This study investigated how listener experience (extent of previous exposure to non-native speech) and semantic context (degree and type of semantic information available) influence measures of intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness of non-native (L2) speech. Participants were 24 native English-speaking listeners, half experienced and half inexperienced with L2 speech, who transcribed and rated 90 English utterances spoken by six English and six Mandarin speakers. The utterances varied along two dimensions: real-world expectations (true vs. false utterances) and semantic meaningfulness (meaningful vs. meaningless utterances). Listeners with more experience understood more speech from the L1 and L2 speakers than listeners with less experience but did not rate it differently in comprehensibility and accentedness. All listeners understood and rated the utterances from L2 speakers based on the semantic context available: true–false utterances were understood and rated best, meaningless utterances least. These findings have implications for evaluating learner pronunciation and for training learners in successful L2 communication strategies.

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1366728914000832How to cite this article: PAVEL TROFIMOVICH, TALIA ISAACS, SARA KENNEDY, KAZUYA SAITO and DUSTIN CROWTHER (2016 People are famously poor at judging their own ability, engaging in such behaviours as "errors of omission", "flawed self-assessment", and "faulty self-awareness"

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This study investigated whether second language (L2) speakers are aware of and can manipulate aspects of their speech contributing to comprehensibility. Forty Mandarin speakers of L2 English performed two versions of the same oral task. Before the second task, half of the speakers were asked to make their speech as easy for the interlocutor to understand as possible, while the other half received no additional prompt. Speakers self-assessed comprehensibility after each task and were interviewed about how they improved their comprehensibility. Native-speaking listeners evaluated speaker performances for five dimensions, rating speech similarly across groups and tasks. Overall, participants did not become more comprehensible from task 1 to task 2, whether prompted or not, nor did speakers’ self-assessments become more in line with raters’, indicating speakers may not be aware of their own comprehensibility. However, speakers who did demonstrate greater improvement in comprehensibility received higher ratings of flow, and speakers’ self-ratings of comprehensibility were aligned with listeners’ assessments only in the second task. When discussing comprehensibility, speakers commented more on task content than linguistic dimensions. Results highlight the roles of task repetition and self-assessment in speakers’ awareness of comprehensibility.

Abstract This study examined longitudinal changes in second language (L2) interlocutors’ mutual comprehensibility ratings (perceived ease of understanding speech), targeting comprehensibility as a dynamic, time-varying, interaction-centered construct. In a repeated-measures, within-participants design, 20 pairs of L2 English university students from different language backgrounds engaged in three collaborative and interactive tasks over 17 minutes, rating their partner’s comprehensibility at 2–3 minute intervals using 100-millimeter scales (seven ratings per interlocutor). Mutual comprehensibility ratings followed a U-shaped function over time, with comprehensibility (initially perceived to be high) being affected by task complexity but then reaching high levels by the end of the interaction. The interlocutors’ ratings also became more similar to each other early on and remained aligned throughout the interaction. These findings demonstrate the dynamic nature of comprehensibility between L2 interlocutors and suggest the need for L2 comprehensibility research to account for the effects of interaction, task, and time on comprehensibility measurements.

This study examined the speech of 30 adult learners of French as a second language (L2) in a 15‐week listening/speaking course, investigating the relationship between learners' pronunciation development and their pronunciation awareness, measured through learners' conceptions of learning. The course targeted segmental and suprasegmental aspects, including connected speech processes (enchaînement, liaison), intonation, and fluency. Learners wrote weekly journals eliciting measures of pronunciation awareness and completed read‐aloud and picture description tasks at the course's beginning and end. Speech was analyzed through seven measures, including fluency and segmental and suprasegmental accuracy. Results showed significant improvements in learners' segmental production, enchaînement, and some aspects of intonation and fluency. Several variables were associated with pronunciation awareness measures. Results are discussed in light of L2 pronunciation development and instruction‐awareness links.

This study investigates how one English-as-a-second-language (ESL) teacher provided corrective feedback to 15 child ESL learners that the teacher had divided into two groups based on proficiency level. Classroom data in transcripts from the CHILDES database were analyzed for type of learner errors, type of teacher feedback, and rate of learner uptake (attempts at correction) and repair (correction). Results showed differences in the types of errors produced by each proficiency group and in the type of feedback the teacher provided to each proficiency group, demonstrating provision of finely tuned corrective feedback based on learners' individual differences. Cette étude porte sur la rétroaction corrective d'un enseignant en ALS avec 15 élèves répartis en deux groupes en fonction de leurs compétences. Des transcriptions de la base de données CHILDES et portant sur des données de salles de classe ont été analysées pour déceler le type d'erreurs chez les apprenants, le type de rétroaction de la part de l'enseignant, et taux d'application (tentatives de se corriger) et de correction par les apprenants. Les résultats révèlent des différences dans le type d'erreurs produites par chaque groupe et dans le type de rétroaction fournie par l'enseignant à chaque groupe, démontrant l'adaptation de la rétroac-tion corrective aux différences individuelles chez les apprenants. IntroductionIn 1997 Lyster and Ranta published a seminal article on the use of corrective feedback by teachers in grades 4 and 5 French immersion classrooms. This article presaged a growing body of research on corrective feedback for and by second-language (L2) learners. A basic question underlying-although not altogether resolved by-research on corrective feedback is this: What kinds of feedback for what kinds of errors are effective for what kinds of learners? Lyster and Ranta found that although the French immersion teachers provided corrective feedback for most learners' errors, some types of feedback were more effective than others. One of the possible factors that seems to influence the effectiveness of corrective feedback is L2 learners' level of proficiency (Ammar & Spada, 2006;Havranek & Cesnik, 2001;Lin & Hedgcock, 1996;Mackey & Philp, 1998 Results from studies on corrective feedback and learner proficiency have generated valuable suggestions for L2 teaching. However, these results are based on observation or assessment of multiple groups of learners and teachers or interlocutors. In other words, research on corrective feedback and learner proficiency thus far has largely not targeted individual teachers, or specifically how a teacher may provide feedback to learners of varied proficiency levels in his or her classroom. A notable exception is Lightbown (1991), who remarked on the effectiveness of one L2 teacher's feedback strategies for learners making a particular type of error. Because much corrective feedback provided to classroom L2 learners comes from teachers, 1 it is important to determine how (and why) individual teachers provide feedbac...

This study investigated L2 structural alignment, the tendency for interlocutors to re-use a syntactic structure present in recent discourse, focusing on two information-gap interactive tasks. Thirty-four university students from diverse language backgrounds, recruited from different academic programs at a Canadian English-medium university, carried out the two information-gap interactive tasks in dyads. Interaction data were transcribed and coded for instances of structural alignment and the alignment’s characteristics in terms of structure type and accuracy. Results indicated that structural alignment occurred in L2 task-based interaction generated by both tasks. This structural repetition was linked to an improved accuracy of subsequent language production. Furthermore, the two tasks were associated with different structures that were converged on, and with varying degrees of structural alignment. These findings are discussed in terms of effects of task features on structural alignment, and the role of structural alignment in subsequent language production.