Assessing the contribution of instructional technology in the teaching of pronunciation

Abstract

Discusses the implementation of computer-based teaching of Spanish pronunciation, especially intonation, in the classroom. The author examines the potential and the actual use of a technologically-based system, and the results of such a system in the improvement of students' pronunciation in one semester of instruction. The effects of instructional technology were studied through recordings of students made at the beginning and end of a semester. Their recordings were evaluated by native speakers of Spanish in two ways. First, native speakers evaluated the overall pronunciation of each recording according to a scale from 0-8, using 8 as the equivalent of native speaker pronunciation. Then, the native speakers were asked to give their intuitive evaluation of the language musicality of the same recordings. In this second task, native speakers were asked to decide if the recordings of second language learners sounded: (0) not like singing, (1) a little like singing, (2) much like singing, and (3) so much singing that it was annoying. Quantitative analysis of the overall results is still undetermined, despite possible improvement in nearly 40-50% of participating students. More promising and revealing, however, is the qualitative analysis of the data, and the experiment itself all of which reveal significant information in favor of the present technology.