Two Phonetic-Training Procedures for Young Learners: Investigating Instructional Effects on Perceptual Awareness

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of two distinct computer-based phonetic training procedures administered in an English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classroom with young learners. Students' perceptual awareness of the occurrence of an English schwa in an unstressed position in content words was tested in two experimental groups, which underwent differentiated training regimes (auditory discrimination/identification practice and listen-and-repeat practice), and a control group, which received no phonetic treatment. A training effect was shown by the significant improvement in the perception abilities of the two experimental groups only. In addition, both experimental groups exhibited comparable improvement in all the variables analyzed. Training effects were also found for the word-familiarity variable, which was mitigated after treatment. Results suggest a positive impact of both aural and imitation computer-based phonetic training on L2 sound perceptual awareness in classroom settings with young learners.

Explicit phonetic instruction vs. implicit attention to native exposure: phonological awareness of English schwa in CLIL

“…Studies have also shown positive production-based training effects on perception (Hazan andSennema 2007, Mathews 1997). Also, those few studies which have analyzed cross-modal training effects of perception and production skills have found a mutually facilitative relationship, although not always fully aligned, between perception-based training/outcomes and production-based training/outcomes (Catford and Pisoni 1970, Gómez Lacabex & Gallardo-del-Puerto 2014, Leather 1990).…”

“…L2 sound acquisition research, however, has produced interesting outcomes on the impact of intervention showing that laboratory-based training can help develop non-native phonetic contrasts (Bradlow 2008). This research has traditionally been carried almost exclusively in laboratory settings (Lee and Lyster 2015), leaving the reality of the classroom rather unexplored (Gómez Lacabex and Gallardo-del-Puerto 2014). Recently developed teaching-learning settings such as CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) may become a suitable context so as to explore how foreign language (FL) learners may take advantage of different instruction processes, as these are learning contexts in which both instruction type and input can be maximised.…”

“…A first testing phase revealed that this was not so. In consequence, a similar explicit phonetic training procedure to the one developed in Gómez Lacabex & Gallardo-del-Puerto (2014) was administered to two experimental groups. Along with this, a third group which did not receive phonetic training in the classroom but was exposed to vowel reduction in the accent of an English and Science native teacher was also tracked so as to gauge the impact of both explicit intervention and implicit exposure to native input on a discrete pronunciation aspect: English vowel reduction in lexical words.…”

Analysis of the efficiency of repeating activities for improving prosody in L2 pronunciation training

“…Most language pronunciation teaching approaches at segmental level in CALL start from the idea that perceiving sounds which do not exist in L1 is an essential prerequisite for good pronunciation in L2 ( [3]). Recent results suggest a positive impact of imitation computer-based phonetic training on L2 sound perceptual awareness [4]. Imitation of native speech templates through parroting exercises could make speech more native-like and has become a common practice in many mo- 1 We would like to thank Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad y Fondos FEDER project key: TIN2014-59852-R Videojuegos Sociales para la Asistencia y Mejora de la Pronunciación de la Lengua Española bile based CAPT tools.…”

A Conceptual Approach to Teaching L2 Pronunciation: Perception of Word Stress

“…It is argued here that the precise nature of that explicit instruction plays a key role in its effectiveness. Underpinning such success is accurate L2 speech perception, and more recently there have been studies that have focused on learners' perception and the degree to which perception can be changed through instruction and corrective feedback (Gomez Lacabex & Gallardo del Puerto, 2014;Lee & Lyster, 2016). Studies have also tested whether or not changes in perception are accompanied by changes in production (Huensch, 2016;Lee & Lyster, 2017).…”