The Effectiveness of Implicit and Explicit Instruction on German L2 Learners’ Pronunciation

Abstract

AbstractPrevious research has investigated the effectiveness of implicit and explicit instructional methods on second language (L2) learners’ grammatical accuracy. However, there is a scarcity of studies focused on the effects of the two teaching methods on L2 learners’ pronunciation. To fill this gap, the present study examined the effects of implicit and explicit instruction on the pronunciation of beginning learners of German. Over the course of one semester, one group of learners (n=5) was taught pronunciation explicitly (i.e., using phonetic rules), another group (n=5) implicitly (i.e., without phonetic rules), and a third group (n=5) received no pronunciation instruction. A pretest‐posttest design was used to measure learners’ improve ment in accent and comprehensibility. A slight improvement in both variables was observed under all conditions, but no significant difference in progress was found across the three groups. The findings suggest that some learner variables (e.g., age) might be better predictors of improvement than the type of instruction. Moreover, not all pronunciation features were equally relevant for L2 learners’ comprehensibility and accent. The results have implications for L2 pronunciation teaching.