ABSTRACT
Cliché as it seems, Rajagopalan (2004) pointed that English is recognized as a world language. And China has set English as an important subject in elementary education since China’s Opening and Reform in 1978. Despite the importance of English in China, “silent English” is still a label for Chinese students. One of the reasons is that they put most of their eorts in the training of grammar and reading to get a high score in the national college entrance examinations. This phenomenon poses a great challenge to English acquisition because the core language use lies in the communicative function of a language. And communication in English starts with the correct production of sounds and the combination of them, as Gimson & Ramsaran (1970) noted that “to speak any language, a person must know nearly 100% of its phonetics, while only 50%–90% of its grammar and 1% of the vocabulary may be sucient”. So, the current situation of pronunciation teaching calls for adjustment both applicable in English class under the Chinese education system and practicable in improving the pronunciation of secondary school students.
