Second Language Accent and Pronunciation Teaching: A Research- Based Approach.

doi:10.2307/3588486

Journal Article•DOI•

Second Language Accent and Pronunciation Teaching: A Research- Based Approach.

Tracey M. Derwing¹, Murray J. Munro²•Institutions (2)

University of Alberta¹, Simon Fraser University²

01 Sep 2005-TESOL Quarterly (TESOL QUARTERLY)-Vol. 39, Iss: 3, pp 379-397

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors call for more research to enhance our knowledge of the nature of foreign accents and their effects on communication, and recommend greater collaboration between researchers and practitioners, such that more classroomrelevant research is undertaken.

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Abstract: Empirical studies are essential to improving our understanding of the relationship between accent and pronunciation teaching. However, the study of pronunciation has been marginalized within the field of applied linguistics. As a result, teachers are often left to rely on their own intuitions with little direction. Although some instructors can successfully assist their students under these conditions, many others are reluctant to teach pronunciation. In this article we call for more research to enhance our knowledge of the nature of foreign accents and their effects on communication. Research of this type has much to offer to teachers and students in terms of helping them to set learning goals, identifying appropriate pedagogical priorities for the classroom, and determining the most effective approaches to teaching. We discuss these possibilities within a framework in which mutual intelligibility is the primary consideration, although social ramifications of accent must also be taken into account. We describe several problem areas and identify some misconceptions about pronunciation instruction. In addition, we make suggestions for future research that would address intelligibility, functional load, computer-assisted language learning, and the role of the listener. Finally, we recommend greater collaboration between researchers and practitioners, such that more classroomrelevant research is undertaken.

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Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking

[...]

Jonathan Newton¹, I.S.P. Nation¹•Institutions (1)

Victoria University of Wellington¹

13 Aug 2008

TL;DR: Part and goals of a listening and speaking course The four strands A commonsense justification of the four strands Learning through listening and reading Learning through speaking and writing Language-focused learning Becoming fluent in listening, speaking, reading and writing Balancing theFour strands.

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Abstract: @contents: Selected Contents: Chapter 1 Parts and goals of a listening and speaking course The four strands A commonsense justification of the four strands Learning through listening and reading Learning through speaking and writing Language-focused learning Becoming fluent in listening, speaking, reading and writing Balancing the four strands Integrating the four strands Principles and the four strands Learning goals Chapter 2 Beginning to listen and speak in another language What should they learn? How should the teaching and learning be done? Practising sentence patterns Guiding listening and speaking Techniques for early meaning-focused speaking Planning a listening and speaking programme for beginners Chapter 3 Listening Listening and language learning Advanced listening: Notetaking How to take notes Learning how to take notes Monitoring notetaking Monitoring meaning focused listening Chapter 4 Learning through interaction and negotiation Encouraging negotiation Using written input to encourage negotiation Using information distribution to encourage negotiation Factors affecting the amount and type of negotiation Using learner training to encourage negotiation Monitoring negotiation Learning through non-negotiated interaction Understanding language teaching tasks: Ranking What is a ranking task? Method steps What can you use ranking tasks for? How can you make and prepare for ranking tasks? What material can you base ranking tasks on? Monitoring a ranking task Monitoring learners beginning to speak Chapter 5 Learning through pushed output Pushed output Pushing output Formal speaking The nature of formal speaking Teaching formal speaking A process approach to formal speaking Guidelines for presenting a formal talk Chapter 6 Pronunciation The place of form focused pronunciation instruction Factors affecting the learning of another sound system Procedures and techniques Fitting pronunciation into a course Monitoring pronunciation Chapter 7 Deliberate teaching The value and limits of language-focused learning Deliberate vocabulary learning The requirements of language-focused vocabulary instruction Techniques and procedures Deliberate grammar learning The causes of error The effect of correction Correction procedures Fitting language-focused learning into a course Chapter 8 Dictation and related activities Dictation Pre-dictation exercises Variations of dictation Related techniques Monitoring dictation Dicto-comp Related techniques Chapter 9 Developing fluency The nature of fluency Fluency and accuracy Developing fluency Designing fluency activities Fitting fluency into a course Developing fluency in listening and speaking Techniques for developing fluency in listening Techniques for developing fluency in speaking Monitoring fluency tasks Chapter 10 Testing Monitoring progress Testing listening and speaking Listening tests Speaking tests Appendix 1 The survival syllabus Appendix 2 The most useful words for beginning graded reading Appendix 3 Topic types Appendix 4 Topics for listening and speaking

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669 citations

Monograph•DOI•

Pronunciation fundamentals : evidence-based perspectives for L2 teaching and research

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Tracey M. Derwing¹, Murray J. Munro²•Institutions (2)

University of Alberta¹, Simon Fraser University²

15 Jul 2015

TL;DR: This book presents a pedagogical perspective on L2 phonetic acquisition from a teachers' perspective and discusses the ethics of second language accent reduction and its consequences.

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Abstract: 1. Foreword 2. Acknowledgements 3. Chapter 1. Key concepts 4. Chapter 2. Historical overview of pronunciation 5. Chapter 3. A pedagogical perspective on L2 phonetic acquisition 6. Chapter 4. Pronunciation errors and error gravity 7. Chapter 5. Pronunciation instruction research 8. Chapter 6. Assessment of L2 pronunciation 9. Chapter 7. Technology in L2 pronunciation instruction 10. Chapter 8. Social aspects of accent 11. Chapter 9. The ethics of second language accent reduction 12. Chapter 10. Future directions 13. Glossary 14. References 15. Subject Index 16. Author Index

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388 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

The mutual intelligibility of l2 speech

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Murray J. Munro¹, Tracey M. Derwing², Susan L. Morton¹•Institutions (2)

Simon Fraser University¹, University of Alberta²

01 Mar 2006-Studies in Second Language Acquisition

TL;DR: In this paper, listeners from native Cantonese, Japanese, Mandarin, and English backgrounds evaluated the same set of foreign-accented English utterances from native speakers of Mandarin and Spanish, and found moderate to high correlations on intelligibility scores and comprehensibility and accentedness ratings.

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Abstract: When understanding or evaluating foreign-accented speech, listeners are affected not only by properties of the speech itself but by their own linguistic backgrounds and their experience with different speech varieties. Given the latter influence, it is not known to what degree a diverse group of listeners might share a response to second language (L2) speech. In this study, listeners from native Cantonese, Japanese, Mandarin, and English backgrounds evaluated the same set of foreign-accented English utterances from native speakers of Cantonese, Japanese, Polish, and Spanish. Regardless of native language background, the listener groups showed moderate to high correlations on intelligibility scores and comprehensibility and accentedness ratings. Although some between-group differences emerged, the groups tended to agree on which of the 48 speakers were the easiest and most difficult to understand; between-group effect sizes were generally small. As in previous studies, the listeners did not consistently exhibit an intelligibility benefit for speech produced in their own accent. These findings support the view that properties of the speech itself are a potent factor in determining how L2 speech is perceived, even when the listeners are from diverse language backgrounds.This work was supported by two grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to the first two authors. The authors thank J. E. Flege and three anonymous SSLA reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of the paper as well as the listeners and speakers for their willingness to participate in the study. The listening stimuli used here were also used in a paper published in SSLA in 1997.

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376 citations

Cites background from "Second Language Accent and Pronunci..."

...This work was supported by two grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to the first two authors+ The authors thank J+ E+ Flege and three anonymous SSLA reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of the paper as well as the listeners and speakers for their willingness to participate in the study+ The listening stimuli used here were also used in a paper published in SSLA in 1997+ Address correspondence to: Murray J+ Munro, Department of Linguistics, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6, Canada; e-mail: mjmunro@sfu+ca+ SSLA, 28, 111–131+ Printed in the United States of America+ DOI: 10+10170S0272263106060049 © 2006 Cambridge University Press 0272-2631006 $12+00 111 A foreign accent is a common, normal aspect of second language ~L2! learning among those who acquire their L2 after childhood ~Asher & Garcia, 1969; Flege, Munro, & Mackay, 1995; Major, 2001; Scovel, 1988!+ Although accented speech is a salient indicator of a nonnative linguistic background, the impact of an accent on communication is complex+ In some instances, speech marked by nonnative segmentals and prosody appears to be understood by native listeners just as well as native-produced speech from a familiar dialect ~Munro & Derwing, 1999!+ However, an accent can sometimes have adverse consequences for the L2 speaker ~Flege, 1988b!+ First, listeners might experience difficulty in understanding speech that differs from the patterns of oral production to which they are accustomed+ Thus, accentedness sometimes leads to a loss of intelligibility+ Second, interlocutors might respond negatively to accented speech because of impatience, inexperience with L2 speakers, or prejudice ~Derwing, Rossiter, & Munro, 2002; Dávila, Bohara, & Saenz, 1993; Kalin & Rayko, 1978; Lippi-Green, 1997; Munro, 2003; Raisler, 1976; Rubin, 1992!+ In the study reported here, we focus primarily on the first concern—the intelligibility of L2 speech—rather than on issues of bias against accents or L2 speakers+ Derwing and Munro ~1997! and Munro and Derwing ~1995, 1999! have emphasized that L2 speech must be considered in terms of a variety of different dimensions+ They defined intelligibility as the extent to which a speaker’s utterance is actually understood and emphasized the importance of distinguishing this notion from comprehensibility, which refers to the listener’s estimation of difficulty in understanding an utterance, and from accentedness, the degree to which the pronunciation of an utterance sounds different from an expected production pattern+ Although comprehensibility and accentedness are related to intelligibility, they are partially independent dimensions of L2 speech+ An utterance that is rated by a listener as “heavily accented,” for instance, might still be understood perfectly by the same listener+ Furthermore, two utterances that are fully intelligible might entail perceptibly distinct degrees of processing difficulty, such that they are rated differently for comprehensibility+ A number of studies have explored comprehensibility and accentedness through listener judgments on equal-interval rating scales+ Usually, listeners evaluate how difficult an utterance is to understand or how strongly accented it is+ Such tasks tend to yield reliable results ~Brennan & Brennan, 1981; Burda, Scherz, Hageman, & Edwards, 2003; Derwing & Munro, 1997; Thompson, 1991!, and the assumption that accentedness can be partitioned into equal intervals ~e+g+, on a 9-point scale! has been upheld ~Southwood & Flege, 1999!+ The intelligibility of both normal—native language ~L1! or L2—and disordered speech has been assessed using a number of different methods ~see Kent, Miolo, & Bloedel, 1994, for a review!+ In L2 work, one of the most common of these is the dictation task in which listeners hear utterances and write them out in standard orthography ~Bent & Bradlow, 2003; Brodkey, 1972; Burda et al+, 2003; Derwing & Munro, 1997!+ The number of words correctly transcribed is understood as an index of speaker intelligibility+ Other approaches have entailed comprehension questions ~Anderson-Hsieh & Koehler, 1988!, cloze tests ~Smith & Rafiqzad, 1979!, picture selection in response to a stimulus ~Smith & Bisazza, 1982!, elicitation of summaries ~Perlmutter, 1989!, and determination of truth value ~Munro & Derwing, 1995!+ Each of these approaches has strengths and drawbacks, although probably none on its own can give a complete understanding of the intelligibility of a particular speaker+ A full discussion of how intelligibility can be assessed is beyond the scope of this review+ However, it is worth noting that speech elicitation techniques and the nature of the listening task have important effects on the kinds of conclusions that can be drawn about intelligibility+When using dictation tasks based on extemporaneous speech, for instance, it seems reasonable to suppose that scoring the number of words correctly identified by a listener provides a useful window on the listener’s comprehension+ As noted by Zielinski ~2004!, that score might not correlate perfectly with how well the listener has actually grasped the full message intended by the speaker+ She reported cases in which all of the words were correctly identified, with the listener still puzzling over what the speaker was trying to communicate+ In other cases, the entire meaning of a sentence could be lost because of one missing word+ For these reasons, we must consider transcription data as providing only one perspective on the intelligibility of an utterance or of a speaker+ Interpreting listeners’ reactions to speech produced by L2 learners requires an understanding of the bases of their responses+ On the one hand, their reactions might indicate something about the speech itself because they are influenced by the phonological properties of the speaker’s output+ It has been established, for instance, that foreign accent ratings correlate with the frequency of segmental and prosodic divergences from typical native speaker ~NS! patterns ~Anderson-Hsieh, Johnson, & Koehler, 1992; Brennan & Brennan, 1981; Magen, 1998; Munro & Derwing, 2001!+ On the other hand, responses to an utterance might vary with the listener because of familiarity with accents or because of the listener’s L1 background+ For example, Gass and Varonis ~1984! found that exposure to specific foreign accents, to particular speakers, or to accents in general influenced how well listeners understood L2 speech+ With respect to L1 background, Bent and Bradlow ~2003! reported that nonnative listeners might find L2 speech more intelligible than native speech, whereas the opposite might be true for native listeners+ Also, some research has suggested that speakers from a particular L1 background might have an advantage in understanding accented utterances from speakers who share that background+ Smith and Bisazza ~1982!, for instance, observed an advantage for Japanese speakers listening to Japanese-accented English+ However, the results of that study taken together with more recent work by Major, Fitzmaurice, Bunta, and Balasubramanian ~2002! suggest that such an advantage is probably small and not consistently observable+ In Major et al+’s study of 400 listeners, Spanish speakers showed a small intelligibility advantage when hearing Spanish-accented speech in comparison with other varieties, whereas Chinese and Japanese speakers showed no parallel advantage for their L1 accents+ These findings appear to agree with research on native English speech showing that between-listener differences are generally a less important factor in speech comprehension than are the acoustic-phonetic characteristics of the speech itself ~Hazan & Markham, 2004!+ Taking these findings into account, Munro ~2005! observed that intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness scores must be seen as arising from various sources, including stimulus properties ~the SP component!...
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...The findings of this study indicate that despite the many potential influences on reactions to L2 speech, there is a notable degree of shared experience when listeners from diverse language backgrounds hear L2 speakers’ utterances+ In this study, we found striking similarities in the ways in which Cantonese, Japanese, Mandarin, and native English listeners responded to utterances from intermediate-level ESL speakers from linguistic backgrounds similar to and different from their own+ An understanding of listeners’ perceptions of the intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness of L2 speech is important in L2 research, testing, and pedagogy+ Because listener data of the type collected here are widely used in the study of L2 speech, researchers should have an understanding of the factors that figure into listeners’ judgments and, in particular, how much those judgments are influenced by properties of the speech and by characteristics of the listeners+ This study provides insights into ways in which this critical problem might be addressed+ Nevertheless, much more work is needed to explore the wide range of possible contributors to the perception of accented speech when listeners judge varying kinds of speech using different tasks+ In the field of language testing it is generally accepted that meaningful, reliable statements can be made about how intelligible or comprehensible a particular language learner’s oral output is+ However, the usefulness of any such statements depends on how well they generalize across listeners in the contexts in which the learner strives to communicate+ In other words, the value of a test score is determined to a great extent by what it predicts about a learner’s communicative success+ This study has shown that there is a likelihood of a shared response to L2 speech, even among listeners from linguistically diverse backgrounds+ Therefore, it offers no reason to doubt that oral test scores can have predictive value+ Nevertheless, these findings need to be replicated in other work involving different listeners, different listening conditions, and different methods of evaluation+ In L2 classrooms, it is commonly recommended that teachers focus on developing learners’ intelligibility rather than on insisting on perfect phonological and grammatical accuracy ~Breitkreutz, Derwing, & Rossiter, 2001; Derwing & Munro, 2005!+ However, this expectation is based on the assumption that teachers can reliably distinguish intelligible from unintelligible utterances both inside and outside the classroom+ The finding of similarities across listeners in this study suggests that this is not an unreasonable expectation+ In particular, one might expect that if one student ~or teacher! genuinely finds another student’s utterances difficult to understand, there is a likelihood that other students will have a similar experience, regardless of their L1 background+ This study has not addressed the well-known problem of bias against foreign-accented speech+ Undoubtedly, under some circumstances, some interlocutors might falsely claim not to understand a speaker who has an accent or they might be uncooperative with L2 speakers+ Evidence also indicates that even an incorrect assumption that a speaker comes from a nonnative background might sometimes reduce a listener’s comprehension ~Rubin, 1992!+ In this study, bias might have been a factor in some of the listeners’ judgments, although it could not have been a large factor given the consistencies in scores across listeners and groups+ Of course, people might be more likely to exhibit prejudice toward or not work as hard at understanding accented speech in real-life encounters than they are under laboratory conditions+ However, the fact that bias might enter into listeners’ judgments of L2 speech does not invalidate the proposal that listeners share similar perceptual experiences when they hear accented speakers; nor does it lead to the conclusion that listeners’ judgments are highly subjective responses that reveal information about the listener but nothing about the speaker or the speech+ Subjectivity in an individual’s response to L2 speech comes with choice+ One can choose to downgrade, ignore, or pay little attention to a L2 speaker, but there might still be a basic underlying ability to comprehend accented speech that is shared by most people+ The results of this study support such a view+ The limited effect of experience with different accents observed in this study should not be taken as an indication that inexperienced listeners cannot learn to understand L2 speech better than they already do+ Not only have Gass and Varonis ~1984! shown that exposure to accents can increase comprehension of them, but other work has indicated that linguistically unsophisticated listeners might benefit from explicit training on accented speech, especially in terms of their attitude to hearing it ~Derwing et al+, 2002!+ Lack of familiarity might make people apprehensive about their own abilities, which might lead to their not paying attention to accented speech because they are convinced that they will not understand it+ Thus, even listeners who are not biased against L2 speech might be dissuaded from trying hard to understand it+ Although this study provides useful insights into the perception of L2 speech, it leaves unanswered a number of questions about the effects of both speaker and listener proficiency in the L2 on intelligibility+ Furthermore, both grammar and lexis, together with pronunciation factors, might make complex contributions to intelligibility that should be explored+ Finally, it is probable that individuals differ somewhat in their ability to process and understand accented speech, independent of experience+ Although the results of this study suggest a relatively small role for individual differences, such variation still merits attention in future research+ ~Received 15 July 2005!...
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...…on developing learners’ intelligibility rather than on insisting on perfect phonological and grammatical accuracy ~Breitkreutz, Derwing, & Rossiter, 2001; Derwing & Munro, 2005!+ However, this expectation is based on the assumption that teachers can reliably distinguish intelligible from…...
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Journal Article•DOI•

Putting Accent in Its Place: Rethinking Obstacles to Communication.

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Tracey M. Derwing¹, Murray J. Munro²•Institutions (2)

University of Alberta¹, Simon Fraser University²

01 Oct 2009-Language Teaching

TL;DR: This paper discussed the social, psychological, and communicative consequences of speaking with an L2 accent in L2 learners and related the core issues of intelligibility, identity, social evaluation, and discrimination to appropriate pronunciation pedagogy for L2 learner.

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Abstract: One of the most salient aspects of speech is accent – either dialectal differences attributable to region or class, or phonological variations resulting from L1 influence on the L2. Our primary concern is with the latter, because of the strong social, psychological, and communicative consequences of speaking with an L2 accent. The decline of audiolingualism led to a concomitant marginalization of pronunciation research and teaching. It was believed that pronunciation instruction could not be effective, in part because of the unrealistic goal of native-like speech in L2 learners, and also because of research findings that suggested that instruction had a negligible impact on oral production. The recent revival of interest in pronunciation research has brought a change of focus away from native-like models toward easy intelligibility. The effects of this change have yet to be fully realized in L2 classrooms. However, many L2 students themselves are keenly interested in pronunciation instruction, a fact not lost on individuals who have recognized a lucrative marketing niche in ‘accent reduction/elimination’ programs that may do more harm than good. Our presentation will relate the core issues of intelligibility, identity, social evaluation, and discrimination to appropriate pronunciation pedagogy for L2 learners.

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354 citations

Cites background from "Second Language Accent and Pronunci..."

...Evidence is accumulating that what’s important are the macroscopic things, including general speaking habits, volume, stress, rhythm, syllable structure and segmentals with a high functional load (Derwing & Munro 2005)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Effects of Form-Focused Instruction and Corrective Feedback on L2 Pronunciation Development of /ɹ/ by Japanese Learners of English

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Kazuya Saito¹, Roy Lyster¹•Institutions (1)

McGill University¹

01 Jun 2012-Language Learning

TL;DR: The authors investigated the acquisitional value of form-focused instruction with and without corrective feedback (CF) on learners' pronunciation development, and found that learners' F3 values significantly declined after the intervention, not only at a controlled-speech level but also at a spontaneous speech level regardless of following vowel contexts.

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Abstract: Sixty-five Japanese learners of English participated in the current study, which investigated the acquisitional value of form-focused instruction (FFI) with and without corrective feedback (CF) on learners’ pronunciation development. All students received a 4-hr FFI treatment designed to encourage them to notice and practice the target feature of English /ɹ/ in meaningful discourse, except those in the control group (n= 11), who received comparable instruction but without FFI on English /ɹ/. During FFI, the instructors provided CF only to students in the FFI + CF group (n= 29) by recasting their mispronunciation or unclear pronunciation of /ɹ/, whereas no CF was provided to those in the FFI-only group (n= 25). Acoustic analyses were conducted on frequency values of the third formant (F3) of English /ɹ/ tokens elicited via pretest and posttest measures targeting familiar items and a generalizability test targeting unfamiliar items. The results showed that: (a) F3 values of the FFI + CF group significantly declined after the intervention, not only at a controlled-speech level but also a spontaneous-speech level, regardless of following vowel contexts; (b) change in F3 values of the FFI-only group and the control group was not statistically significant; and (c) the generalizability of FFI to novel tokens remained unclear.

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304 citations

Cites background from "Second Language Accent and Pronunci..."

...…instruction by conducting quasi-experimental studies in actual classrooms (e.g., Couper, 2006; Elliott, 1997; Macdonald, Yule, & Powers, 1994; Neri, Mich, Gerosa, & Giuliani, 2008; for summaries of classroom studies of pronunciation teaching, see Derwing & Munro, 2005; Setter & Jenkins, 2005)....
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...…speech, researchers who support this view stress that instruction should focus only on aspects of pronunciation that influence intelligibility and comprehensibility in ways that make L2 communication more successful (Derwing & Munro, 2005; Field, 2005; Levis, 2005; Setter & Jenkins, 2005)....
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Second Language Accent and Pronunciation Teaching: A Research- Based Approach.

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