"Guru-Guru" One-on-One Pronunciation Training via E-mail : Strengths and Weaknesses Relative to its Standard Face-to-Face Counterpart

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対面グルグル

グルグル

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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.