Session Foreign Lang. Acqu. I:Foreign Language Acquisition I: New Teaching Methodology
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| Foreign Lang. Acqu. I-1 |
The effect of visual training on the perception of non-native phonetic contrasts
Valerie Hazan, Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, UCL Anke Sennema, Institut für Linguistik, Universität Potsdam Paper File |
| Auditory and audiovisual training have been shown to be successful in increasing the discriminability of non-native phonetic contrasts in second-language learners. The purpose of this study, which trained the English /l/-/r/ contrast with Japanese learners of English, was to investigate training effectiveness using visual stimuli alone. The study evaluated whether training with visual cues leads to (a) increased discriminability of the phonetic contrast, (b) an increase in visual influence in phonetic labelling, and (c) cross-modal effects in audiovisual or auditory speech perception. Visual-alone training was successful in increasing the discriminability of the /l/-/r/ contrast in visual and audiovisual test conditions but there was no carry-over to the auditory condition. There was also evidence of an increase in audiovisual advantage (AV>A) in the training group and of good generalisation to unknown words by the same speakers and to nonsense words by unknown speakers. | |
| Foreign Lang. Acqu. I-2 |
Differential effects of stimulus variability and learners’ pre-existing pitch perception ability in lexical tone learning by native English speakers
Jiyeon Lee , Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University Tyler K. Perrachione , Department of Linguistics & Program in Cognitive Science, Northwestern University Tasha Dees , Department of Commuincation Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University Patrick C.M. Wong , Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders & Northwestern University Institute for Neuroscience, Northwestern University Paper File |
| This study examined the role of stimulus variability in learning non-native phonetic contrasts (suprasegmentals) for word identification by adults, considering whether all learners benefit from high-variability training. We trained native English-speaking adults to use Mandarin lexical tones to identify 18 English pseudowords. Subjects were randomly assigned to two experimental conditions: a multi-talker group in which learners trained on stimuli produced by four talkers, and a single-talker group, in which each learner trained on only one of the four talkers. Before training, all subjects were tested on their ability to identify these pitch patterns in a non-lexical context. Subjects with high pitch identification ability learned more successfully than those with lower pitch identification ability. Further, multi-talker training was beneficial only for learners with high pitch identification ability, whereas learners with low pitch identification ability benefited more from single-talker training. | |
| Foreign Lang. Acqu. I-3 |
TOOLS DEVOTED TO THE ACQUISITION OF THE PROSODY OF A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
Guillaume HENRY, LORIA Anne BONNEAU, CNRS-LORIA Vincent COLOTTE , UHP - LORIA Paper File Additional Files |
| The work presented here is developed within a project devoted to the acquisition of English prosody by French learners. Our goal is to improve both production and perception of English prosody by French learners thanks to speech signal transformations and the knowledge about the prosody of the mother language (L1) and the target language (L2). We present the tools provided to learners and a simple example. | |