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

Desperately Seeking a Communicative Approach: English Pronunciation in a Sample of French and Polish Secondary School Textbooks

The first part of this paper analyses pronunciation exercises in a representative sample of textbooks from each country. Pronunciation exercises were classified based on the degree to which they mobilize communicative abilities, according to the five categories of a Communicative Framework for teaching pronunciation (Celce-Murcia et al., 2010, p45): Description & analysis, Listening discrimination, Controlled practice, Guided practice, Communicative practice. The first category involves little risk-taking by the learner, usually focusses on form and allows little freedom. At the other end of the spectrum, communicative practice involves a focus on meaning and interaction, with the concomitant greater freedom to make mistakes. The exercises were then analysed to see which segmental and/or prosodic features they favoured and to what extent

Measuring vowel duration variability in native English speakers and polish learners

This paper presents a set of simple statistical measures that illustrate the difference between native English speakers and Polish learners of English in varying the length of vocalic segments in read speech. Relative vowel duration and vowel length variation are widely used as basic criteria for establishing rhythmic differences between languages and dialects of a language. The parameter of vocalic duration is employed in popular measures such as ΔV (Ramus et al. 1999), VarcoV (Dellwo 2006, White and Mattys 2007), and PVI (Low et al. 2000, Grabe and Low 2002). Apart from rhythm studies, the processing of data concerning vowel duration can be used to establish the level of discrepancy between native speech and learner speech in investigating other temporal aspects of FL pronunciation, such as tense-lax vowel distinction, accentual lengthening or the degree of unstressed vowel reduction, which are often pointed out as serious problems in the acquisition of English pronunciation by Polish learners. Using descriptive statistics (relations between personal mean vowel duration and standard deviation), the author calculates several indices that demonstrate individual learners' (13 subjects) scores in relation to the native speakers' (12 subjects) score ranges. In some tested aspects, the results of the two groups of speakers are almost cleanly separated, which suggests not only the existence of specific didactic problems but also their actual scale

TEACHING VOCABULARY TO THE 4TH GRADE STUDENTS IN SDN PURWOSUMAN 5 SIDOHARJO SRAGEN

ARI SULISTYOWATI. 2009. TEACHING VOCABULARY TO THE 4TH GRADE STUDENTS IN SDN PURWOSUMAN 5 SIDOHARJO SRAGEN. English Diploma Program, Faculty of Letters and Fine Arts, Sebelas Maret University. The writer writes the final project report based on doing the job training. The final project report discussed teaching vocabulary to the 4th grade students in SDN Purwosuman 5 Sidoharjo Sragen. In writing final project report the writer also collected the data by interviewing the teacher and the students, observing class, and teaching directly in the classroom. In doing the job training, the writer gave the material from the LKS and followed what the teacher said to the writer. The writer also gave the material such as concrete words (animal, fruit, shape, etc) because their level is the Elementary School. The final project report also discussed problems and solutions faced by the writer when teaching vocabulary to the 4th grade students in SDN Purwosuman 5 Sidoharjo Sragen

Production of L3 Vowels: Is it Possible to Separate them from L1 and L2 Sounds?

It is incontrovertible that acquisition of a sound system of a second language is always a complex phenomenon and presents a great challenge for L2 learners (e.g. Rojczyk, 2010a). There are numerous studies (e.g. Nowacka, 2010; Flege, 1991) which show that L2 learners whose first language has a scarce number of sounds, have problems to distinguish L2 sound categories and tend to apply their L1 segments to new contexts. It may be easily detectable in the case of vowels. There is abundance of studies examining L2 learners’ successes and failures in production of L1 and L2 vowels (e.g. Flege, 1992; Nowacka, 2010; Rojczyk, 2010a). Usually such projects show how difficult it is for L2 learners to separate “old” and “new” vowel categories. However, the situation becomes much more complicated when we think of third language (L3) production. While in the case of L2 segmental production the number of factors affecting L2 sounds is rather limited (either interference from learners’ L1 or some kind of L2 intralingual influence), in the case of L3 segmental production we may encounter L1→L3, L2→L3 or L3 intralingual interference. This makes separation of L3 sounds a much more complex process. The aim of this study is to examine whether speakers of L1 Polish, L2 English and L3 German are able to separate new, L3 vowel categories from their native and L2 categories. Being a part of a larger project, this time the focus is on German /œ/. This vowel was chosen since it is regarded as especially difficult for Polish learners of German and it is frequently substituted with some other sounds. A group of English philology (Polish-English-German translation and interpretation programme) students was chosen to participate in this project. They were advanced speakers of English who did not encounter any difficulties in communication with native speakers of this language and upper-intermediate users of German. They had been taught both English and German pronunciation/practical phonetics during their studies at the University of Silesia. The subjects were asked to produce words containing analysed vowels, namely: P /u/, P /ɔ/, P /ɛ/, E /u/, E /ɔ / and G /œ/. All examined vowels were embedded in a /bVt/ context. The target /bVt/ words were then embedded in carrier sentences I said /bVt/ this time in English, Ich sag’ /bVt/ diesmal in German and Mówię /bVt/ teraz in Polish, in a non-final position. The sentences were presented to subjects on a computer screen and the produced chunks were stored in a notebook’s memory as .wav files ready for inspection. The Praat 5.3.12 speech-analysis software package (Boersma, 2001) was used to scroll through the audio files in order to locate an onset and offset of target vowels, measure the F1 and F2 frequencies and plot vowels on the plane. All analyses were also performed using Praat. The obtained results shed new light on L3 segmental production and L1 and L2 interference

Characteristics of quality teaching for students in New Zealand schools whose first language is not English

The current paper draws on the findings of two recent research reports commissioned by the New Zealand Ministry of Education (Alton-Lee, 2003; Franken & McComish, 2003) in order to generate a synthesised statement of characteristics of quality teaching for students for whom English is not the first language (referred to from here as NESB students1) in New Zealand schools. Alton-Lee (2003, see Ministry of Education website, www.minedu.govt.nz) provides a synthesis of research-based evidence addressing the nature of quality teaching in schooling for the full range of diverse students. In this work, diversity encompasses “many characteristics including ethnicity, socio-economic background, home language, gender, special needs, disability, and giftedness” (Alton-Lee, 2003, p. v). Because her synthesis addresses diversity in the student population, she focusses on what is common to diverse students and thus does not specify particular conditions that pertain to any one sub-group of diverse students. Franken and McComish (2003) on the other hand, is a research report into the English language support for NESB (Non English Speaking Background) students in New Zealand schools. It includes a literature review of evidence-based research into second language teaching and learning, particularly classroom based research. It also reports on observations and analysis of practices in New Zealand schools, and discusses how these documented practices relate to the research findings from the literature