Suprasegmental Differences Between Chinese and International English Instructors in an Efl Context

Abstract

The comparison of the suprasegmental properties between native English speaker (NES) speech and second/foreign language learner speech exists in abundance. However, little research has been conducted to analyze the pronunciation features of language instructors, not least in an EFL setting. This study aimed to find the suprasegmental differences between Chinese English instructors and international instructors in an EFL classroom context. In order to evaluate this, we compared a two-minute spontaneous sample extracted from an actual lecture given in English by 10 college instructors from China (Mandarin speakers) and 10 college instructors from different English-speaking countries (native English speakers). The speech samples were analyzed in terms of eleven features of interest: syllable per second, articulation rate, mean length of run, phonation time ratio, number of silent pauses, mean length of pauses, number of filled pauses, mean length of filled pauses, number of prominent syllables per run, proportion of prominent syllables, and overall pitch range. The independent T-Tests performed on each variable separately revealed that no significant differences existed between the two groups of instructors except for mean length of pauses. Despite the lack of significantly statistical differences in the majority of the features examined, this study uncovered some revealing findings that are instrumental in enhancing the classroom speech quality for both Chinese and international instructors.