Strengths about Methodological Decisions:

In reviewing the previous studies, I have noted some strengths about them which are worth raising because they have inspired my present study.

3.6.1.1. Choice of demonstration language:

One of the good things that Salter (1999) achieves in his study is that he manages to take the students into thinking outside the grammatical framework of intonation – This is one of the aims I will put forward in my research project. To achieve that, Salter had to consider the type of language to use in class; and his refraining from using authentic language is a very good decision because authentic data tends to be rather messy and more difficult to transcribe (Brazil 1997, pp. 140-141, Brazil 1994b, p. 64, Gussenhoven 1984, p. 96). Salter‘s awareness of this distinction has inspired me to find the suitable resources and teaching language for my intervention program.

3.6.1.2. Importance of awareness-raising tasks:

Awareness raising is explicitly emphasised in almost all the studies, although the studies show varying degrees of success in implementing it. It is best achieved in Salter‘s study.

Awareness-raising is maintained in the studies via the use of activities and tasks that make the learners start thinking about the function of a given intonation feature, rather than simply practice the listening/production process without focus on meaning. To achieve this end, Salter follows an inductive method and starts from the start by giving his students examples of the use of termination and tone choices in a way which contradicts the students‘ previous grammatical notions. Salter‘s study shows that it is through following an awareness-raising method that the students in the study managed to realize the difficulty of associating intonation meanings with syntax.

Likewise, a good point about Chapman‘s study is his observation that although his learners sometimes felt frustrated at the lack of confidence in doing the listening tasks, they showed more confidence and appreciation about the communicative value of intonation. Although he does not explain the steps his participating teachers took in approaching the teaching of DI, his choice of PALE as a teaching material denotes following an inductive method. Therefore, that is an aspect that needs to be stressed in my research as well (see the section on PALE and awareness-raising).

3.6.1.3. Importance of practice activities:

The role of practice in listening and speaking is given its due importance in studies such as Chapman (2007), Goh (1994), and Zhang (2004). Logically, in Goh‘s study, the tasks involved in the teaching of DI move from perception to production. This is one thing that is worth highlighting about the study. Goh‘s study dedicates the greatest part to describing the participants‘ success at the speaking tasks, attributing their success to her intervention program and their failure mostly to linguistic transfer from their mother tongue.

Chapman‘s study dedicates a good part to describing learners‘ performance in listening activities and, more importantly, coming up with some solutions for listening difficulties through the use of prediction tasks.

The findings from both studies help predict, set realistic goals, and find solutions for, challenges involved in teaching DI. They stress, however, the necessity of emplying listening and speaking tasks in teaching DI.

3.6.1.4. Data collection methods:

The data collection methods used in the studies have inspired me to use some of them in accordance with the practicality of the context. Of particular importance are off-task reflection and on-task observation methods. This is in line with qualitative research, where any details in the process can be important and where the emphasis is not only on the outcome but also on process details. It is found that Chapman‘s and Salter‘s studies raise the importance of both types of reporting, and so the use of both types seems to complement each other and should therefore be both used in my study.

For example, in Chapman‘s study, an interesting point about the methodology of data collection is to ask the participants to reflect off-task about their experience in doing the course, a procedure which enabled the researcher to have access to thoughts and insights that would not be accessed by mere observation of the participants‘ on-task experiences. This has inspired me to think of using diary reports in order to get the reflections of the participants. For example, the difficulties reported by the teachers and students have inspired me to think of investigating the attitudes of my participants both as learners and as teachers towards the teaching of DI in Syria. This study has inspired me to think of tracing the reported processes of learners in order to get a fresh look at their experiences and fluctuations according to the feature in question.

On the other hand, in Salter‘s study, an interesting point about the data collection is the researcher‘s focus on the participants‘ on-task behavior and drawing conclusions from such

behavior. This point has inspired me to incorporate this in my research as a data collection tool in the form of field notes.

Both data methods are shown to be particularly important when they are thought of against Goh‘s study. Goh‘s study is an experiment whose interest is in the final outcome, being pronunciation improvement. Although the author (p. 78) states that one of the research aims is to see whether the participants will understand the role of intonation in communication, this process is not reported. The fact that Goh‘s experiment lacks a qualitative treatment of her learner‘s process of learning has inspired me to focus, in my study, on the participants‘ reported mental processes in their attempt to make sense of DI in addition to any improvement in their pronunciation, if at all. Again, this can be achieved via the use of off-task and on-task data collection methods.

3.6.1.5. Choice of features:

The decision to include or exclude a certain DI feature will depend on a number of factors, such as the aims of the study, the time available for the research, and the needs of participating learners. These factors will be taken account of in evaluating the previous studies‘ choices of features.

Chapman included the majority of the features of DI by way of seeing which features are learnable and which are not. However, using PALE, he did not include termination, maybe because this feature is ‗one of the features of intonation least likely to be language-specific‟

(Windsor-Lewis, 1986). However, for my participants, who are not only learners but also teachers and teacher trainees, this feature can quite suitably be demonstrated in classroom interaction, and so should not be missed. In fact, Brazil (et al 1980, 101) hold that it is ‗important for a teacher…to be aware of this relationship between context…and the meaning-changing significance of different key selections, otherwise he is likely to increase rather than reduce the student‟s confusion‟ This is supported in Hewings (1991), where there is evidence to show that it

is pedagogically important to make use of key and termination choices by way of providing helpfully specific feedback in the classroom. More generally, this feature can be usefully used in teaching conversation management by utilising the choices of key and termination as two features which help speaker signal what type of responses they are seeking (e.g. active response vs. passive agreement vs. nil response). These two reasons have motivated me to include termination in my teaching program.

Interestingly, the use of termination is stressed and made the bulk of teaching in Salter‘s study. One of the aims is to take students out of the grammatical approach to intonation, and this is done through the use of key and termination. The last cycle in this action research helped the participants to realize that it would be difficult to classify intonation choices with grammatical rules, so a realization of analysis at the level of discourse was achieved. All this stresses the need to include the feature of termination in my study.

3.6.1.6. Learner needs:

Zhang (2004) claims that there is insufficient literature on learner perceptions of their own needs regarding English suprasegmental features, especially discourse intonation, in a context like China, arguing that having access to the way learners think of instruction method and content on suprasegmentals is a necessity in CLT classrooms. Pronunciation models are seen as potential goals for many learners, and therefore there is a need to investigate such learner needs. This is a very important point that is also stressed to a lesser extent in Chapman‘s and Salter‘s, where the communicative need is claimed to be the major goal for these two studies. Again, this will be included in my study.