scholarly journals “I Understood you, but there was this Pronunciation Thing…”: L2 Pronunciation Feedback in English/French Tandem Interactions

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Céline Horgues ◽  
Sylwia Scheuer
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Corrective Feedback ◽  
Institutional Setting ◽  
Power Relationship ◽  
Unique Contribution ◽  
The North ◽  
Recording Session ◽  
L2 Pronunciation

The role of corrective feedback (CF) in L2 development has been the topic of much discussion in SLA literature (see for example Sheen and Ellis 2011 for a recent overview). Researchers have focused their attention on CF provided either by language teachers or by fellow L2 learners, whereas relatively little is known about phonetic feedback offered in a non-institutional setting during peer-to-peer native/non-native interactions as is the case with tandem language learning. Tandem language exchanges represent a special learning environment, as each participant takes turns being the native and the non-native side of the dialogue. Thus, in contrast to the typical L2 learning setting, the hierarchical structure between the participants is fluid: the expert-novice power relationship evolves as the meeting progresses and the conversation switches from one language to the other.  In order to see how the distinguishing characteristics of tandem learning (such as solidarity and reciprocity) shape the process of L2 phonetic development in their own specific ways, we collected an English-French Tandem Corpus as part of the SITAF project (Spécificités des Interactions verbales dans le cadre de Tandems linguistiques Anglais-Français), launched at the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3 in October 2012. We gathered linguistic data – both video and audio recorded – from face-to-face conversational exchanges held by 21 pairs of undergraduate students, with each ‘tandem’ consisting of a native speaker of English and a native speaker of French. The dialogues and reading passages were recorded on two occasions separated by a 3-month interval.  The present paper offers a preliminary analysis of L2 pronunciation feedback on several renditions of the same text (The North Wind and the Sun), given to the French speakers by their English tandem partners. The passage was produced by each French participant three times: (1) during the ‘monitored’ reading, which was supervised by the English-speaking partner and which led to (2) the ‘second reading’ in the course of the first recording session, and then (3) the ‘final reading’ performed during the second recording session 3 months later.  Data analysis will allow us to address the following questions relating to the study of phonetic corrective feedback: - What is corrected by the native-speaking partner (henceforth NS)? Segmental or prosodic errors? Phonemic or allophonic deviations?- What is the corrective strategy adopted by the NS? Is it explicit correction, recast, or elicitation?- What is the learner’s uptake after receiving feedback?We hope that our data brings a valuable and fairly unique contribution to SLA research, helping to establish which errors get corrected and how it may have implications for setting priorities in L2 pronunciation teaching.

“Seriously, I came here to study English”

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-95
Author(s):  
Daisuke Kimura
Keyword(s):  
Study Abroad ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
English Learning ◽  
Unique Contribution ◽  
Narrative Case Study ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Research And Education ◽  
Networks Of Practice

Abstract While English plays a prominent role in universities across the globe, study abroad research has rarely considered English learning in non-Anglophone countries. This article presents a narrative case study of the experience of a Japanese exchange student in Thailand whose primary purpose for study abroad was to improve his English. Grounded in the notion of Individual Networks of Practice (Zappa-Hollman & Duff, 2015), the qualitative analysis will focus on the participant’s evolving social networks and reported communication practices as mediated through available subject positions and varying degrees of investment. Particularly, findings reveal the dissonance between his investment in native speaker English and the reality of using English as a lingua franca, which decidedly influenced the student’s (non-)participation in certain social groups and practices. Casting fresh light on globalization and language learning, the study offers a unique contribution to the study abroad literature and suggests avenues for further research and education.

scholarly journals Training with rhythmic beat gestures benefits L2 pronunciation in discourse-demanding situations

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 609-631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daria Gluhareva ◽  
Pilar Prieto
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Discourse Comprehension ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Pronunciation Instruction ◽  
Brief Training ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Post Test ◽  
The Impact ◽  
L2 Pronunciation

Recent research has shown that beat gestures (hand gestures that co-occur with speech in spontaneous discourse) are temporally integrated with prosodic prominence and that they help word memorization and discourse comprehension. However, little is known about the potential beneficial effects of beat gestures in second language (L2) pronunciation learning. This study investigates the impact of beat gesture observation on the acquisition of native-like speech patterns in English by examining the effect of a brief training with or without beat gestures on participants’ ratings of accentedness. In a within-participants, pre-/post-test design, participants (undergraduate students learning English as a foreign language) watched a training video in which an L2 instructor gave spontaneous responses to discourse prompts. The prompts belonged to one of two categories (easy and difficult), and were presented by the instructor either with or without accompanying beat gestures. Participants’ own answers to the prompts were recorded before and after training and evaluated by five native speaker judges. The results of the comparison between the participants’ pre-training and post-training speech samples demonstrated that beat gesture training significantly improved the participants’ accentedness ratings on the set of difficult (more discourse-demanding) items. The results of the study support the role of beat gestures as highlighters of rhythmic information and have implications for pronunciation instruction practices.

British Council’s English for Academic Purposes (EAP) Students’ Manual: A Critical Analysis of the Coursebook Taught at Pakistani Universities for Academic Purposes (EAP) Students’ Manual: A Critical Analysis of the Coursebook Taught at Pakistani Universities

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Teaching Principles

English for Academic Purposes course focusing on the academic language needs of students is a subfield of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). It is a type of specialized course to integrate specific subject matter, language content, and material based on learners’ needs. The study aims to evaluate the British Council’s English for Academic Purposes (EAP) coursebook in terms of content, sequencing, learners’ autonomy, motivation, feedback and focus on language skills. Furthermore, the study tries to provide a general perception of the usefulness and effectiveness of the coursebook for undergraduate students. The EAP Students’ Manual coursebook is used as a primary source for the data collection. The researcher has chosen Nation & Macalister (2010) model of language teaching principles to analyze and discuss the data. The study found the coursebook a useful, effective and an appropriate source of English language learning in terms of the investigated aspects of the book. The findings report that the coursebook provides practice and practical usage in all domains of the academically required English language skills. It helps the students to build language competency and to be more independent learners. In addition, it provides an opportunity to the learners to think in the target language, use the language more practically and learn it in a natural type of environment. The study concludes and suggests that the content needs to be supplemented with English language audios and videos presenting the students relevant documentaries and helping material in order to make the coursebook and the learning process more useful, effective, interesting and motivating. Furthermore, the study recommends that while choosing /designing a coursebook for a certain course, it needs to be evaluated following the various criteria and language-teaching-principles suggested by different language researchers.

Needs Analysis and Teachers' Perceptions: A Study of the English Undergraduate Students

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
English Language ◽  
Needs Analysis ◽  
Learning Needs ◽  
English Learning ◽  
Visual Aids ◽  
Analysis Model ◽  
Classroom Activities ◽  
Teaching Aids

Needs Analysis in the context of language-learning-teaching is an important process to design a certain course and syllabus. It helps course designers to set objectives, choose content, method of instruction, appropriate teaching aids, and classroom activities for different courses. This paper reports the perceptions of the researchers on the English language learning needs of the English undergraduate students of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University Sheringal, Pakistan. The data is based on the researchers’ personal experience and first-hand observation of the population as the researchers have been teaching in the target context for about a decade. Furthermore, the researchers have always been in discussion with their students and colleagues about the target students’ English learning needs, preferred learning styles, motivation in learning English, interest, strengths/weaknesses, and attitude toward English learning in the target setting. Learners’ assignments, exam answer sheets, and presentations have also been used is a source of data collection. A needs analysis model proposed by Hutchinson and Waters (1987) has been applied in order to analyze the data. The results show that the students lack well grammatical sentences, have poor spellings, capitalization problems, limited vocabulary, unaware of collocations, poor/slow reading comprehension, and lack of effective presentation skills. Furthermore, most of the students have a lack of involvement in classroom activities and feel shy about speaking the English language. It was reported that the provision of authentic material, interesting activities, suitable audio-visual aids, relevant texts, language labs, and other logistic arrangements can better help them in learning the English language. The findings demonstrate that the students wished to have a learner-centered-course that helps them excel in their academic life and learning the English language.

British Council’s English for Academic Purposes (EAP) Students’ Manual: A Critical Analysis of the Coursebook Taught at Pakistani Universities

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Teaching Principles ◽  
Language Needs

English for Academic Purposes course focusing on the academic language needs of students is a subfield of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). It is a type of specialized course to integrate specific subject matter, language content, and material based on learners’ needs. The study aims to evaluate the British Council’s English for Academic Purposes (EAP) coursebook in terms of content, sequencing, learners’ autonomy, motivation, feedback and focus on language skills. Furthermore, the study tries to provide a general perception of the usefulness and effectiveness of the coursebook for undergraduate students. The EAP Students’ Manual coursebook is used as a primary source for the data collection. The researcher has chosen Nation & Macalister (2010) model of language teaching principles to analyze and discuss the data. The study found the coursebook a useful, effective and an appropriate source of English language learning in terms of the investigated aspects of the book. The findings report that the coursebook provides practice and practical usage in all domains of the academically required English language skills. It helps the students to build language competency and to be more independent learners. In addition, it provides an opportunity to the learners to think in the target language, use the language more practically and learn it in a natural type of environment. The study concludes and suggests that the content needs to be supplemented with English language audios and videos presenting the students relevant documentaries and helping material in order to make the coursebook and the learning process more useful, effective, interesting and motivating. Furthermore, the study recommends that while choosing /designing a coursebook for a certain course, it needs to be evaluated following the various criteria and language-teaching-principles suggested by different language researchers.

The Involvement of Native Speakers in Teaching and Learning Japanese Language at UiTM

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Choong Pow Yean ◽  
Sarinah Bt Sharif ◽  
Normah Bt Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Japanese Culture ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Lexical Density

The Nihongo Partner Program or “Japanese Language Partner” is a program that sends native speakers to support the teaching and learning of Japanese overseas. The program is fully sponsored by The Japan Foundation. The aim of this program is to create an environment that motivates the students to learn Japanese. This study is based on a survey of the Nihongo Partner Program conducted on students and language lecturers at UiTM, Shah Alam. This study aims to investigate if there is a necessity for native speakers to be involved in the teaching and learning of Japanese among foreign language learners. Analysis of the results showed that both students and lecturers are in dire need of the Nihongo Partner Program to navigate the learning of the Japanese language through a variety of language learning activities. The involvement of native speaker increases students’ confidence and motivation to converse in Japanese. The program also provides opportunities for students to increase their Japanese language proficiency and lexical density. In addition, with the opportunity to interact with the native speakers, students and lecturers will have a better understanding of Japanese culture as they are able to observe and ask the native speakers. Involvement of native speakers is essential in teaching and learning of Japanese in UiTM.

“English is the best way to communicate” - South African Indian students’ blind spot towards the relevance of Zulu

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-171
Author(s):  
Sana Jeewa ◽  
Stephanie Rudwick
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
South African ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
Language Management ◽  
Kwazulu Natal ◽  
The Status ◽  
Indian Students

AbstractThe South African University of KwaZulu-Natal has developed an ambitious language policy aiming “to achieve for isiZulu the institutional and academic status of English” (UKZN LP 2006/2014). Part of this ambition is a mandatory Zulu language module that all undergraduate students have to pass if they cannot prove knowledge of the language. In this article, we examine attitudes of South African Indian students towards this compulsory module against the strained history and relationship between Zulu and Indian people in the province. Situated within the approach of Language Management Theory (LMT), our focus is on students as micro level actors who are affected by a macro level policy decision. Methodologically combining quantitative and qualitative tools, we attempt to find answers to the following broad question: What attitudes do South African Indian students have towards Zulu more generally and the UKZN module more specifically? The empirical findings show that students’ motivations to learn Zulu are more instrumental than integrative as the primary goal is to ‘pass’ the module. South African Indian students have developed a blind spot for the prevalence and significance of Zulu in the country which impacts negatively on the general attitudes towards the language more general and the module more specifically. Language ideologies that elevate the status of English in the country further hamper the success of Zulu language learning.

scholarly journals Understanding High Performance in Late Second Language (L2) Acquisition—What Is the Secret? A Contrasting Case Study in L2 French

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Fanny Forsberg Lundell ◽  
Klara Arvidsson
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Age Of Onset ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Host Community ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Attribute Importance ◽  
High Performing ◽  
High Performers

Adult L2 acquisition has often been framed within research on the Critical Period Hypothesis, and the age factor is one of the most researched topics of SLA. However, several researchers suggest that while age is the most important factor for differences between child and adult SLA, variation in adult SLA is more dependent on social and psychological factors than on age of onset. The present qualitative study investigates the role of migratory experience, language use/social networks, language learning experience, identity and attitudes for high performance among Swedish L1 French L2 users in France. The study constitutes an in-depth thematic analysis of interviews with six high-performing individuals and four low-performing individuals. The main results show that the high performers differ from the low performers on all dimensions, except for attitudes towards the host community. High performers are above all characterized by self-reported language aptitude and an early interest in languages, which appears to have led to rich exposure to French. Also, they exhibit self-regulatory behaviors and attribute importance to being perceived as a native speaker of French—both for instrumental and existential reasons.

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