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University of Richmond

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

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English

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Phonetics Instruction Improves Learners' Perception Of L2 Sounds, Elizabeth M. Kissling Aug 2014

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 …


Cross Linguistic Differences In The Immediate Serial Recall Of Consonants Versus Vowels, Elizabeth M. Kissling Jan 2011

Cross Linguistic Differences In The Immediate Serial Recall Of Consonants Versus Vowels, Elizabeth M. Kissling

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

The current study investigated native English and native Arabic speakers’ phonological short term memory (PSTM) for sequences of consonants and vowels. PSTM was assessed in immediate serial recall tasks conducted in Arabic and English for both groups. Participants (n=39) heard series of 6 CV syllables and wrote down what they recalled. Native speakers of English recalled the vowel series better than consonant series in English and in Arabic, which was not true of native Arabic speakers. An analysis of variance showed that there was an interaction between first language (L1) and phoneme type. The results are discussed in light of …