Current approaches to pronunciation instruction: A longitudinal case study in French

Abstract

A body of previous work in second‐ and foreign language pronunciation instruction (e.g., Lord, ; Miller, ) has shown that explicit phonetic and pronunciation instruction is beneficial. However, Olson () noted that just a few minutes per week of instruction are devoted to pronunciation in most classrooms. What is the effect of such limited, sporadic attention to this critical aspect of language? This study traced the longitudinal development of four students over the first four semesters of French language study at a large Midwestern university. Analyses focused on a global measure of pronunciation accuracy—the number of incorrectly pronounced syllables (Lappin‐Fortin, ; Sturm, )—and included qualitative analyses of the types of errors participants continued to make. Results indicate that students’ pronunciation does improve to a certain extent but that progress is inconsistent both across phonemes and across students. This baseline study sets the stage for future studies of the impact of systematic, explicit instruction.

Impact of self‐reflection and awareness‐raising on novice French learners’ pronunciation

“…To that end, further investigation regarding the long‐term effects of explicit pronunciation instruction combined with self‐reflection on learning outcomes is warranted, especially in light of Derwing and Munro's (2013) recommendation that “researching the longitudinal development of L2 learners is essential to understanding influences in their success” (p. 163). Future research should also address “the way in which learners’ pronunciation improves over the typical first four semester‐long courses—that is, across (…) most university language requirements (…) that prepare students for further study” (Sturm, , pp. 35–36).…”

“…It has been argued that “learners need to be aware of [this] specific prosodic feature in the L2, different from (...) their L1, (…) to be able to (…) convey the[ir] intended meaning” and thus be intelligible (Ramírez Verdugo, , p. 142). A growing body of research has investigated liaison acquisition in learners with various L1s, notably English (De Moras, ; Howard, ; Lappin‐Fortin & Rye, ; Racine & Detey, ; Sturm, , ; Tennant, ; Thomas, ), German (Putska, ), and Spanish (Racine, ). Three types of issues arose across L1s: (a) miscategorization of liaisons (treating a forbidden liaison as a mandatory one, and vice versa), (b) mispronounciation of the consonant due to nontransparent patterns (e.g., an orthographical “d” is pronounced /t/ in liaison), and (c) lack of resyllabification across the two words involved (e.g., “les amis” pronounced [le z /a/mi] instead of [le/ z a/mi]).…”

Integrating online pronunciation instruction: The case of learners of French

“…Several studies have also investigated pronunciation gains of intermediate to advanced French learners in phonetics or pronunciation courses (e.g., Inceoglu, 2019, 2021; Lappin‐Fortin & Rye, 2014; Sturm, 2013a, 2013b; Violin‐Wigent, 2014). However, very few studies have investigated integrated explicit pronunciation instruction (or lack thereof) at the beginner and/or intermediate level in French classrooms (Meritan, 2020; Miller, 2012; Sturm, 2019, 2021). Miller (2012) explored the effectiveness of two different pronunciation teaching approaches on beginner French learners.…”

“…Sturm (2019) investigated whether learners' pronunciation improves without explicit pronunciation instruction. The author tracked four students over four semesters of French acquisition and added data from 53 beginner‐intermediate participants from previous data collection.…”

Effects of benchmarking and peer‐assessment on French learners' self‐assessments of accentedness, comprehensibility, and fluency

“…However, training in self‐reflection and self‐assessment appears to lead to more convergence between learners' self‐assessments and teachers' evaluations (Babaii et al, 2016; Chen, 2008; see also Meritan & Mroz, 2019). Similarly, repeated self‐assessment seems to impact learners' language performance positively, such that those who self‐assess their speech over time improve in various dimensions of speech, including fluency, pronunciation, and connected speech processes (de Saint Léger 2009; Kissling and O'Donnell 2015), likely through increased awareness of these dimensions (for empirical work linking L2 learners' pronunciation development to measures of self‐reflection and awareness, see Meritan, 2020; Meritan & Mroz, 2019; Sturm, 2013, 2019).…”