Saito, Kazuya;
Suzukida, Yui;
Sun, Hui;
(2019)
Aptitude, Experience, and Second Language Pronunciation Proficiency Development in Classroom Settings: A Longitudinal Study.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition
, 41
(1)
pp. 201-225.
10.1017/S0272263117000432.
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Abstract
The current study longitudinally examined the influence of aptitude on second language (L2) pronunciation development when 40 first-year Japanese university students engaged in practice activities inside and outside English-as-a-Foreign-Language classrooms over one academic year. Spontaneous speech samples were elicited at the beginning, middle, and end points of the project, analyzed for global, segmental, syllabic, prosodic, and temporal aspects of L2 pronunciation, and linked to their aptitude and experience profiles. Results indicated that the participants generally enhanced the global comprehensibility of their speech (through reducing vowel insertion errors in complex syllables) as a function of increased classroom experience during their first semester, and explicit learning aptitude (associative memory, phonemic coding) appeared to help certain learners further enhance their pronunciation proficiency through the development of fluency and prosody. In the second semester, incidental learning ability (sound sequence recognition) was shown to be a significant predictor of the extent to which certain learners continued to improve and ultimately attain advanced-level L2 comprehensibility, largely thanks to improved segmental accuracy.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Aptitude, Experience, and Second Language Pronunciation Proficiency Development in Classroom Settings: A Longitudinal Study |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1017/S0272263117000432 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263117000432 |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Culture, Communication and Media |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10066021 |
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