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The effectiveness of pronunciation teaching to Greek state school students

The effectiveness of pronunciation teaching to Greek state school students. Eleni Tsiartsioni Aristotle University of Thessaloniki E-mail: eltsiart@enl.auth.gr 14 th GALA Conference, Thessaloniki 14 th -16 th December 2007. REVIEW OF RESEARCH ON PRONUNCIATION TEACHING.

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The effectiveness of pronunciation teaching to Greek state school students

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  1. The effectiveness of pronunciation teaching to Greek state school students Eleni Tsiartsioni Aristotle University of Thessaloniki E-mail: eltsiart@enl.auth.gr 14th GALA Conference, Thessaloniki 14th -16th December 2007

  2. REVIEW OF RESEARCH ON PRONUNCIATION TEACHING • ‘the teaching of pronunciation has been considered almost a luxury in the ESL/ EFL curriculum’(Goodwin, Brinton and Celce-Murcia 1994) • ‘an orphan in English programs around the world’ (Gilbert 1994) • ‘pronunciation has been marginalized within the field of applied linguistics. As a result, teachers are left… with little direction’ (Derwing and Murno 2005)

  3. Pardo’s (2005) conclusions on pronunciation teaching • There is a positive effect of well-planned, quality pronunciation training (out of the 25 studies reviewed, 23 reported improved pronunciation after instruction). • Use should be made of specific teaching techniques; pronunciation is not simply ‘picked-up’.

  4. Age of onset in Foreign Language (FL) contexts The BAF Project (University of Barcelona): • Age of onset in FL contexts and exposure were not determinants for perceiving and producing L2 sounds in a native-like manner. • Later starting age tended to result in better pronunciation and perception • Increased input and explicit phonetic instruction beneficial in FL contexts. (Fullana 2006)

  5. THEORIES OF PHONOLOGICAL ACQUISITION • Theories of Markedness (Eckman 1987) Unmarked features: voiceless stops Marked phenomena: aspiration, vowel duration differences • ‘New’ vs ‘similar’ sounds, ‘equivalence classification’- ‘Speech Learning Model’ (Flege 1986, 1991, 1997) Present study: the acquisition of word initial stops involves a ‘similar’ contrast.

  6. TYPES OF MEASUREMENTS: • Voice Onset Time (VOT):the time interval between the release of the stop’s closure and the onset of voicing, which may precede or follow the burst • Aspiration: the voiceless noise interval between the release of the stop and the onset of glottal vibration (sounds like a puff of air) • Vowel durationbefore word final stops

  7. GREEK: Initial stops: -Voiceless unaspirated /p, t, k/, short VOT -/b, d, g/ fully voiced, negative VOT ENGLISH: Initial stops: -Voiceless aspirated /p, t, k/, long positive VOT -/b, d, g/ voiceless, or partially voiced, unaspirated, short VOT Vowel length: vowels longer before voiced stops than before voiceless stops Differences between the Greek and English stop system

  8. QUESTIONS OF THE STUDY: 1. Is pronunciation teaching to children effective in a foreign language environment? 2. Does age play a role in the acquisition of pronunciation in a foreign language environment? For example, are students of younger age more favourably predisposed to acquiring FL pronunciation, as happens in naturalistic second language settings? 3. Are some phonological features acquired more successfully than others? To what extent are the theoretical models confirmed?

  9. METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY (1) • Control group (N=12): no pronunciation teaching • Experimental group (N=12) • 12 pronunciation lessons embedded in the English classes at school (20-40 minutes each) • Subjects: • 4 ten-year-old children (Age-group A) • 4 thirteen-year-old children (Age-group B) • 4 fifteen-year-old children (Age-group C)

  10. METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY (2) • Subjects’ proficiency level: A1, A2, B1 • Onset age of FL learning:9 years old • Recordings before and after the teaching intervention (Time 1,Time 2) • Recordings of L1 Greek and English by 6 native Greek and 6 native English children (2 of each age group)

  11. Recording materialsfor English and Greek • For English: Pack, Tab, Cab, Bag, Dab, Gab Gap-Gab, Bat-Bad, Back-Bag • For Greek : Πάσα /’pasa/, Τάσα /’tasa/, Κάσα /’kasa/, Μπάλα /’bala/, Γκάμα /’gama/, Ντάμα /’dama/ • 3 repetitions of each word

  12. Framework for pronunciation teaching(Celce-Murcia, Brinton and Goodwin 1996) • Description and analysis of features. • Listening discrimination activities • Controlled practice and feedback • Guided practice and feedback • Communicative practice and feedback

  13. RESULTS : Initial /p, t, k/- aspiration (1)

  14. RESULTS (2)

  15. RESULTS (3)

  16. RESULTS (4)

  17. Results: Within group comparisons (5)

  18. RESULTS: Initial /b, d, g/-voicing (6)

  19. RESULTS (7): voiced stops in English L2, Age Group A • Control group: no improvement • Experimental group: improvement for individual subjects • 1 out of 4 subjects partly devoiced 66% of the repetitions for /d/ and /g/ • 1 subject target-like /g/

  20. RESULTS (8): voiced stops in English L2, Age Group B • Control group: no improvement • Experimental group: some improvement for all subjects • 3 out of 4 subjects devoiced /d/ • 1 out of 4 partly devoiced /d/ at 33% of repetitions • 2 out of 4 produced partly voiced /g/ at 33% of the repetitions.

  21. RESULTS (9): voiced stops in English L2, Age Group C • Control group: no improvement • Experimental group: reduced VOT at Time 2 • 2 out of 4 subjects target-like /b/ • 1 subject partly devoiced 33% of the repetitions for /b/ • 1 out of 4 subjects devoiced all three stops at initial position

  22. RESULTS: Vowel length before word final stops (10)

  23. RESULTS (11)

  24. DISCUSSION: Relation to initial questions (1) 1. Is pronunciation teaching to children effective in a foreign language environment? • Strategically planned pronunciation teaching seems to be effective with children and teenagers even in a FL environment. • Even though the teaching intervention was rather short, students’ pronunciation improved in two of the three features taught. • No improvement for the groups that followed the regular school programme.

  25. DISCUSSION: Relation to initial questions (2) 2.Does age play a role in the acquisition of pronunciation in a classroom environment? The youngest age group did not learn the English pronunciation easier or faster than the older groups. 13-year-old students showed the biggest improvement in pronunciation • Their advantage over the 10-year-old group: cognitive development and maturation • Their advantage over the 15-year-old group: fossilization has not occurred in their speech yet

  26. DISCUSSION: Relation to initial questions (3) 3.Are some phonological features acquired more successfully than others? • Aspiration showed the biggest improvement of all features it increased for almost all places of articulation for all age groups. • It was also thefirst feature to be learnt compared with stop devoicing and vowel lengthening • Possible explanations: • Aspiration is perceptually more salient than devoicing or vowel length • It is easier to demonstrate with visual aids while teaching • The learning of a frication feature, such as aspiration, may be easier that the learning of a time feature, i.e. vowel length

  27. DISCUSSION: Relation to initial questions (4) To what extent are the theoretical models confirmed? • Our expectation that stop devoicing would be easier to acquire than aspiration due to markedness is not confirmed • Markedness, however, can explain the lack of improvement for vowel lengthening (a marked feature) • Evidence for Flege’s SLM : intermediate VOT values between Greek and English , possibly because of ‘equivalence classification’ • Exception : native-like production for /k/ by the 13 and 15-year-old groups.

  28. CONCLUSION (1) • Aspiration was the first feature to be learnt and showed the biggest improvement of all features that were taught • 13-year-old group the biggest improvement, maybe due to cognitive maturation and lack of fossilization • Years of experience did not result in better pronunciation (no differences among age-groups at Time 1)

  29. CONCLUSION (2) 4. Considerable effect of pronunciation instruction, even after 12 mini-lessons. Pronunciation teaching is not only applicable but also very effective 5. In FL contexts, improvement in pronunciation comes as a result of explicit and strategically planned pronunciation instruction. It appears that pronunciation is not acquired in FL contexts unless it is taught.

  30. Acknowledgments • Dr Katerina Nikolaidou • Dr Marina Matthaioudaki • Participants of the study, their teachers and their school headmasters • The Pedagogical Institute

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