Prosody training benefits in perception vs. production skills in simultaneous interpreting: An experimental study

The present study investigates the prosody training benefits for interpreter trainees in perception vs. production skills in simultaneous interpreting. Two groups of student interpreters were formed. Participants were assigned to groups at random. The control group received routine instruction in interpreting skills. The experimental group spent 20 minutes less time per session on the routine curriculum and instead received awareness training on prosodic features of English. The total instruction time was the same for the students in two groups, i.e., 15 hours. Students then took a posttest in interpretation skills. The results showed that the experimental group performed better than the control group in simultaneous interpretation performance. Moreover, the study revealed that prosody training enhances the students' perception skills more than that of the production skills. These results have pedagogical implications for curriculum designers, interpreter training programs, and all who are involved in language study and pedagogy.Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

Comparing the nativeness vs. intelligibility approach in prosody instruction for developing speaking skills by interpreter trainees: An experimental study

The present study investigates the relative contribution of the Nativeness vs. Intelligibility approach in prosody instruction for developing English speaking skills by Iranian interpreter trainees. Three groups of student interpreters were formed. Participants were assigned to groups at random. The speaking skill pretest scores revealed that the three groups were homogeneous before starting the training program. The Control group listened to authentic audio tracks in English, and discussed their contents, watched authentic English movies, and did exercises to improve speaking skills without receiving prosody training. The Nativeness approach group instead spent part of the time on the theoretical explanation of, and practical exercises in, English prosody with the overall aim to train students to acquire native-like speaking skills. The Intelligibility approach group spent part of the time on the theoretical explanation of, and practical exercises in, English prosody emphasizing the requirement that students produce intelligible speech. The total instruction time was the same for all three groups, i.e., 18 h. Students then took a posttest in speaking skills. The results show that both experimental groups performed better than the control group. Moreover, the Intelligibility approach group outperformed the Nativeness approach group in developing speaking skills.Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

Prosody teaching matters in developing speaking skills for Farsi-English interpreter trainees: An experimental study

The present study investigates the effect of explicit teaching of prosody on developing speaking skills for Farsi-English interpreter trainees. Two groups of student interpreters were formed. All were native speakers of Farsi who studied English translation and interpreting at the BA level at Tafresh University, Iran. Participants were assigned to groups at random, but with equal division between genders (6 female and 6 male students in each group). No significant differences in English language skills (TOEFL scores) could be established between the groups. Participants took a pretest before starting the program. The control group listened to authentic audio tracks in English and discussed their contents, watched authentic English movies, discussed issues in the movies and other hot topics, in pairs in the classroom. The experimental group spent part of the time on theoretical explanation of, and practical exercises with, prosodic features of English. The total instruction time was the same for both groups, i.e. 21 hours. Students then took a posttest in speaking skills. The results show that the prosodic feature awareness training significantly improved the students’ speaking skills. These results have pedagogical implications for curriculum designers, interpreting programs for training future interpreters, material producers and all who are involved in language study and pedagogy.Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

Effect of explicit teaching of prosodic features on the development of listening comprehension by Farsi-English interpreter trainees: An experimental study

This study investigates the effect of explicit teaching of prosodic features on developing listening comprehension by interpreter trainees. Two groups of student interpreters were formed. All were native speakers of Farsi who studied English translation and interpreting at the BA level at the State University of Arak, Iran. Participants were assigned to groups at random, but with equal division between genders (9 female and 9 male students in each group). No significant differences in English language skills (TOEFL scores) could be established between the groups. Participants took a standard pretest of listening comprehension before starting the program. The control group had exercises in listening comprehension, while the experimental group spent part of the time on theoretical explanation of, and practical exercises with, prosodic features of English. The total instruction time was the same for both groups, i.e. 8 hours. Students then took a standard listening comprehension test. The results show that the prosodic feature awareness training significantly improved the students’ listening comprehension skills. The results have pedagogical implications for curriculum designers, interpreting programs for training future interpreters, material producers and all who are involved in language study and pedagogy.Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

The effect of prosody teaching on developing word recognition skills for interpreter trainees. An experimental study

The present study investigates the effect of the explicit teaching of prosodic features on developing word recognition skills with interpreter trainees. Two groups of student interpreters were composed. All were native speakers of Farsi who studied English translation and interpreting at the BA level at the State University of Arak, Iran. Participants were categorized into two groups at random, but with equal division between genders (9 female and 9 male students in each group). No significant differences in English language skills (TOEFL scores) could be established between the groups. Participants took a pretest of word recognition skill before starting the program. The control group received exercises in listening comprehension, while the experimental group spent part of the time on theoretical explanation and practical exercises developing conscious knowledge of prosodic features of English, such as word stress. The total instruction time was the same for both groups, i.e. 8 hours. Students then took a posttest of word recognition skills. The results show that prosodic feature awareness training did yield a statistically significant improvement of word recognition skills. The result has pedagogical implications for researchers in the field of second language teaching, instructors, curriculum designers, conductors of interpreting programs for training future interpreters, material producers and all who are involved in language study and pedagogy.Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

The effect of teaching prosody awareness on interpreting performance: an experimental study of consecutive interpreting from English into Farsi

This study investigates the effect of prosodic feature awareness training on the quality of interpreting by interpreter trainees. Two groups of student interpreters were formed. Participants were assigned to groups at random, but with equal division between genders (seven males in each group). The control group was then taught interpreting skills by the routine curriculum, while the experimental group spent part of the time instead on theoretical explanation and practical exercises emphasizing prosodic differences between Farsi and English. Three raters assessed the quality of the interpreter trainees’ performance in a post-test in terms of accuracy, omissions, overall coherence, grammar, expression, word choice, terminology, accentedness, pace and voice. The results show that prosodic feature awareness training did have a statistically significant effect on the quality measures: the overall assessment of the experimental group was 14 pointsbetter (on a scale between 0 and 100) than that of the control group. Moreover, the difference was larger for the phonetic/prosodic quality scales (accentedness, pace, voice) than for the other scales. These results have implications for designers of curricula for training interpreters, material producers and all who are involved in foreign-language study and pedagogy.Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

Effects of attention to segmental vs. suprasegmental features on the speech intelligibility and comprehensibility of the EFL learners targeting the perception or production-focused practice

The present study investigated the training benefits of segmental vs. suprasegmental aspects for the intelligibility and comprehensibility of spoken English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Five groups of lower intermediate EFL learners were formed by random assignment. A pretest of the speaking skills, intelligibility, and comprehensibility of the learners' speech confirmed that the five groups were homogeneous before starting the training program. The control group listened to authentic audio tracks in English, and discussed their contents, watched authentic English movies, and did exercises to improve speaking skills without receiving explicit segmental and suprasegmental explanations and exercises. The experimental groups received an explanation of segmental or suprasegmental features (during one-sixth of the teaching time) followed by production-focused or perception-focused practice (during another one-sixth of the teaching time). The total instruction time was the same for all five groups, i.e., 15 h. Students then took a posttest in speaking skills targeting their speech intelligibility and comprehensibility. The findings revealed that the speech intelligibility of learners who received segmental training followed by production-focused practice was better than that of all other groups. Learners who received suprasegmental instruction followed by production-focused practice outperformed all other groups in terms of comprehensibility.Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

The effect of prosody teaching on developing word recognition skills for interpreter trainees: An experimental study

The present study investigates the effect of the explicit teaching of prosodic features on developing word recognition skills with interpreter trainees. Two groups of student interpreters were composed. All were native speakers of Farsi who studied English translation and interpreting at the BA level at the State University of Arak, Iran. Participants were categorized into two groups at random, but with equal division between genders (9 female and 9 male students in each group). No significant differences in English language skills (TOEFL scores) could be established between the groups. Participants took a pretest of word recognition skill before starting the program. The control group received exercises in listening comprehension, while the experimental group spent part of the time on theoretical explanation and practical exercises developing conscious knowledge of prosodic features of English, such as word stress. The total instruction time was the same for both groups, i.e. 8 hours. Students then took a posttest of word recognition skills. The results show that prosodic feature awareness training did yield a statistically significant improvement of word recognition skills. The result has pedagogical implications for researchers in the field of second language teaching, instructors, curriculum designers, conductors of interpreting programs for training future interpreters, material producers and all who are involved in language study and pedagogy.Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

Effects of prosody awareness training on the intelligibility of Iranian interpreter trainees in English

The present study investigates the effect of prosodic feature awareness training on the intelligibility of speech produced by Iranian interpreter trainees. Two groups of student interpreters were formed. All were native speakers of Farsi who studied English translation and interpreting at the BA level. Participants took a pretest of speaking skills before starting the program so that their speech intelligibility level was rated. The control group listened to authentic audio tracks in English and discussed their contents, watched authentic English movies, discussed issues in the movies in pairs in the classroom. The experimental group spent part of the time on theoretical explanation of, and practical exercises with, English prosody. Students then took a posttest in speaking skills so that the effect of treatment on the intelligibility of their speech could be assessed. The results show that the prosody awareness training significantly improved the students’ speech intelligibility.Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

Prosody instruction for interpreter trainees: Does methodology make a difference? An experimental study

This study investigates the effect of explicit vs. implicit prosody teaching on the quality of consecutive interpretation by Farsi-English interpreter trainees. Three groups of student interpreters were formed. All were native speakers of Farsi who studied English translation and interpreting at the BA level at the University of Applied Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Participants were assigned to groups at random, but with equal division between genders (6 female and 6 male students in each group). No significant differences in English language skills (TOEFL scores) could be established between the groups. Participants took a pretest of consecutive interpreting before starting the program. The control group listened to authentic audio tracks and did exercises in consecutive interpreting. The fi rst experimental group received explicit instruction of English prosody and did exercises based on the theoretical explanation which was provided by their Iranian instructor. The second experimental group received implicit instruction of English prosody through the use of recasts. The total instruction time was the same for all the groups, i.e. 10 hours. Students then took a posttest in consecutive interpretation. The results showed that explicit teaching of prosody had a significantly positive effect on the overall quality of interpreting from Farsi into English compared with that of implicit prosody instruction. These results have pedagogical implications for curriculum designers, interpreter training programs, material producers and all who are involved in language study and pedagogy.Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic