Search results for "Pronunciation"

<em>(Inter-)Fonología del Español Contemporáneo</em> (I)FEC: Methodology of a research program for corpus phonology

2018

The present contribution describes and discusses the methodology of the corpus phonological research program (Inter-)Fonología del Español Contemporáneo —(I)FEC—, which aims to document both the phonic variation in the Spanish-speaking world and the pronunciation of Spanish as an L2 and a foreign language in different learner groups. Partly based on the methodology of the French research program (Inter)Phonologie du Français Contemporain —(I)PFC—, (I)FEC includes, in addition to a word list with several (potential) minimal pairs and a reading task, also a discourse completion task (DCT) aiming to collect data for the analysis of different intonational tunes. The paper offers a detailed desc…

English Pronunciation Teaching: Four Case Studies from Finland

2012

The present study looks at how English pronunciation teaching practices are like in Finnish schools from the primary to upper secondary level; in particular, which methods are used and which items are emphasised. The study was carried out as focussed observations (Hopkins 2008, p. 89), as classroom observations were considered the best way to achieve the aim of this study. Four EFL teachers were each observed for 6–9 lessons within a period of one week. A pre-prepared observation form was used as a tool, and then developed into a categorisation of the teaching methods used by the observed teachers. As for the results, the teachers offered pronunciation teaching very different from each othe…

The teaching of frozen expressions through the graphic novel Persépolis

2019

The constant search for suitable teaching materials to achieve the linguistic skills provided by a language teaching course, finds in authentic documents an important instrument for teaching foreign languages. The scientific literature attesting to the effectiveness of the authentic material is wide and consolidated; indeed, a text conceived by a native for a native, and, therefore, not developed for the sole purpose of teaching a foreign language, is intrinsically carrying a cultural richness and a linguistic variety, which are rarely present in any didactic artifact. The authentic material therefore represents an opportunity to meet the fixed expressions that are part of the communicative…

Sixty years of bilingualism affects the pronunciation of Latvian vowels

2006

For fifty years after World War II, Latvia was incorporated into the former Soviet Union. Although in theory the use of regional languages was not discouraged, in practice knowledge of Russian was obligatory. Since 1991, Latvian has again become the official language, and knowledge of Russian is widespread but optional. These political events have created a natural experiment in the effects of almost universal bilingualism on a language. To assess the impact on pronunciation, native speakers of Latvian, ranging from retirement age to teens, were recorded reading a word list and a short narrative. Vowel pronunciation differed across the generations both in quantity relationships and in forma…

The role of musical aptitude and language skills in preattentive duration processing in school-aged children

2009

We examined 10-12-year old elementary school children's ability to preattentively process sound durations in music and speech stimuli. In total, 40 children had either advanced foreign language production skills and higher musical aptitude or less advanced results in both musicality and linguistic tests. Event-related potential (ERP) recordings of the mismatch negativity (MMN) show that the duration changes in musical sounds are more prominently and accurately processed than changes in speech sounds. Moreover, children with advanced pronunciation and musicality skills displayed enhanced MMNs to duration changes in both speech and musical sounds. Thus, our study provides further evidence for…

The effects of spelling consistency on phonological awareness: a comparison of English and German.

2005

Within alphabetic languages, spelling-to-sound consistency can differ dramatically. For example, English and German are very similar in their phonological and orthographic structure but not in their consistency. In English the letter a is pronounced differently in the words bank, ball, and park, whereas in German the letter a always has the same pronunciation (e.g., Ball, Park, Bank). It is often argued that reading acquisition has a reciprocal effect on phonological awareness. As reading is acquired, therefore, spoken language representation may be affected differently for English and German children. Prior to literacy acquisition, however, phonological representation in English and German…

Invisalign treatment from the patient perspective: A Twitter content analyses

2021

Background: Understanding patient perspective is a key factor in improving treatment satisfaction. The aim of the present study is to qualitatively describe the content of Twitter posts related to the treatment with Invisalign in order to get a better understanding of patient experience. Material and Methods: Tweets were prospectively collected during a period of four weeks from public available posts on Twitter using Awario™ a bespoke social media monitoring tool. After applying the pertinent inclusion and exclusion criteria the selected posts were analysed by three investigators using thematic analysis. Specific themes and subthemes were developed. Results: A total of 1564 tweets were ana…

Chapter 7. Pronunciation learning strategies

2021

Developing Phonological Awareness in Blended-learning Language Courses

2013

This study is based on Second Language Acquisition through blended learning and explores the application of new educational technologies in the development of distance education. In particular, the paper focuses on ways to enhance oral, aural, and intercultural skills through learners' engagement, develop authentic social interaction and intercultural awareness in virtual environments and at the same time actively engage the students' powers of perception, communication DQGUHDVRQLQJ��$ �VSHHFKYLVXDOL) DWLRQWHFKQRORJ\ �LVLQWURGXFHG�� VSHFL?FDOO\�WDLO RUHGWR� pronunciation training. It provides relevant and comprehensible visual feedback of all three components of speech: prosody-intonation, …

Foreign Language Learners’ Pronunciation Learning Beliefs and Strategies

2021

This quantitative research investigates the extent to which adult L2 learners act in line with what they declare to believe in regarding pronunciation learning. In other words, this paper focuses on determining the strength of the relationship between the frequency of use of L2 pronunciation learning strategies (PLS) and the beliefs the individuals hold on selected factors affecting pronunciation acquisition, pronunciation instruction, self-efficacy, pronunciation learning goals and affective factors in pronunciation learning. A group of 116 learners of English as a foreign language who took an English phonetics course responded to the Pronunciation Learning Strategies Inventory (PLSI) and …