Abstract
This study reports on an experimental research carried out with 50 Spanish-L1 trainees, divided into 2 groups: A & B. Both groups were presented with a traditional-teacher centered approach based on controlled exercises (repetition, imitation), but group B added a communicative component in which students completed a battery of sequenced tasks with a focus on phonological form. Both groups recorded a speaking test before & after instruction which was used to measure and compare degrees of accentedness, frequency & duration of pauses and nuclear stress placement. Ten English-native-speaker-raters judged the recordings to determine the speakers’ degree of perceived accentedness. Two specialists, using inter-marker reliability, segmented the transcriptions of recordings and identified nuclear stress placement. Another two specialists identified empty pauses. Multivariate analysis was used to measure results. Overall, group B (learners exposed to the communicative component) obtained better results in all 3 parameters than the other group. Finally, some pedagogical implications for the teaching of L2 pronunciation in ELT contexts will be discussed.
Highlights
Abstract his study reports on an experimental research conducted with 50 Spanish-L1 college students, divided into 2 groups (A and B). hey were presented with a teacher-centered approach based on controlled exercises, but group B received an awareness-building component in which students completed a sequence of tasks with a focus on phonological form
A consciousness-raising task is a pedagogic activity in which the learners are presented with L2 data related to a phonological feature that they will later on have to produce, and in which they perform some operation on the data to arrive at an explicit understanding of how that phonological feature functions in discourse, and how it can be best realized in free speech
We considered pauses as a temporal construct of luency as we measured the number and time attributed to silent pauses of a particular stretch of discourse produced in a limited time span
Summary
Abstract his study reports on an experimental research conducted with 50 Spanish-L1 college students, divided into 2 groups (A and B). hey were presented with a teacher-centered approach based on controlled exercises, but group B received an awareness-building component in which students completed a sequence of tasks with a focus on phonological form. Hey were presented with a teacher-centered approach based on controlled exercises, but group B received an awareness-building component in which students completed a sequence of tasks with a focus on phonological form Both groups recorded a speaking test before and ater instruction which was used to measure and compare degrees of accentedness, frequency and duration of pauses and nuclear stress placement. Hat is, pronunciation teachers should aim to help their L2 learners understand diferent English accents, being them native or non-native (Jenkins, 2000), and produce comprehensible speech regardless of their regional accents (Derwing and Munro, 1998; Derwing and Munro, 2009; Munro and Derwing, 2015; Troimovich and Isaacs, 2012) Such a change of goals implies a consequential change in pronunciation teaching objectives whereby consciousness-raising tasks function as a central focus in a supportive and natural context for language learning to occur (Ellis, 2001; 2003; 2015; Luchini, 2015). Based on the indings obtained some implications for pronunciation teaching will be addressed
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