The Effect of Using Authentic Videos on English Major Students' Prosodic Competence

This study aims to investigate the effect of using authentic videos on the prosodic competence of foreign language learners. It is hypothesized worldwide that authentic videos have a positive effect on the EFL learners' supra segmental competence. The population of the study included 32 students majoring in English Language at Taibah University in KSA during the academic year 2011/2012. The sample consisted of two sections, a control group and an experimental one. A pretest was administered to both groups to ensure that they were homogeneous. The control group was taught supra segmental aspects of language using a traditional approach while the experimental group was taught authentic videos. About four months later, a posttest was administered. The results of the study showed that there was much progress in the experimental group which significantly outperformed the control group in the different aspects of prosody. These findings confirm the hypothesis which read videos can have a positive effect on the EFL learners' supra segmental competence.  Keywords :Supra segmental competence, authentic videos ,Saudi English major students as  EFL learners, Intonation, Pronunciation, Stress, Pause , Juncture , Rhyme ,  and Prosodic aspects of language

Phonotactic probability and phonotactic constraints :processing and lexical segmentation by Arabic learners of English as a foreign language

PhD ThesisA fundamental skill in listening comprehension is the ability to recognize words. The ability to accurately locate word boundaries(i . e. to lexically segment) is an important contributor to this skill. Research has shown that English native speakers use various cues in the signal in lexical segmentation. One such cue is phonotactic constraints; more specifically, the presence of illegal English consonant sequences such as AV and MY signals word boundaries. It has also been shown that phonotactic probability (i. e. the frequency of segments and sequences of segments in words) affects native speakers' processing of English. However, the role that phonotactic probability and phonotactic constraints play in the EFL classroom has hardly been studied, while much attention has been devoted to teaching listening comprehension in EFL. This thesis reports on an intervention study which investigated the effect of teaching English phonotactics upon Arabic speakers' lexical segmentation of running speech in English. The study involved a native English group (N= 12), a non-native speaking control group (N= 20); and a non-native speaking experimental group (N=20). Each of the groups took three tests, namely Non-word Rating, Lexical Decision and Word Spotting. These tests probed how sensitive the subjects were to English phonotactic probability and to the presence of illegal sequences of phonemes in English and investigated whether they used these sequences in the lexical segmentation of English. The non-native groups were post-tested with the -same tasks after only the experimental group had been given a treatment which consisted of explicit teaching of relevant English phonotactic constraints and related activities for 8 weeks. The gains made by the experimental group are discussed, with implications for teaching both pronunciation and listening comprehension in an EFL setting.Qassim University, Saudi Arabia

Building a Corpus of 2L English for Automatic Assessment: the CLEC Corpus

In this paper we describe the CLEC corpus, an ongoing project set up at the University of Cádiz with the purpose of building up a large corpus of English as a 2L classified according to CEFR proficiency levels and formed to train statistical models for automatic proficiency assessment. The goal of this corpus is twofold: on the one hand it will be used as a data resource for the development of automatic text classification systems and, on the other, it has been used as a means of teaching innovation techniques

Perception in L2 in a Classroom Environment with L2 Portuguese Chinese Students

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the knowledge on the impact of common European Portuguese (EP) phonetic-phonological processes in second language (L2) learners. It is well established that L2 listening is a complex process, and that the most common difficulties among L2 learners are related to speech segmentation and word recognition. Due to the occurrence of connected speech processes, sounds are altered and the word boundaries can be hard to determine. Vowel reduction within and across word boundaries is usually described as a very frequent process in EP. The reduction of vowels is even more evident in spontaneous speech, e.g. the word 'telefone' (jtifi'foni] in the citation form, 'telephone') can be produced as [t'fon]. The interplay between these processes can be particularly impactful for L2 learners, in word recognition. Furthermore, this correlation is scarcely studied in a classroom setting. The present study explores the impact of vowel reduction and connected speech processes in word recognition tasks from isolated words to continuous speech. Furthermore, it aims to understand the main difficulties that L2 learners, at the intermediate levei B 1, experience dealing with these phenomena. Lastly, it will contribute to understand not only the acquisition of vowel reduction and connected speech processes but also whether L2 learners could cope with them. Therefore, it was designed a set of perception experiments involving these phenomena in increasing degrees of difficulty: single word identification without (i) and with vowel reduction (ii); word identification with simple (iii) and complex connected speech processes (iv). The experiments were conducted in an ecological setting of an intensive Portuguese course, of the intermediate levei B 1, at the University of Lisbon. A contrai group of EP native speakers also performed the experiments. The overall scores revealed a decreasing tendency: (i) 94%; (ii) 65%; (iii) 31 %; (iv) 16%. The results reveal that word recognition is compromised due to the connected speech processes. Vowel reduction and the consequent deletion of segments also affects the recognition of isolated spoken words even in read speech. The didactic outcomes of the experiments are relevant to contribute to the design of a proposal of a set of listening exercises focused on the practice of these phonetic-phonological phenomena. The sequence is based on the use of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) technology, and includes two games and a set of perception exercises in which songs are also used as input.Este estudo tem como objetivo contribuir para o conhecimento do impacto dos processos fonético-fonológicos do Português Europeu (PE), em aprendentes de PE Língua Segunda (L2). Pela nossa experiência como falantes nativos, sabemos que ouvir na própria língua nativa (LI) é um processo natural e intuitivo, ainda que complexo. No entanto, talvez por experiência própria também se saiba que, quando se aprende uma língua estrangeira, um dos maiores desafios está relacionado com a compreensão oral. Os mecanismos auditivos que intervêm na compreensão oral da língua nativa são os mesmos que intervêm na compreensão oral da L2. Ouvir e compreender uma língua estrangeira é um processo muito complexo. Quando ouvimos, é necessário segmentar o discurso, e reconhecer as palavras no contínuo sonoro. No entanto, devido à ocorrência de processos fonéticos, próprios do discurso oral, os sons são alterados e coarticulados. Ao processar a L 1, os falantes nativos não têm quaisquer dificuldades. Pelo contrário, os aprendentes L2 podem ter várias dificuldades no que diz respeito ao reconhecimento de palavras no contínuo sonoro. Dada a ocorrência dos vários fenómenos de coarticulação, as fronteiras de palavra deixam de ser percetíveis e evidentes. Em PE, a redução vocálica está bem descrita na literatura, e é referida como um processo muito produtivo. Uma das suas características é promover a redução e o apagamento de vogais átonas. Como resultado, há uma frequente ocorrência de sequências fonéticas de consoantes nas produções orais. Interessa também salientar que a redução vocálica não só ocorre em fala espontânea como também é frequente em fala semi-espontânea e não espontânea. O PE também é rico em processos de coarticulação, e muitos deles estão em direta relação com a redução e o apagamento das vogais átonas. Os processos de discurso oral contínuo muito bem estudados e descritos. Entre os processos de coarticulação estão os encontros vocálicos, os fenómenos de sândi, a assimilação do vozeamento e a inserção da iode Li]. Estes processos causam diversas alterações nos sons das palavras, sobretudo nos que estão presentes nas fronteiras de palavra. Além disso, promovem ainda a realização e a inserção de outros sons, que não têm uma representação gráfica. Outros são responsáveis pela restruturação da estrutura silábica, causando a articulação entre os sons das palavras vizinhas. Do que é conhecido da literatura, a interação entre a redução vocálica e os fenómenos de sândi externo, coarticulação, assimilação, etc. , e o seu impacto na compreensão oral de aprendentes L2 ainda não está estudada. Além disso, ainda não existem estudos realizados em contexto ecológico de sala de aula, que se debrucem sobre esta correlação. Pelo que se sabe, também, o ensino destes processos fonético-fonológicos não é amplamente explorado nos diversos referênciais e programas de ensino de PLE. Como tal, existe a necessidade de consciencializar os alunos para a ocorrência destes processos na oralidade, e de como têm impacto na sua compreensão oral. Isso terá também uma relação direta com a aprendizagem e o desenvolvimento da proficiência dos estudantes. Portanto, o presente estudo tem como objetivo explorar o impacto da ocorrência de processos fonético-fonológicos, tais como a redução vocálica e os processos da oralidade, em tarefas de reconhecimento e identificação de palavra. Estas tarefas foram realizadas quer em contextos de palavra isolada quer em contextos de discurso oral contínuo. Além disso, este estudo procura entender, e descrever, as maiores dificuldades dos aprendentes L2, no nível intermédio B 1, face à presença destes processos fonéticos na oralidade. Finalmente, este estudo será não só um contributo para um melhor conhecimento do processo de aquisição da redução vocálica e dos fenómenos de coarticulção, mas também para entender em que momento do processo de aprendizagem os estudantes precisam de treinar estas estruturas. Portanto, foi criada uma sequência de testes percetivos que incluíram a ocorrência destes fenómenos em diferentes níveis de complexidade: tarefas de reconhecimento de palavra isolada sem (i) e com a produção de redução vocálica (ii); tarefas de reconhecimento de palavra com ocorrência dos processos de discurso oral em contextos simples (iii) e complexos (iv). Os testes de perceção foram aplicados em contexto ecológico de sala de aula de um curso intensivo anual de Português Para Estrangeiros (PLE), do nível intermédio (Bl ), na Universidade de Lisboa. Todos os participantes eram falantes nativos do Chinês Mandarim. Os testes também foram aplicados a um grupo de controlo, composto por falantes nativos do PE. Nos resultados obtidos houve, em geral, uma tendência de decréscimo das percentagens para as respostas corretas conforme o aumento da complexidade das estruturas linguísticas: (i) 94%; (ii) 65%; (iii) 31 %; (iv) 16%. Estes resultados indicam que a ocorrência dos fenómenos do discurso oral comprometeram a tarefa de reconhecimento de palavra, nos diversos contextos. No entanto, este impacto foi bastante evidente nos contextos que testaram fala (serni-) espontânea. Além disso, a redução vocálica, e o consequente apagamento de vogais átonas, afetou ainda o reconhecimento de palavras isoladas. Para complementar estes resultados, foi também realizada a análise das transcrições ortográficas dos alunos que permitiu a descrição dos erros ortográficos mais frequentes. Por outro lado, contribuíram também para entender a interação entre a oralidade e a escrita na sua aprendizagem do PEcomo L2. As transcrições revelaram também que a presença da redução vocálica aumentou a produção de grupos consonânticos fonéticos, algo que se tornou evidente pelo facto de, frequentemente, apenas partes das palavras-alvo (ou apenas consoantes) terem sido transcritas. É importante também salientar que, aquando da realização das tarefas de identificação de palavras em contexto de fala (serni-) espontânea (com a presença de fenómenos de coarticulação), vários alunos transcreveram sequências de palavras articuladas, incluindo os sons articulados e alterados por processos de assimilação, por exemplo. Do ponto de vista didático, os resultados obtidos foram relevantes para a construção de uma proposta de uma sequência didática com exercícios para a prática e para o treino da componente auditiva. Esta proposta de exercícios tem um especial ênfase no ensino dos processos fonéticofonológicos do PE. Esta sequência é baseada na tecnologia existente para a Aprendizagem de Línguas Assistida por Computador (ALAC). Portanto, foram desenhados dois jogos, uma versão do clássico 'Jogo da Forca' e o jogo das 'Palavras Bomba-Relógio'. Finalmente, a sequência também inclui uma série de exercícios de perceção oral, intitulada 'À Procura dos Limites' no qual se pretende praticar o reconhecimento das fronteiras das palavra em diferentes contextos de coarticulação. Além disso, a série inclui uma secção de exercícios lúdica, nos quais são utilizadas músicas portuguesas como input auditivo

A syntax-based reading intervention for English as second-language learners

Students with English as second language (ESL) are typically behind monolingual peers in reading comprehension even when phonemic awareness skills, phonics and word recognition are at grade level. The lack of syntactic awareness is one of the reasons cited in multiple studies (August & Shanahan, 2010; Da Fountoura & Siegel, 1995; Lesaux & Siegel, 2003; Lesaux et al., 2006; Chong, 2009). This study investigated the effects of a six week intervention designed to increase syntactic awareness, including meta-awareness of key structures of English for young ESL students in the upper elementary grades. Twenty typically developing ESL students in the fourth and fifth grade participated in an intervention program that consisted of 35-minute training in syntactic awareness (SA) or phonemic awareness (PA) for three times per week. The ability to produce embedded and conjoined structures, including changes in both oral language and reading, were examined. Results revealed significant gains in sentence combining skills for the syntactic awareness group after six weeks of treatment. Both groups increased their performance scores for the dependent measures word ordering, word reading in context, and comprehension. Levels of second language proficiency, specifically listening proficiency, had a significant influence on gain scores for measures of oral and written syntax, as well as reading. The results suggested that the time spent on higher level language was not at the expense of word recognition skills, consistent with an interactive model of reading that suggests that an interaction between higher level language (i.e., top-down) and decoding print (i.e., bottom-up) occurs to result in word recognition (Seidenberg and McClelland, 1989). Future studies are needed to further evaluate the effect of syntactic awareness training for English as second-language learners

Restructuring multimodal corrective feedback through Augmented Reality (AR)-enabled videoconferencing in L2 pronunciation teaching

The problem of cognitive overload is particularly pertinent in multimedia L2 classroom corrective feedback (CF), which involves rich communicative tools to help the class to notice the mismatch between the target input and learners’ pronunciation. Based on multimedia design principles, this study developed a new multimodal CF model through augmented reality (AR)-enabled videoconferencing to eliminate extraneous cognitive load and guide learners’ attention to the essential material. Using a quasi-experimental design, this study aims to examine the effectiveness of this new CF model in improving Chinese L2 students’ segmental production and identification of the targeted English consonants (dark /ɫ/, /ð/and /θ/), as well as their attitudes towards this application. Results indicated that the online multimodal CF environment equipped with AR annotation and filters played a significant role in improving the participants’ production of the target segments. However, this advantage was not found in the auditory identification tests compared to the offline CF multimedia class. In addition, the learners reported that the new CF model helped to direct their attention to the articulatory gestures of the student being corrected, and enhance the class efficiency. Implications for computer-assisted pronunciation training and the construction of online/offline multimedia learning environments are also discussed

Rapid neural processing of grammatical tone in second language learners

The present dissertation investigates how beginner learners process grammatical tone in a second language and whether their processing is influenced by phonological transfer. Paper I focuses on the acquisition of Swedish grammatical tone by beginner learners from a non-tonal language, German. Results show that non-tonal beginner learners do not process the grammatical regularities of the tones but rather treat them akin to piano tones. A rightwards-going spread of activity in response to pitch difference in Swedish tones possibly indicates a process of tone sensitisation. Papers II to IV investigate how artificial grammatical tone, taught in a word-picture association paradigm, is acquired by German and Swedish learners. The results of paper II show that interspersed mismatches between grammatical tone and picture referents evoke an N400 only for the Swedish learners. Both learner groups produce N400 responses to picture mismatches related to grammatically meaningful vowel changes. While mismatch detection quickly reaches high accuracy rates, tone mismatches are least accurately and most slowly detected in both learner groups. For processing of the grammatical L2 words outside of mismatch contexts, the results of paper III reveal early, preconscious and late, conscious processing in the Swedish learner group within 20 minutes of acquisition (word recognition component, ELAN, LAN, P600). German learners only produce late responses: a P600 within 20 minutes and a LAN after sleep consolidation. The surprisingly rapid emergence of early grammatical ERP components (ELAN, LAN) is attributed to less resource-heavy processing outside of violation contexts. Results of paper IV, finally, indicate that memory trace formation, as visible in the word recognition component at ~50 ms, is only possible at the highest level of formal and functional similarity, that is, for words with falling tone in Swedish participants. Together, the findings emphasise the importance of phonological transfer in the initial stages of second language acquisition and suggest that the earlier the processing, the more important the impact of phonological transfer

The development of automatic speech evaluation system for learners of English

制度:新 ; 報告番号:甲3183号 ; 学位の種類:博士(教育学) ; 授与年月日:2010/11/30 ; 早大学位記番号:新547

MISPRONUNCIATION DETECTION AND DIAGNOSIS IN MANDARIN ACCENTED ENGLISH SPEECH

This work presents the development, implementation, and evaluation of a Mispronunciation Detection and Diagnosis (MDD) system, with application to pronunciation evaluation of Mandarin-accented English speech. A comprehensive detection and diagnosis of errors in the Electromagnetic Articulography corpus of Mandarin-Accented English (EMA-MAE) was performed by using the expert phonetic transcripts and an Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system. Articulatory features derived from the parallel kinematic data available in the EMA-MAE corpus were used to identify the most significant articulatory error patterns seen in L2 speakers during common mispronunciations. Using both acoustic and articulatory information, an ASR based Mispronunciation Detection and Diagnosis (MDD) system was built and evaluated across different feature combinations and Deep Neural Network (DNN) architectures. The MDD system captured mispronunciation errors with a detection accuracy of 82.4%, a diagnostic accuracy of 75.8% and a false rejection rate of 17.2%. The results demonstrate the advantage of using articulatory features in revealing the significant contributors of mispronunciation as well as improving the performance of MDD systems