The Effect of Turkish Pronunciation Training on Brain: An fMRI Study

Abstract

This study aimed to develop the pronunciation skills of students who learned Turkish as a foreign language and determine the extent of the instruction given for that purpose by observing its cognitive effects. It was designed as an in-class action research and carried out with nine students speaking different languages. Of those, five were bilinguals: Four were native speakers of their native tribal language and French, and one was a native speaker of Kazakh and Russian. The remaining four students were native speakers of Arabic. The fMRI findings at the beginning and the end of the study showed that phonological and reading motor processes were better for bilingual learners who were native tribal speakers and learned French and Mongolian as their country's official language, compared with native Arabic monolingual learners. Based on the analysis, it can be stated that an increase in foreign language sound awareness of learners results in the acquisition of more accurate pronunciation skills.