Neurolinguistic Programming and Regular Verbs Past Tense Pronunciation Teaching

Abstract

A troublesome pronunciation issue for Spanish EFL learners is the past -ed ending of regular verbs. Neuro linguistic Programming (NLP) is a perspective integrating neurology, language and programming which are key for processing information and for responding to learners’ styles with the potential to help EFL teachers address this pronunciation issue. This paper reports a study conducted in two subsequent terms with 43 students at a university language institute: two groups taught using standard pronunciation techniques and two using NLP techniques preceded by oral tasks in which they were encouraged to pronounce regular verbs in the past. Data collected included students self-recorded pronunciation tasks, a survey to elicit students’ motivation and satisfaction and a teacher’s log with insights about students’ attitude and response to the strategy. Analysis of the data showed that after the first implementation, the NLP group improved their pronunciation a 30%, the standard one improved a 10%. During the second implementation, the NLP group showed an improvement of 23.7% pronunciation accuracy in task 1 and a 24.6% in task two compared to the standard group. The findings suggest that teacher’s use of NLP techniques into their classroom instruction have a positive impact on students’ pronunciation of the past ending of regular verbs.

How English as a Foreign Language (EFL) University Students Understand the Pronunciation of Adjectives Ending in -ed

“…Regarding problematic allomorphs for students, evidence supports research by Bassetti and Atkinson, 2015; Caballero and Rosado, 2018;Cardoso, 2018;Davila, 2013;Yaowaratana and Rungruang, 2018, that the allomorph /#d/ is easiest for students to recognize and produce. e main reason could be attributed to the obvious inclusion of the /#/ sound, thus making pronunciation more salient for Spanish speakers since every letter in Spanish has a clear, distinct sound and vowels are never silent.…”

“…Two studies in particular explore practical and long-term solutions to address this. Caballero and Rosado (2018) investigated the extent to which groups taught through neuro-linguistic programming techniques versus standard techniques compared in terms of their progress in pronouncing regular verbs in the past tense. For data collection purposes, students were asked to record a text containing 10 regular verbs in the past prior to the intervention.…”

“…Although it is worth noticing that the NLP group had an initial score lower than the standard group, results reveal considerable progress in pronouncing -ed inflection. Activities and techniques such as those developed by Caballero and Rosado (2018) should also be considered when promoting curricular changes guided by research results.…”

Intelligibility of English regular verbs in the past tense: A study with Brazilian listeners and speakers of different L1s

“…'counted,' and 'printed', which were produced target-like with the addition of an epenthetic vowel, and 'watched,' 'looked,' and 'tried' produced with an unexpected epenthetic vowel may indicate that it was easier for Brazilian listeners to understand and transcribe verbs that tend to follow the epenthesized production, which is typical of BP and Spanish speakers of English (ALVES, 2004;CABALLERO;ROSADO, 2018;DAVILA, 2018;DELATORRE, 2006;BAPTISTA, 2014;FERNANDES, 2009;FRESE, 2006;GOMES, 2009;MARIANO, 2009;PEREIRA, 1994). Moreover, as suggested by Munro and Derwing (1995), the recognition of words that follow a prototype tends to be easier, which, in this case, is produced by speakers of Romance languages as BP and Spanish.…”

“…Regarding the linguistic form investigated in the present study (i.e., verbs ending in -ed), previous studies with Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and/or Spanish L1 speakers learning English revealed that learners tend to add an epenthetic vowel when pronouncing regular verbs in the past tense (e.g., ALVES, 2004;CABELLERO;ROSADO, 2018;DAVILA, 2018;DELATORRE, 2006DELATORRE, , 2010BAPTISTA, 2014;FERNANDES, 2009;FRESE, 2006;GOMES, 2009;MARIANO, 2009;PEREIRA, 1994;ALVES, 2009). Furthermore, studies with Brazilians have investigated (a) the relationship between verb perception and production (e.g., FRESE, 2006, SILVEIRA;ALVES, 2009); (b) verb perception only (e.g., ROSSINO; FRACARO; BRAWERMAN-ALBINI, 2019;, (c) the effects of instruction or perceptual training in verb production (e.g., ALVES, 2004;;BAPTISTA, 2014;MARIANO, 2009; SILVEIRA; ALVES, 2009), and, (d) verb intelligibility (e.g., DELATORRE; SILVEIRA; GONÇALVES, 2017;FERNANDES, 2009; GOMES; BRAWERMAN-ALBINI; ENGELBERT, 2014;RIELLA, 2013).…”