English read by Japanese phonetic corpus: an interim report

The primary purpose of this paper is to explain the procedure of developing the English Read by Japanese Phonetic Corpus. A series of preliminary studies (Makino 2007, 2008, 2009) made it clear that a phonetically-transcribed computerized corpus of Japanese speakers’ English speech was worth making. Because corpus studies on L2 pronunciation have been very rare, we intend to fill this gap. For the corpus building, the 1,902 sentence files in the English Read by Japanese speech database scored for their individual sounds by American English teachers trained in phonetics in Minematsu, et al. (2002b) have been chosen. The files were pre-processed with the Penn Phonetics Lab Forced Aligner to generate Praat TextGrids where target English words and phonemes were forced-aligned to the speech files. Two additional tiers (actual phones and substitutions) were added to those TextGrids, the actual phones were manually transcribed and the other tiers were aligned to that tier. Then the TextGrids were imported to ELAN, which has a much better searching functionality. So far, fewer than 10% of the files have been completed and the corpus-building is still in its initial stage. The secondary purpose of this paper is to report on some findings from the small part of the corpus that has been completed. Although it is still premature to talk of any tendency in the corpus, it is worth noting that we have found evidence of phenomena which are not readily predicted from L1 phonological transfer, such as the spirantization of voiceless plosives, which is not considered normal in the pronunciation of Japanese

マルチメディア教材活用による日本人EFL学習者の発音改善に関する研究

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Asymmetrical cognitive load Imposed by processing native and non-native speech

Intonation affects information processing and comprehension. Previous research has found that some international teaching assistants (ITAs) fail to exploit English intonation, potentially posing processing difficulties to students who are native English speakers. However, researchers have also found that non-native listeners found it easier to process sentences given by a non-native speaker with a shared language background, leading to an interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit (ISIB). Therefore, how native speaker teaching assistant (NSTA)’s and ITA’s classroom speech affects the processing, comprehension, and attitudes of listeners with different language backgrounds needs to be further investigated. Using a dual-task paradigm, a comprehension questionnaire, and an attitudinal questionnaire, the present study investigates how the pronunciation and intonation of a NSTA and an ITA affect native English speakers’ and Mandarin-speaking English learners’ processing and comprehension of a lecture, and attitudes towards the two instructors. The present study found shared processing advantages when the listeners shared the L1 of the speaker, but overall lecture comprehension and attitude were unaffected. These findings support and extend prior research studies surveying ITAs’ intonational patterns and ISIB. These findings also have implications for research on the teaching of English pronunciation to non-native instructors.Published versio

Musical Intelligence and Foreign Language Learning

The article discusses the potential advantage that musically gifted FL learners have in developing the speaking skill, especially in acquiring some prosodic features. Empirical findings are provided to support the assumption

Persian ITAs and Speech Comprehensibility: Using CAPT for Pronunciation Improvement

Abstract It has been shown in the past that International Teaching Assistants (ITAs) struggle with phonological and communication issues in the classroom (Pickering, 1999; 2001). This issue leads to misunderstandings between ITAs and undergraduate students, frustrating them both as well as the parents of the students and the departments. However, studies have shown that with the right training, ITAs can focus on suprasegmental features, improving their speech comprehensibility and intelligibility (Gorusch, 2011). This study investigates the effect of Computer Assisted Pronunciation Teaching (CAPT) via tutorial videos and visual feedback on the improvement of ITAs’ speech comprehensibility. Across 5 US universities, 60 Persian ITAs, a video group (n=20), a visual feedback group(n=21), and a control group (n=19), completed an oral production pretest and recorded five diagnostic sentences plus spontaneous speech files. Over the next six weeks, all groups received in-person non-CAPT instruction, but the video group received and watched extra eight tutorial videos designed to target suprasegmental features and the feedback group was exposed to Praat visual feedback. Participants were also paired with a pronunciation tutor who provided instruction and feedback once a week. A perception posttest was administered, and the same 5 sentences with the spontaneous talk were once again recorded. The pre-and post-treatment sentences were then rated by 169 undergraduate students for comprehensibility. The findings of this study provide a greater understanding of how explicit instruction of pronunciation through CAPT can improve the speech comprehensibility of ITAs. The number of international people in academic and professional contexts is rising, it is necessary to guide them through appropriate instruction to improve their communication quality. The results of this study suggest that even short intervention programs that include targeted in-person tutoring, tutorial videos, and visual feedback may improve ITAs’ communications. Results also imply the need for pronunciation support for ITAs in their respective academic institutions

The Relationship between Musical Ability and the Perception and Production of L2 Prosodic Features

Studies in L2 acquisition have indicated that musically trained individuals are apt to demonstrate better L2 pronunciation skills. As for music, it was recently clarified that some amusiacs demonstrate selective impairment in L1 prosody discrimination. The purpose of this study was to investigate a relationship between amusical L2 learners and their perception and production of L2 prosody. To investigate this, 24 native-Japanese learners of English either in EFL (n=22) or ESL context (n=2) were examined in terms of their musical ability and L2 intonation perception and production. The musical test indicated that there was one amusiac and 10 low-level musical sufferers in the EFL group. Based on a contrastive analysis between amusical and non-amusical participants, as well as between participant groups with and without musical difficulty, it was found that any level of musical difficulty was correlated with lower auditory processing ability in L2 intonation for these English-language learners. However, the contrastive analysis pertaining to the productive skill indicated that musical difficulty was not associated with their production of accurate L2 intonation patterns. According to these findings, the present study concluded that musical difficulty is only related to these learners\u27 L2 intonation processing. Conversely, the present research found that the ESL learners\u27 learning context appeared to be less associated with their aural performance than with their intonation production. In addition, it was found that the level of previous musical training was related to both better L2 intonation perception and production

Integrating form and meaning in L2 pronunciation instruction

One of the central challenges of ESL teaching is striking the right balance between form and meaning. In pronunciation pedagogy, this challenge is compounded because repetitive practice, which has been shown to enhance phonological acquisition and promote fluency, is widely viewed as being incompatible with communicative principles. This article provides a brief historical background for modern pronunciation pedagogy (from World War II to the present) as part of a backdrop for understanding the current disjuncture between pronunciation and communicative language teaching. A discussion on form-focused instruction, its applicability for pronunciation pedagogy, and challenges in implementation follows with reference to a recent article that presents evidence for the appropriateness of a communicative instructional framework for teaching L2 pronunciation (Trofimovich & Gatbonton, 2006). Finally, a communicative activity that encourages repetitive practice while integrating pronunciation with other components of language use is proposed

The Effect of IP Constituent Position and Foot Complexity on Timing in Polish Learner's English Pronunciation

A comparison of native and Polish learners' performance shows similar durations of stressed and pitch accented syllables. The unstressed syllables and syllable clusters, on the other hand, are significantly longer in non-native speech, and the discrepancies increase at lower phrasal prominence levels, especially in the preheads. Similar results for both groups have been obtained with respect to the number of consecutive unstressed syllables (foot complexity). The same test repeated after seven months of pronunciation training reveals a considerable tendency towards native speech timing, although the differences concerning low prominence levels remain significant

Comprehensibility and Prosody Ratings for Pronunciation Software Development

In the context of a project developing software for pronunciation practice and feedback for Mandarin-speaking learners of English, a key issue is how to decide which features of pronunciation to focus on in giving feedback. We used naïve and experienced native speaker ratings of comprehensibility and nativeness to establish the key features affecting comprehensibility of the utterances of a group of Chinese learners of English. Native speaker raters assessed the comprehensibility of recorded utterances, pinpointed areas of difficulty and then rated for nativeness the same utterances, but after segmental information had been filtered out. The results show that prosodic information is important for comprehensibility, and that there are no significant differences between naïve and experienced raters on either comprehensibility or nativeness judgements. This suggests that naïve judgements are a useful and accessible source of data for identifying the parameters to be used in setting up automated feedback

The Relationship between Musical Ability and the Perception and Production of L2 Prosodic Features

Studies in L2 acquisition have indicated that musically trained individuals are apt to demonstrate better L2 pronunciation skills. As for music, it was recently clarified that some amusiacs demonstrate selective impairment in L1 prosody discrimination. The purpose of this study was to investigate a relationship between amusical L2 learners and their perception and production of L2 prosody. To investigate this, 24 native-Japanese learners of English either in EFL (n=22) or ESL context (n=2) were examined in terms of their musical ability and L2 intonation perception and production. The musical test indicated that there was one amusiac and 10 low-level musical sufferers in the EFL group. Based on a contrastive analysis between amusical and non-amusical participants, as well as between participant groups with and without musical difficulty, it was found that any level of musical difficulty was correlated with lower auditory processing ability in L2 intonation for these English-language learners. However, the contrastive analysis pertaining to the productive skill indicated that musical difficulty was not associated with their production of accurate L2 intonation patterns. According to these findings, the present study concluded that musical difficulty is only related to these learners\u27 L2 intonation processing. Conversely, the present research found that the ESL learners\u27 learning context appeared to be less associated with their aural performance than with their intonation production. In addition, it was found that the level of previous musical training was related to both better L2 intonation perception and production