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What Predicts The Effectiveness Of Foreign Language Pronunciation Instruction?: Investigating The Role Of Perception And Other Individual Differences, Elizabeth M. Kissling
What Predicts The Effectiveness Of Foreign Language Pronunciation Instruction?: Investigating The Role Of Perception And Other Individual Differences, Elizabeth M. Kissling
Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications
This study investigated second language (L2) learners’ perception of L2 sounds as an individual difference that predicted their improvement in pronunciation after receiving instruction. Learners were given explicit pronunciation instruction in a series of modules added to their Spanish as a foreign language curriculum and were then tested on their pronunciation accuracy. Their perception of the target sounds was measured with an AX discrimination task. Though the best predictor of pronunciation posttest score was pretest score, perception made a unique and significant contribution. The other factors associated with better pronunciation of some L2 sounds were time spent using Spanish outside …
Phonetics Instruction Improves Learners' Perception Of L2 Sounds, Elizabeth M. Kissling
Phonetics Instruction Improves Learners' Perception Of L2 Sounds, Elizabeth M. Kissling
Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications
Explicit phonetics instruction can help second language (L2) learners to moderately improve their pronunciation, but less is known about how the instruction affects learners’ perception, even though there is evidence that perception and pronunciation are related. This study provided phonetics instruction to students (n = 46) studying Spanish as a foreign language and measured the resulting change in their perception of eight target phones as compared with a control group (n = 41). Perception was assessed with discrimination tests immediately following instruction and three weeks later. Results indicated that the instruction conferred a small advantage in the delayed …
The Definite Article System In L1-English L2-Spanish Learners, Diego Ardura
The Definite Article System In L1-English L2-Spanish Learners, Diego Ardura
Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014
Previous studies on the acquisition of definite plurals in Child and Second Language Acquisition have found strong evidence on how transfer can affect the L2-acquisition of articles. Nevertheless, these studies presented some limitations. First, they failed to consider other variables that could interfere with transfer in the acquisition of the article system. And second, the methodology used to test the participants’ implicit knowledge of article system was very similar in all studies (Truth-Value Judgment Task). In order to fill these two gaps in the literature, the present study uses a listening comprehension task to test how the mass/count distinction …
Maternal Perceptions Of Agency In Intergenerational Transmission Of Spanish: The Case Of Latinos In The U.S. Midwest, Isabel Velázquez
Maternal Perceptions Of Agency In Intergenerational Transmission Of Spanish: The Case Of Latinos In The U.S. Midwest, Isabel Velázquez
Spanish Language and Literature
This article examines the ways in which a group of first-generation Latino immigrants to the U.S. Midwest conceptualized their role in their children’s bilingual development. Respondents were asked to identify the individuals or institutions on which their children’s language and academic development depended, as well as household practices perceived as conducive to Spanish maintenance, and perceived obstacles to their children’s use of Spanish in the domains of home, school, and community. Discussion centers on maternal perceptions of agency because of the centrality of the mother in intergenerational minority language transmission. It is argued here that immigrant mothers’ perceptions of agency …
L2 Perception Of Spanish Palatal Variants Across Different Tasks, Christine Shea, Jeffrey Renaud
L2 Perception Of Spanish Palatal Variants Across Different Tasks, Christine Shea, Jeffrey Renaud
Spanish: Faculty Scholarship & Creative Works
While considerable dialectal variation exists, almost all varieties of Spanish exhibit some sort of alternation in terms of the palatal obstruent segments. Typically, the palatal affricate [ɟʝ] tends to occur in word onset following a pause and in specific linear phonotactic environments. The palatal fricative [ʝ] tends to occur in syllable onset in other contexts. We show that listeners’ perceptual sensitivity to the palatal alternation depends upon the task and exposure to Spanish input. For native Spanish listeners, the palatal alternation boosts segmentation accuracy on an artificial speech segmentation task and also reduces latencies on a phonotactically-conditioned elision task. L2 …