This exploratory study fills the gap in research on using print board games to teach English prosody to advanced EFL learners at university level. We developed three in-class print-and-play board games that accompanied three prosody-related topics in a course in English phonetics and phonology at a Polish university. For those topics, compared to topics without any board games, learners reported higher in-class engagement and obtained higher post-class quiz scores. At the end of the course, learners rated board games as equally or more useful than some of the other teaching aids. Although traditional printed worksheets were still rated as the most useful teaching aid, learners expressed their preference for using extra classroom time for playing board games instead of completing extra worksheet exercises. We hope these promising results will encourage teachers to experiment with implementing these and other board games in their advanced curricula.
Purpose Former studies suggested that music perception can help produce certain accentual features in the first and second language (L2), such as intonational contours. What was missing in many of these studies was the identification of the exact relationship between specific music perception skills and the production of different accentual features in a foreign language. Our aim was to verify whether empirically tested musical hearing skills can be related to the acquisition of English vowels by learners of English as an L2 before and after a formal accent training course. Method Fifty adult Polish speakers of L2 English were tested before and after a two-semester accent training in order to observe the effect of musical hearing on the acquisition of English vowels. Their L2 English vowel formant contours produced in consonant–vowel–consonant context were compared with the target General British vowels produced by their pronunciation teachers. We juxtaposed these results with their musical hearing test scores and self-reported musical experience to observe a possible relationship between successful L2 vowel acquisition and musical aptitude. Results Preexisting rhythmic memory was reported as a significant predictor before training, while musical experience was reported as a significant factor in the production of more native-like L2 vowels after training. We also observed that not all vowels were equally acquired or affected by musical hearing or musical experience. The strongest estimate we observed was the closeness to model before training, suggesting that learners who already managed to acquire some features of a native-like accent were also more successful after training. Conclusions Our results are revealing in two aspects. First, the learners' former proficiency in L2 pronunciation is the most robust predictor in acquiring a native-like accent. Second, there is a potential relationship between rhythmic memory and L2 vowel acquisition before training, as well as years of musical experience after training, suggesting that specific musical skills and music practice can be an asset in learning a foreign language accent.
The point of departure for the following study is Patel and Daniele (2003), who suggested that the rhythm of a culture’s language is reflected in its instrumental music. The former study used the normalised pairwise variability index (henceforth nPVI), a measure of temporal patterning in speech, to compare the variability of vocalic duration in recorded speech samples with the variability of note duration in music notation on the example of English and French speech and classical music. The aim of this experiment is to test whether the linguistic rhythm conventionalised in the language of a community affects the rhythm in the musical practice of that community, by focusing on English and Polish speech and classical, as well as folk music. The nPVI values were obtained from a set of English and Polish recorded news-like sentences, and from musical notation of English and Polish classical and folk musical themes. The results suggest that reflections of Polish speech rhythm may be more apparent in folk music than in classical music, though more data are needed to test this idea. This initial study suggests that the method used might bring more fruitful results when comparing speech rhythm with less formalized and more traditional musical themes.
The present study seeks to determine whether superior musical hearing is correlated with successful production of second language (L2) intonation patterns. Fifty Polish speakers of English at the university level were recorded before and after an extensive two-semester accent training course in English. Participants were asked to read aloud a series of short dialogues containing different intonation patterns, complete two musical hearing tests measuring tone deafness and melody discrimination, and a survey regarding musical experience. We visually analyzed and assessed participants’ intonation by comparing their F0 contours with the model provided by their accent training teachers following ToBI (Tones and Break Indices) guidelines and compared the results with the musical hearing test scores and the survey responses. The results suggest that more accurate pitch perception can be related to more correct production of L2 intonation patterns as participants with superior musical ear produced more native-like speech contours after training, similar to those of their teachers. After dividing participants into four categories based on their musical hearing test scores and musical experience, we also observed that some students with better musical hearing test scores were able to produce more correct L2 intonation patterns. However, students with poor musical hearing test scores and no musical background also improved, suggesting that the acquisition of L2 intonation in a formal classroom setting can be successful regardless of one’s musical hearing skills.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.