The role of future L2 selves in L2 speech development: A longitudinal study in an instructional setting

Abstract

The current study examined the role of English-speaking instruction and motivation in learners' development of L2 speech comprehensibility and accentedess, over the course of an academic semester. Eighty-three college students enrolled in English classes in China completed a sentence reading task and a picture description task twice (pre-test and post-test), as well as a questionnaire for measuring their future selves (Papi et al., 2019). The collected speech samples were coded for comprehensibility and accentedness. t-test results indicated that after one semester of English-speaking instruction, the learners made statistically significant gains in both L2 speech measures. Hierarchical multiple regression results showed that Ideal L2 Self/Own positively predicted speech comprehensibility, and Ideal L2 Self/Other negatively predicted L2 speech accentedness. The results suggest that learners’ future L2 selves influence how they take advantage of instructional opportunities to improve their L2 speech in qualitatively different manners. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.