Perception of English vowels as a foreign language of Hong Kong Cantonese secondary school speakers

This dissertation reports on the results of a research study that investigated the perception of English vowels by native Cantonese speakers who are learning English as a foreign language (EFL) as well as the applicability of the predictions of the Perception Assimilation Model (PAM) to foreign language perception by Hong Kong Cantonese EFL learners. Thirty-one local secondary school students participated in a perception test to discriminate and identify English minimal pairs. The results affirm the hypothesis of the PAM on the perceptual identification of different types of minimal pairs. The results also call for the usage of explicit English phonological training in Hong Kong Education to facilitate English acquisition.published_or_final_versionSpeech and Hearing SciencesBachelorBachelor of Science in Speech and Hearing Science

The perception of English vowels by native Cantonese English as a foreign language primary school students

This study investigated the perception of English vowels in Cantonese speakers who are beginning learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) in reference to the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM). Thirty-one primary school students participated in a perception study that required them to discriminate and identify English minimal vowel pairs. It was founded that Cantonese EFL learner’s vowel perception can be predicted by the similarity of spatial proximity of constriction locations between English vowels and Cantonese vowels. The study also provides support for the PAM. Further research is needed to include EFL learners from different age groups and at different English proficiency levels.published_or_final_versionSpeech and Hearing SciencesBachelorBachelor of Science in Speech and Hearing Science

Native Speaker Perceptions of Accented Speech: The English Pronunciation of Macedonian EFL Learners

The paper reports on the results of a study that aimed to describe the vocalic and consonantal features of the English pronunciation of Macedonian EFL learners as perceived by native speakers of English and to find out whether native speakers who speak different standard variants of English perceive the same segments as non-native. A specially designed computer web application was employed to gather two types of data: a) quantitative (frequency of segment variables and global foreign accent ratings on a 5-point scale), and b) qualitative (open-ended questions). The result analysis points out to three most frequent markers of foreign accent in the English speech of Macedonian EFL learners: final obstruent devoicing, vowel shortening and substitution of English dental fricatives with Macedonian dental plosives. It also reflects additional phonetic aspects poorly explained in the available reference literature such as allophonic distributional differences between the two languages and intonational mismatch

Production and perception of English consonants by Yemeni EFL learners

Previous studies on the perception-production correlation focused mainly on transcriptions and native English speaker evaluations for production accuracy assessments; only a few included acoustic measurements. This study aims to investigate the production and perception of six English consonants by Yemeni EFL learners of English using an acoustic measurement of second-language production. It has three objectives: (1) To investigate the extent to which word position influences the accuracy of Yemeni EFL learners’ production of the target consonants, (2) to assess the extent to which word position affects their perception, and (3) to investigate the relationship between the overall production and perception of the investigated sounds. A quantitative research method was employed for collecting data from six Yemeni EFL postgraduate students from Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM). In the production tasks, the researchers asked the speakers to produce seventy-two words with the target consonants three times in isolation (Experiment 1) and the other three times in a carrier sentence (Experiment 2). The researchers recorded the speakers’ productions with an iPhone and later evaluated them acoustically via Praat. In the perception test, an AXB experiment was conducted. The findings showed that word position significantly affected the production, yet not the perception of the target sounds. Moreover, an insignificant positive moderate correlation was revealed between the overall production and perception of the target consonants. The findings have implications for second-language speech as well as pronunciation instruction. Teachers may put more focus on specific sound environments that lead learners to struggle while producing/perceiving particular English sounds

Determination of corrective optimals for Chinese university learners of English

In the expectation of investigating the nature of corrective optimals of the sounds of English for Chinese EFL learners, a small selection of problematic English vowel sounds (i.e. /ɪ/, /i:/, /e/, /æ/, /ʊ/ and /u:/) was explored. The present study investigated the corrective optimals for these sounds. To this end, an experiment was conducted. Thirty-seven first-year non-English major university EFL learners participated. Each student went through two diagnostic steps. First, each student’s preferred center frequency (fcenter) was determined for a particular vowel sound, beginning with exposure to the fcenter of the traditional native-speaker optimal. Second, a combination of frequency bands that together form corrective optimals for each of the six vowels was determined for each individual student. Rather than consisting of single continuous 1-octave bands, corrective optimals for Chinese university EFL learners were found to be discontinuous multiple frequency bands that are both narrower and finer. The corrective optimals for Chinese university EFL learners were identified as discontinuous multiple band structures containing a bandpass filter narrower than one octave and, in addition, a significant low frequency component. In the light of this finding, it seems valuable to reorient the concept of corrective optimal away from a single octave frequency band and toward discontinuous multiband structures containing a significant low frequency component. Further research over a great number of vowels and consonants for various languages is desirable to confirm and extend this finding

Perception and production training effects on production of English lexical schwa by young Spanish learners

Phonetic training has been found to expedite aural and oral abilities in the L2. While considerable research has been conducted on the effects of perception training on production and of production training on perception, fewer studies have addressed them as separate training regimes in the same experimental setting outside laboratory conditions. This paper examined the effects of two training procedures (one based on production tasks and one based on perception tasks) on the production of English lexical schwa by young Spanish learners in their intact EFL classrooms. Both trained groups exhibited significant gains in the post-test and a slight advantage of the production-based trained group was observed. Learners? orosensory awareness, self-perception, and self-feedback were actions included in this protocol which may have contributed to such advantage. Our results demonstrate that guided pronunciation training protocols can be successful in the classroom with young learners to boost production skills

Sounds Serbian? Acoustic properties of Serbian EFL students' speech

This paper presents the findings of a study of the acoustic properties of Serbian EFL students' vowels. The participants were 12 junior-year students of the English Department. Their vowel production was recorded in three different contexts, i.e. speaking tasks: reading words in citation form, reading a text aloud, and speaking. The acoustic measurements included vowel duration and F1 and F2 formant frequency values. The results showed that neither the production of vowel qualities nor the duration differences used by the students were without problem

EFFECTS OF AN ARABIC ACCENT ON EFL LEARNERS' PRODUCTIVE INTELLIGIBILITY

This study aimed at investigating the effects of a foreign accent, namely the Iraqi Arabic accent, at the segmental level on the productive intelligibility of Iraqi EFL learners. Drawing on an intelligibility pronunciation principle, i.e. Gimsons (2001) Minimum General Intelligibility (MGI), the study applied a mixed-methods research approach to measure the extent to which features of this accent impede the productive intelligibility of these learners and to identify the communication strategies they use to overcome intelligibility failures. To achieve these aims, two data collection tools were used: a production intelligibility test and a speaking task. Although the overall quantitative findings revealed that Iraqi EFL learners foreign-accented English was intelligible at the segmental level, most intelligibility failures were ascribed to the mispronunciation of non-existent English phonemes. The qualitative aspect of the study aimed at identifying the communication strategies Iraqi EFL learners use to overcome these intelligibility failures. In this respect, several strategies were identified, namely the let-it-pass strategy, the replacement strategy, the repetition strategy and the time gaining strategy. The article concludes with the implications and applications of the findings.Corresponding author: Ahmad NazariDOI:: doi.org/10.24071/llt.2020.23020