Training non-native aspirated plosives with hand gestures: learners’ gesture performance matters

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study investigates the impact of embodied training of pronunciation with visuospatial hand gestures cueing Mandarin aspirated plosives. Sixty-seven Catalan participants learned to pronounce and memorised novel Mandarin words containing non-native aspirated plosives with or without performing hand gestures. They were tested on perception, production, and word-meaning recognition in a pretest, an immediate, and a delayed posttest. Results show that participants who appropriately performed hand gestures gained enhanced voice onset time (VOT) values of the aspirated plosives and yielded a continuous improvement in the overall pronunciation of the target words. Furthermore, gestural training helped maintain word recognition accuracy after three days, while non-gestural training did not. These results suggest that appropriate gesture performance during training is crucial in maintaining the effects of L2 pronunciation training. Overall, the results highlight the relevance of embodied training for L2 pronunciation and the need to assess the learners’ gesture performance during the training.