効果が期待できることが今回の調査でも明らかになった。「文字だけのダメ出しが心に刺さりすぎることがある」という声があったことに留意しながら、今後も指導の中でMGを適切に活用してゆくつもりである。
