Early bilingual education is increasing in popularity. lts most important added value is thought to be pronunciation (e.g. Ioup, 2008; Birdsong, 2006). This study investigates the influence of two Dutch primary school educational settings on L2 English pronunciation, investigating aspiration (a feature of the English but not the Dutch sound system) and prevoicing (a feature of only the Dutch sound system). In general,the L2 English pronunciation of the EarlyBird (experimental), the youngest learners who started learning English in the first grade, is more native-like than that of older learners in an EarlyBird Light setting, who started in the fifth grade (control). However, as expected from earlier research (Simon, 2009), in both groups the amount of prevoicing still increases over time. Possibly, the rather late development of prevoicing in LI Dutch affects the L2 English pronunciation. The influence of the LI on L2 English pronunciation is stronger for children in the control group, leading to the conclusion that the EarlyBird educational setting is promising.
Birdsong, D. (2006). Age and second language acquisition: An overview. In M. Gullberg & P. Indefrey (Eds.), The congnitive neuroscience of second language acquisition (pp. 9-49). London: Blackwell. Ioup, G. (2008). Exploring the role of age in the acquisition of a second language phonology. In J.G. Hansen Edwards & M.L. Zampini (Eds.), Phonology and second language acquisition (pp. 41-62). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Simon, E. (2009). Child L2 development: A longitudinal study. The international journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 10, 582-602
Common Problems in English Pronunciation Among Chinese Learners and Teaching Implications
