The Department of Contemporary English Language (DoCELu) is happy to announce a Phon&Phon meeting.
L2 Pronunciation training in and beyond the lab: assessing the benefits of enhanced HVPT and multimodal input-based tasks for pronunciation learning.
Joan C. Mora (Universitat de Barcelona)
Input and context-related factors identified by research as key success variables in L2 pronunciation development in immersion contexts (e.g. age of onset of L2 learning, amount of L2 input and use) do not necessarily constitute strong predictors of learners' gains in L2 pronunciation in instructed foreign language acquisition (FLA) where L2 exposure and use is comparatively very scarce. Such input-based limitations of FLA learning contexts for pronunciation learning are not easy to overcome. First, phonetic training techniques, proven to be effective at improving L2 segmental perception and production in the lab, cannot be integrated into communicative language instruction and L2 learners may not access them for individual out of class training.
Second, pronunciation instruction in the FLA contexts is generally not coupled with enough L2 exposure and communicative language use in and outside the classroom and, in addition, is often not fully integrated into form-focused approaches to communicative language instruction, likely due to the difficulty of generating a focus on phonetic form communicatively.
High-variability phonetic training (HVPT), implemented as an out-of-class pronunciation activity, has been shown to improve L2 speech perception and production in all language learning contexts, but research has hardly ever examined the extent to which such training gains translate into effective changes in phonolexical representations in the mental lexicon leading to actual pronunciation improvement in communicative L2 use. In this talk I will present recent findings from our lab examining the effectiveness of enhanced HVPT at improving the lexical encoding of phonological contrasts and modifying phonololexical representations in advanced EFL learners. Given the limited possibilities of integrating HVPT into communicative language teaching, especially at non-advanced levels of L2 proficiency I will also outline new research avenues into L2 pronunciation learning and teaching. I will discuss and present preliminary findings of pronunciation instruction methods with a focus on input-based tasks that make use of the bimodal input conditions of exposure to L2-captioned video and their manipulation for improving L2 pronunciation. Such tasks aim at providing learners with guided attention to phonetic form while training them in the mapping of phonological and orthographic word forms for effective pronunciation learning. They constitute a promising approach to L2 pronunciation learning and teaching on which experimental research is currently much needed.
Thursday, 21.11.2019, 18.30, room 235, Collegium Heliodori Święcicki.
