The effect of prosody instruction in developing listening comprehension skills by interpreter trainees: does methodology matter?

Abstract

In the present study, three groups of interpreter trainees were formed, two experimental groups, i.e., blended prosody instruction (BPI) and computer-assisted prosody training (CAPT), and one control group (CON). In this experiment the participants took part in a four-week teaching program for 16 sessions (60 minutes per session), i.e., 16 hours in all. The participants were native Persian speakers who studied English interpreting at the BA level in Iran. The control group listened to authentic audio tracks or watched authentic English movies, discussed their contents, and did exercises based on these tasks for developing listening comprehension skills during the full 16 hours. The CAPT group spent one-third of the time (320 minutes) instead on prosody training using Accent Master Software. The BPI group did this for only 160 minutes but spent the other 160 minutes on theoretical explanations of prosody, and did practical exercises with prosodic structures supervised by an expert human instructor. Students then took a posttest in listening comprehension skills. The results revealed that the BPI group outperformed the other groups in developing listening comprehension skills. This conclusion may have pedagogical implications for interpreter training programs, foreign language instructors, and interpreting practitioners.

The impact of automatic speech recognition technology on second language pronunciation and speaking skills of EFL learners: a mixed methods investigation

“…Firstly, it was found that ASR-based instruction enhanced the L2 pronunciation of the EFL participants. This finding is consistent with the findings of other studies that highlight the significant effect of ASR technology on improving pronunciation ( Cucchiarini et al, 2009 ; McCrocklin, 2019a , b ; Garcia et al, 2020 ; Inceoglu et al, 2020 , 2023 ; Yenkimaleki et al, 2021 ; Cámara-Arenas et al, 2023 ). Therefore, it can be concluded that is useful for enhancing pronunciation of EFL learners.…”

“…Despite its limitations, various studies have demonstrated the usefulness of available ASR software in L2 speech instruction and pronunciation improvement ( Cucchiarini et al, 2009 ; McCrocklin, 2019a , b ; Garcia et al, 2020 ; Inceoglu et al, 2020 , 2023 ; Evers and Chen, 2021 , 2022 ; Yenkimaleki et al, 2021 ; Cámara-Arenas et al, 2023 ). For example, Liakin et al (2015) compared ASR, instructor-based pronunciation feedback, and no feedback techniques and found that only the ASR strategy significantly improved students’ pronunciation.…”

The effect of providing feedback and feedforward in prosody instruction for developing listening comprehension skills by interpreter trainees

“…In a recent publication, we used the TOEFL test as means of testing how much prosodic properties of the spoken items contribute to the overall test results. The use of contrastive sentence stresses and deaccentuation of referents introduced in the immediately preceding context are implemented in the TOEFL materials and serve to assess the contribution of sentence prosody to the testee's comprehension of the input speech (see Yenkimaleki & van Heuven, 2021; Yenkimaleki et al, 2023).…”

“…As the studies reviewed above claim, prosody instruction is a fundamental element for the interpreter training programs in enhancing the listening comprehension skills of interpreter trainees for decoding the L2 input messages in their interpreting performance (Yenkimaleki & van Heuven, 2022; Yenkimaleki et al, 2023). In the present experiment, we broaden our horizon to determine which instructional approach works better in enhancing the listening comprehension skills for interpreter trainees.…”

Effect of pedagogic intervention in enhancing speech fluency by EFL students: A longitudinal study

“…Ellis and Shintani (2014) state that strategy training and awareness raising are the two most frequently used methods of student training activities in L2 classrooms and that combining the two is often the preferred approach to students training (Cohen, 2003;Seifoori & Vahidi, 2012;Yenkimaleki, 2021). Strategy training including both explicit instruction and practice has been employed in a number of research projects (Lee & Muncie, 2012;Yenkimaleki et al, 2023) and is reported to positively impact on L2 learning. Based on the findings of studies in learner strategies, strategy training claims that successful students have a wide range of effective strategies at their disposal (Macaro, 2001) and that strategies should be taught in L2 classrooms (Yenkimaleki & Van Heuven, 2018, 2023b.…”