## 6 Conclusion

The aim of this study was to examine whether a short-period teaching intervention consisting of orthographic word-stress rules and pronunciation learning strategies under the CRM could help learners improve their word stress placement accuracy. It also took into consideration the learner profile (shared L1) and context (EFL classroom setting, integrated instruction in a general English language course). The results suggest that such instruction is beneficial for learners over time, as measured by a read-aloud task. The combination of rules and strategies tends to improve learners' ability to recognise and understand novel pronunciation structures, and, therefore, increases learner autonomy for self-practice outside the classroom.

Future research could investigate whether such combined rule and strategy instruction translates into improvement in word stress placement accuracy in spontaneous speech. Further research into the link between word stress placement and vowel quality change (for instance, nuances such as correct stress/correct vowel, or correct stress/incorrect vowel) is needed to better understand the acquisition process of word stress. From a methodological point of view, future studies might consider a larger participant sample to obtain more generalisable results, including a comparison group with implicit instruction, and finding ways of controlling for parallel language input.

## Acknowledgements

We wish to express our heartfelt gratitude to the anonymous reviewers whose insights were most helpful. We are also grateful to Radek Skarnitzl and Biljana Blaževska-Stoilkovska, for their assistance with the choice of statistical analyses.

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Szyszka, M. (2021). Pronunciation learning strategies: A task-based perspective. In A. Kirkova-Naskova, A. Henderson, & J. Fouz-Gonzales (Eds.), *English pronunciation instruction: Research-based insights* (pp. 147–172). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/aals.19.07szy

## Appendix

### Test Words (n = 20) and Distractors (n = 11)

<table><thead><tr><th>Rule pattern</th><th>Test words</th><th>Word endings</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="5">KSR</td><td>repu<u>diate</u></td><td>-iaC</td></tr><tr><td>deline<u>ation</u></td><td>-ioC</td></tr><tr><td>conso<u>rtium</u></td><td>-iuC</td></tr><tr><td>dis<u>orientate</u></td><td>-ienC +nonbasic ending</td></tr><tr><td><u>deviance</u></td><td>-ianC</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="5">VSR</td><td>ance<u>stral</u></td><td>-al</td></tr><tr><td>stu<u>pendous</u></td><td>-ous</td></tr><tr><td>econ<u>omics</u></td><td>-ic = Key syllable</td></tr><tr><td>ado<u>lescent</u></td><td>-ant/ent</td></tr><tr><td>ex<u>travagancy</u></td><td>-ancy/ency</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><thead><tr><th>Rule pattern</th><th>Test words</th><th>Word endings</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="5">LSR</td><td>heterogeneity</td><td>-y</td></tr><tr><td>incriminate</td><td>-ate</td></tr><tr><td>approximate</td><td>-ate</td></tr><tr><td>obstinacy</td><td>-acy</td></tr><tr><td>inaccuracy</td><td>-acy</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="5">PRS</td><td>arbitrary</td><td>-ary</td></tr><tr><td>savagery</td><td>-ery</td></tr><tr><td>expository</td><td>-ory</td></tr><tr><td>indicative</td><td>-ive</td></tr><tr><td>implicature</td><td>-ature</td></tr><tr><td colspan="3"><strong>Distractors</strong><br>reading, matched, ended, fighting, sniffing, acted, breaking, seemed, blaming, running, glued</td></tr></tbody></table>

Note. C = consonant letter.

## About the authors

**Ivana Duckinoska-Mihajlovska** is a Language Instructor in the Department of English Language and Literature, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, North Macedonia, where she teaches Contemporary English courses and Academic Writing. Her main interests include English phonetics and phonology, learner autonomy, and teacher and student well-being. She serves as treasurer of IATEFL's PronSIG.

Email: iduckinoska@flf.ukim.edu.mk

**Anastazija Kirkova-Naskova** is an Associate Professor in English phonetics and morphology in the Department of English Language and Literature, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, North Macedonia. She also teaches research methodology (MA level). Her research interests include English pronunciation teaching and learning, foreign-accented speech, speech perception, pronunciation learning strategies, and teacher cognition. Together with Alice Henderson and Jonás Fouz-González, she co-edited *English pronunciation instruction: Research-based insights* (John Benjamins, 2021). She was an assistant editor-in-chief for *The Journal of Contemporary Philology*.

Email: akirkova@flf.ukim.edu.mk
# Englishville: A new way of practising prosody

Kizzi Edensor-Costille
University of Caen Normandy

Despite evidence that prosody plays an important role in the intelligibility, comprehensibility and accentedness of non-native discourse (Munro & Derwing, 1995, 1998), it is seen as difficult to teach ( Setter et al., 2010). One way of making prosody easier to teach and understand is by using a real-time 3D spectrogram such as the one used on the website Englishville (Costille, 2020). Four groups of French students, enrolled in their third year of a BA in English, took part in this experiment. Thirty short sentences focusing on intonation were recorded by a female native British speaker. All participants read and recorded the same phrases as they appeared on the screen and groups 3 and 4 received specific explanations regarding the spectrogram and intonation contours. The first group simply read the phrases (limited input) and recorded their own productions. The other 3 groups received supplementary input: group 2 read the text and heard the corresponding audio recordings (audio input); group 3 read the text and saw the corresponding 3D spectrogram (visual input); and group 4 read the text, heard the audio and saw the corresponding 3D spectrogram (multi-sensorial input). The recordings were then compared in Englishville to the expected intonation pattern and given one point per matching pattern. The results do not show that seeing speech systematically improves students’ intonation but did show that the students felt the tool was useful and easy to use.

**Keywords:** prosody, L2 learners of English, multi-sensorial input, Englishville

<figure><img src="image_19.png" /></figure>
# 1 Introduction

Teaching and research in second language acquisition has long focused on auditory sources of input for both training sessions and experiments. More recently, linguists have started to use multi-sensorial modalities, looking for ways to enhance second language (L2) learning. For segmentals, teachers have found ways to render the theoretical aspects of phonemes more comprehensible by using multi-sensorial techniques – be it with their own mouth, videos of another’s mouth or by demonstrating on sagittal sections. Learners can simultaneously see the different positions of jaw, lips, and tongue, and hear the phonemes. The representation of intonation or lexical stress is more abstract and tools such as Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2001), however helpful for research, remain difficult to use if learners are not previously trained how to use them ( Setter & Jenkins, 2005; Setter et al., 2010).

It might be that acquiring or improving prosody is complex partly because of the lack of physical or visual aids available to learners. It could even be argued that its abstractness dissuades teachers from teaching it. This led to the creation of Englishville (Costille, 2020) – a website dedicated to practising prosody by means of a 3D spectrogram. An experiment was set up to test its usability and usefulness regarding prosody.

This chapter gives a brief overview of prosody and research on L2 learners with a special focus on the prosodic elements in the experiment. It also discusses research that has used auditory and multi-sensorial tools. It then describes the methodology used, followed by the experiment and results. Lastly, the findings are discussed in light of the possible contribution of Englishville to the field.

# 2 L2 prosody

Prosody, also known as suprasegmentals (to be understood as all that is not segmental), includes elements such as: rhythm, intonation, stress, and pauses. Drawing on research studies investigating first language (L1) acquisition, Hirst and Di Cristo (1998) explain that prosody is likely to be acquired by a child before any other phonetic features, moreover it is likely to be the last feature lost when aphasia strikes or when another language is learnt. The fact that we learn the prosody of our L1 in the very early stages of development can explain why it is difficult to learn later in an L2. Previous studies have confirmed that acquiring L2 prosody is challenging even for advanced learners (Colantoni et al., 2014). However, it is generally accepted that using inaccurate intonation patterns, i.e., such that differ from native productions, can lead native listeners' to either misinterpret the intended meaning or show negative stereotyping towards the L2 speaker.

Studies focusing on L2 pronunciation instruction and the relevance of L2 speech in speaker interactions have investigated various prosodic features. Jenkins (2000) finds the most important suprasegmental features in NNS-NNS interactions to be contrastive stress, the direction of pitch movements, word stress placement, and stress-timed rhythm. Other authors share a similar point of view on prosody. For instance, Munro and Derwing (1995, 1998) and Hardison (2004, 2010), argue that prosody plays a significant role in L2 speech; learners who received instruction on prosodic features (intonation, rhythm, word stress, and sentence stress) showed significant improvement in comprehensibility and accentedness compared with those who had only received instruction on segments. Furthermore, Derwing and Rossiter (2003) have shown that L2 fluency and comprehensibility significantly improved after a 12-week instruction period on the pronunciation of prosodic features.
## 2.1 Research on visual and auditory tools

Since the mid-1970s, there has been an on-going stream of studies which have used computer-based methods in order to test and improve the perception and production of prosody (de Bot, 1983; James, 1976). De Bot (1983) concluded that visual feedback was more effective than auditory feedback – in other words, when the subject saw speech (in this experiment, the pitch contour in Praat was used) rather than just hearing it, the subject’s intonation improved. Pitch visualisers (such as Praat and similar software) have been used in more recent research (Imber et al., 2017; Kartushina, et al., 2015; Offerman, & Olson, 2016; Olson, 2014, Setter et al., 2010). Gorjian et al. (2013) compared two methods of teaching stress and intonation: a) a traditional one that uses repetition and explanations about acoustic properties of speech; and b) a computer-assisted one that uses Praat software. The results showed that learning prosody with Praat was significantly more beneficial. As the authors point out, the first method is generally teacher-centred, leaving students passive in the classroom. In contrast, the use of multi-media tools and multi-sensorial software places the student at the centre of their acquisition.

Software, such as Praat, require practice and training to use and some research has concluded that combining sound and image led to slightly more mixed results in learning prosody, often due to the complexity of the software used ( Setter et al., 2010). Given the technical side of these tools, it can be difficult to motivate students to familiarise themselves with them and then work on intonation. The results of certain studies (Gorjian et al., 2013) showed that learners improved when using Praat, which could be explained simply by the additional time spent working on prosody to comprehend what they were seeing. Perhaps using real-time displays of intonation might prove to be even more comprehensible for the learners – they can see their speech appear as they speak, enabling them to test different intonation patterns more easily. We argue that the instantaneous effect of seeing speech makes intonation easier to perceive because not everyone can perceive it simply through their ears, some people need their eyes to validate or invalidate their aural perception. Therefore, depending on the pronunciation feature practised, the use of multi-sensorial tools and methods may be helpful, even having a global positive effect on L2 speech production in general.

## 3 Englishville: Methodological approach

The desire to create a free, user-friendly real-time tool for prosody in the domain of multi-sensorial learning of L2 English, and the idea that prosody should be at the centre of second language teaching motivated the creation of our website called “Englishville” (Costille, 2020). Englishville uses a 3D spectrogram and facilitates the capture of the audio stream so that it can be recorded on a server. These tools are then integrated in a website where it is possible to record a corpus, set up experiments and participate in them. One advantage of Englishville is that L2 learners can hear the audio, see the spectrogram and intonation contour and the corresponding text, then repeat and save their own productions. The spectrogram shows the direction of the tone of voice, making it possible to imitate a visual real-time model of an intonation pattern and to simultaneously compare it to one’s own melodic pattern. The spectrogram used in Englishville can be seen in Figure 1 with an example of rising intonation.
**Figure 1**

*A Real-time Display of Pitch Contour and Intensity in Englishville (Costille, 2020) of the Utterance “He said what?” Pronounced with a Rising Intonation*

<figure><img src="image_20.png" /></figure>

It is often considered difficult to perceive pitch movement for learners and even for teachers. Therefore, the main objective of Englishville and this experiment is to help learners see speech in order to improve their pronunciation of the different melodic patterns. The intonation patterns used in the experiment are simple. For example, it is generally acknowledged that the use of a falling tone on the nucleus indicates finality, and that a rising tone indicates non-finality (Wells, 2007). Wh-questions (open questions) are normally said with a falling tone on the last lexical item whereas Yes/No-questions (closed questions) are normally uttered with a rising tone on the nucleus. As for intonation in lists, Wells (2007) differentiates between 2 types: those that are finished and those that are not. To illustrate this point, he gives two versions of the same utterance and explains that “the fall on tea in (1) signals that there are no more options: you must choose either tea or coffee. The rise on tea in (2) signals that there may be other possibilities too, as yet unmentioned, e.g., or you could have an \orange juice” (p. 75).

(1) You can have / coffee | or \ tea.

(2) You can have / coffee | or / tea.

The structure of the sentences used in the intonation task of the Englishville experiment correspond to the two main intonation patterns (fall, rise) and example (1) in the case of a closed list. French L2 speakers of English tend to struggle most with falling intonation and use rising intonation for all types of statements. This is typically noticeable when a speaker concludes an oral presentation with a rise, which can leave the listener frustrated and/or surprised when they realise that the presentation is, in fact, finished (the non-finality effect of rising intonation).

**3.1 Research questions**

The study aimed therefore to investigate the following research questions:

**RQ1:** Can seeing a real-time 3D spectrogram enable L2 learners of English to reproduce certain intonation patterns?

**RQ2:** What kind of input is more beneficial out of limited, audio, visual and multi-sensorial input?
## 3.2 Experiment

An experiment was set up with four groups of participants (see Table 1): Group 1 (control group) received limited input and read the sentences as they appeared on the computer screen; Group 2 had audio input, i.e., they heard the sentences as recorded by the female native speaker and saw the text for each sentence on the screen; Group 3 had visual input which corresponded to seeing the spectrogram and the melodic pattern (as in Figure 1) and read the text without hearing the audio recordings, and Group 4 had access to both aural and visual input. The aim of the experiment was to test if the participants who received multi-sensorial input (Group 4) produced better results, i.e., those closest to the expected intonation pattern.

<caption>**Table 1**</caption>

*Experiment Conditions for each Testing Group: Type of Input and Procedure*

<table><thead><tr><td>Group</td><td>Type of input</td><td>Experiment procedure</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>limited</td><td>Records words and sentences.</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>auditory</td><td>Hears the utterances before recording them.</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>visual</td><td>Sees the spectrograms in Englishville.</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>multi-sensorial</td><td>Hears the utterances and sees the corresponding spectrograms on Englishville.</td></tr></tbody></table>

At the beginning of the experiment, the participants had one example to familiarise themselves with the user interface. Each participant read the same sentences in the same order as they appeared on the screen. They only heard or saw each item once, before recording their own production. They had to click the button *play* to hear or see the visual model recording and then had to click the microphone button on and off to record their own speech. They could not listen to the same sentence more than once, but they could pronounce it as many times as they liked while their microphone was activated. By pressing the microphone button a second time, their recording was saved, and the next utterance automatically appeared. At the beginning of the experiment, Groups 3 and 4 received supplementary information about what they were about to see. For example, they were informed that they would see the movement of the tone of voice in the spectrogram (downward or upward movement). The participants who received input, be it auditory or visual, were asked to imitate as closely as possible what they heard or saw.

In light of previous research, it was hypothesised that the combination of both audio and visual input would yield the best results. It was therefore expected that Group 4 would have better results than the other three groups because they would be able to see immediately if their spectrogram resembled or not the model and attempt to improve during the experiment.

## 3.3 Participants

Twenty French students (n = 5 in each Group 1–4; M = 8, F = 12) at the beginning of their third year of a BA in English Language and Literature at the University of Caen Normandy participated in this experiment. They were, on average, 20 years old and had been learning English for at least ten years. Their level of English was estimated to be B2+, based on their teacher's experience with the CEFR scales. They had all studied phonology and phonetics (including intonation). For these classes, the teaching model was British English. Prior to the
experiment, each participant completed an online questionnaire about their language and personal background.

The learner's evaluation of Englishville was also of high interest in this study, therefore, after the experiment they were asked to give feedback via an online questionnaire about Englishville and their impression of it and the experiment.

## 3.4 Stimuli

Thirty sentences consisting of simple patterns and short utterances were recorded by a female British native speaker, also the creator of Englishville. The sentences included ten statements and five of each of the following sentence types: Wh-questions, Yes/No-questions, echo questions and a two-element closed list. For example: *We live in London* (statement with falling intonation), *Where's the manual?* (Wh-question said with falling intonation), *May I lean on the railings?* (Yes/No-question said with rising intonation), *He is on the computer?* (echo-question with rising intonation), *Are you growing oranges or lemons?* (two-element closed list said with a rise followed by a fall).

## 4 Results

Recordings from the four groups were compared with the original recording and spectrogram to give an auditive and visual analysis. Intonation patterns found to match the model were awarded one point, for example, a final fall, rise or rise+fall (closed lists) whereas those that differed got zero. The number of matching realisations for intonation patterns were then calculated for each group, as can be seen in Figure 2.

<caption>Figure 2</caption>

*Percentage of Matching Realisations of Intonation Pattern per Input Type (out of 30 sentences)*

<figure><img src="image_21.png" /></figure>

In general, the results show that having any kind of input is beneficial as Group 1, who received limited input, only matched 38.67% of the 30 sentences. For Group 3, seeing the spectrogram slightly improved their overall percentage of matching realisations (48.9%)
compared to Group 1 (marking an increase of 10.23% points). Group 2, who only heard the corresponding audio, had nearly the same percentage of matching realisations (81.33%) as Group 4 (82.67%), who benefitted from multi-sensorial input.

In the post-test questionnaire, which was completed by 10 participants from Groups 3 and 4, there was much positive feedback. Those who saw the spectrogram (Groups 3 and 4), found the tool useful (n = 7), very good (n = 7), easy both to comprehend (n = 7) and to use (n = 5). Only one participant found it hard to use (n = 1).

## 5 Discussion

The study aims first to see if there is a difference in the participants' oral productions depending on which type of input they received, and secondly to gather participants' views and impressions of Englishville as a teaching/learning tool. The results suggest that merely visualising the corresponding spectrogram is slightly more beneficial than having no input at all, but barely makes a difference when the participants had access to the audio recordings. The fact that Group 3 did better than Group 1 suggests that some participants were able to learn from what they were seeing and improve some of their productions.

The minor difference between the results of Group 2 and Group 4 begs the question of sensorial overload. It is possible that having to read the text, pay attention to the spectrogram and to the audio resulted in too much information for the participants and may have led them to ignore some or all the input. The sentences were simple and short, and the written text was probably superfluous. It would have been possible for this level of L2 learners to repeat the text simply from the audio recordings, without the written text. In hindsight, Groups 1 and 2 are said to have limited input or only audio input, where it could be argued that both also had visual input because they saw/read the written text for each sentence, no visual information about intonation accompanied the written forms.

Given the small sample and with only five participants per group, it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions due to speaker variation. For example, it is possible that the spectrogram helped certain speakers in Groups 3 and 4, but it is also possible that some participants paid no attention to it at all. In addition to speaker variation, the fact that the participants could only listen/see each item once and could only record their own speech once before moving on to the next phrase, left them with little possibility to improve. They could of course repeat their productions several times before validation, but few did this. The main and global objective of Englishville is to enable learners to improve their prosody because they can see and use the spectrogram. For future experiments, it would be important to provide learners with several opportunities to do the tasks.

## 6 Conclusion and further directions

This article addresses the difficulty of acquiring English prosody for L2 learners and the use of a multi-sensorial tool to improve it. Previous research has shown that using visual aids often yields better results in training sessions when learning prosody and even has lasting effects on speech production in general (Derwing & Rossiter, 2003). Englishville was designed to explore this issue. One of its advantages is its malleability, making it possible to add for example, words, phrases, speakers, accents, participants, or remove elements from it (for example, to only have one group) so that all participants have the same input.

Despite our inconclusive results regarding the benefit of visualising speech, the students' feedback leads us to believe that Englishville corresponds to their desire for technological teaching tools. Our overall objective is to provide a tool which is easy to use for both teachers and learners and is also a useful way for L2 learners to practice prosody and raise their
awareness of it. This is motivated by the observation that teaching and learning prosody seems challenging, and the fact that software such as Praat is too complicated to be used by untrained learners. Learners should, however, be at the centre of any modern pedagogical approach and Englishville makes this possible. Therefore, we recommend that future use of this tool – whether for research or teaching – should allow students to hear, see the model, and record their own productions as many times as they want.

Various factors had an impact on the participants, including the number of times they could listen to the recordings, speaker variation, and sensorial overload. While the overall results do not allow us to confirm that seeing the melodic pattern by means of a spectrogram improves learners' productions, positive feedback was given by those who saw and used the spectrogram. They found it especially useful when they were able to match their own spectrogram with the model provided. In this regard, Englishville can be considered successful, as it encourages learners to make autonomous, critical comparisons. Perhaps with more time, their actual productions would also show improvement. To that end, an eight-week training session is currently being carried out with first year university students specialising in English. We hope that the latter will provide a clearer picture on the potential of this multi-sensorial tool.

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About the author

Kizzi Edensor-Costille is a Lecturer at the University of Caen, Normandy where she teaches in the Department of English and Language Science. She did her thesis in the Speech and Language Lab (LPL) at Aix-Marseille University and specialised in regional accents in the UK and Ireland. She has also developed an interest in the field of L2 English learning, particularly in terms of perception and pronunciation. More recently, she has been working on the acquisition of prosody by non-native speakers. For this purpose, she developed a website called Englishville where L2 learners can visualise a real-time 3D spectrogram to practice different intonation patterns by seeing both the model and their own intonation.

Email: Kizzi.edensor-costille@unicaen.fr
Galimberti, V., Mora, J. C., & Gilabert, R. (2023). Teaching EFL pronunciation with audio-synchronised textual enhancement and audiovisual activities: Examining questionnaire data. In A. Henderson & A. Kirkova-Naskova (Eds.), *Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on English Pronunciation: Issues and Practices* (pp. 70–82). Université Grenoble-Alpes. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8174014

# Teaching EFL pronunciation with audio-synchronised textual enhancement and audiovisual activities: Examining questionnaire data

Valeria Galimberti

University of Barcelona

Joan C. Mora

University of Barcelona

Roger Gilabert

University of Barcelona

Synchronising the enhancement of target words to their auditory onset has been found to promote a focus on their phonetic form (Stenton, 2013). In the case of L2 subtitled video, post-viewing activities involving interpretation and repetition of speech from the video offer further opportunities for noticing target pronunciation features and incorporating them into the learners’ developing L2 system. This study investigated three groups of high-school EFL learners. Two intervention groups watched TV series clips with or without audio-synchronised textual enhancement of words containing past tense <-ed> endings in the subtitles and performed pronunciation-focused audiovisual activities such as revoicing and subtitling, whereas the control group was not exposed to the learning materials and thus provided a baseline of past tense <-ed> pronunciation rule knowledge. Questionnaire data provided information on the participants’ language learning profiles, their perception of the enhancement and their ability to describe the past tense <-ed> pronunciation rule, and their impressions of the intervention. The participants’ perceptions of the intervention were favourable, and the enhancement seemed to positively impact self-reported noticing of the target verbs, although not the internalisation of the pronunciation rule. We outline ideas for future research involving the implementation of these pedagogical tools in the language classroom.

**Keywords:** input enhancement, multimodal input, audiovisual activities, pronunciation teaching, English regular past

<figure><img src="image_22.png" /></figure>

This chapter is based on the oral presentation given by the authors at the 7th International Conference English Pronunciation: Issues and Practices (EPIP 7) held May 18–20, 2022 at Université Grenoble-Alpes, France. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of the license, please go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
# 1 Introduction

Watching TV in a second language is an activity with a strong pronunciation learning potential, as it provides exposure to large amounts of L2 speech even in instructional contexts where the L2 is not spoken outside the classroom. This extensive listening practice can be supported and further enhanced by the simultaneous processing of subtitles that contain a verbatim transcription of each utterance. While research has shown that exposure to video with L2 subtitles facilitates speech segmentation (Charles & Trenkic, 2015) and promotes the development of speech perception skills (Mitterer & McQueen, 2009), we know very little about its effects on the development of L2 pronunciation (see Wisniewska & Mora, 2020 for a pioneering study) and how the characteristics of subtitles in L2 videos can be manipulated to further promote pronunciation learning. In particular, it is of interest whether visually highlighting words that contain fossilised L1 sound/symbol correspondences would disrupt automatic reading behaviours and direct learners' attention to the soundtrack containing the target-like realisation of those words (Stenton, 2013). In this study, we audio-synchronised the highlighting of target words in the subtitles and combined them with video-based activities to teach the pronunciation of English regular past tense <-ed> ending. This paper analyses participants' perceptions of the intervention, their self-reported noticing of the enhanced target verbs and their acquisition of the past tense <-ed> pronunciation rule.

# 2 Literature review

Watching TV in a target language is not only a fun extracurricular activity but also an effective way to practise L2 reading and listening. TV series in particular tend to keep viewers engaged for many hours, increasing the total amount of exposure to the foreign language (Pujadas & Muñoz, 2019). Moreover, L2 video represents an accessible source of L2 auditory input even for learners at lower proficiency levels, thanks to the possibility to rewind the video and listen again as many times as needed, and to the widespread availability of subtitles providing a verbatim transcription of the speech (Vanderplank, 2015).

Watching subtitled video involves exposure to large amounts of visual and auditory information, including language-related visual cues such as facial expressions and gestures, written text, and natural monologic or conversational L2 speech. However, the extent to which various grammatical, lexical and phonological features of the input are attended to and effectively processed may vary greatly, depending on viewing context (leisure vs. classroom activity), as well as learners' proficiency and attitudes towards the use of recreational materials in language learning (Vanderplank, 2015). To improve learners' noticing of target vocabulary or grammatical constructions during the viewing, a number of studies have used textual enhancement by typographically enhancing (e.g., highlighting or underlining) target words in the subtitles (see for example, Lee & Révész, 2020; Montero Perez et al., 2015).

Previous research on subtitled video enhancement in L2 pronunciation teaching has found that synchronising the enhancement of target words with the corresponding auditory onset in the soundtrack may promote a focus on the pronunciation of those words (Galimberti et al., 2023). The timely noticing of target words' pronunciation may, in turn, enhance awareness of any differences between the phonetic form of words as perceived through target-like auditory input and the learners' stored representation of the word. Further support for the synchronised enhancement of auditory and written word forms comes from research on reading-while-listening,
where it has been used to promote the update of L2 lexical stress patterns (Stenton, 2013) and the
development of L2 and L1 reading skills (Bailly & Barbour, 2011; Gerbier et al., 2018).

Input enhancement in L2 video can promote, in the context of a primarily meaning-focused activity, the noticing of language form, which is a necessary step in the conversion of L2 input into intake (Schmidt, 1990; Sharwood Smith, 1991). In the presence of sufficient depth of processing, noticing may result, over time, in the development of rule-based representations, which may be more or less generalisable and accessible for testing depending on the explicitness of the learning conditions (Robinson, 1997). In Leow's (2015) L2 processing model, the initial stages of learning involve moving from L2 input processing to intake by engaging in memory-based processing (item learning), and/or rule-based processing (system learning). While restructuring of the learner's L2 system can be triggered by the conceptually-driven processing required to formulate a rule, the cognitive effort required to process the data can be reduced by the automatisation of linguistic data through repeated exposure and meaningful practice (Leow, 2015). This assumption is in line with Han et al.'s (2008) recommendation, based on a meta-analysis of 21 studies on textual enhancement, to combine textual enhancement with other strategies such as explicit instruction and/or interactional tasks involving the target feature.

To test the efficacy of this recommendation, we designed a pronunciation teaching intervention that combined TV series clips containing audio-synchronised enhancement with audiovisual (AV) activities, such as revoicing a silent clip or writing the L2 subtitles for an unsubtitled clip (see the AV framework in Zabalbeascoa et al., 2012). These activities, traditionally used to train translators, have been recently introduced into the language classroom to promote the development of listening and speaking skills (Danan, 2010; Zhang, 2016). Of particular relevance to this study are the studies that implemented AV activities to teach pronunciation (e.g., Chiu, 2012), including those with a broader focus on fluency (Sanchez-Requena, 2018) and comprehensibility (Lima, 2020).

The pronunciation of the English regular past tense <-ed> ending was selected as a target structure since the choice among the three allomorphs /d/, /t/ and /əd/ or /ɪd/ is derived from a morphophonological rule which depends on the phonemic environment. The main aspects of this rule can be explained in terms of spelling (Brutten et al., 1986); verbs ending in <-t> and <-d> in their present form take the /əd/ or /ɪd/ pronunciation, while other spelling endings take either /d/ or /t/. Learning this was expected to reduce the most common mispronunciations involving the erroneous addition of epenthetic vowels (e.g., *worked* pronounced */wɜːrkəd/). These mispronunciations are as critical as the deletion of inflectional endings because the addition of an unexpected extra syllable through epenthesis may affect comprehensibility, i.e., the listener's perception of how difficult it is to understand a message, and intelligibility, which is the listener's actual understanding of the message (Levis, 2018). Finally, targeting the accurate pronunciation of <-ed> endings was expected to be appropriate and beneficial for high school learners, because regular past tense <-ed> endings are hard to perceive and produce accurately even at advanced proficiency levels, due to their low perceptual salience and redundancy with time adverbials (Strachan & Trofimovich, 2019).

# 3 Research methodology

## 3.1 Research questions

The study aimed to answer the following research questions:
**RQ1:** After a teaching intervention based on audio-synchronised textual enhancement and audiovisual activities:

a) do learners report noticing the target L2 pronunciation feature?

b) can learners successfully describe the target L2 pronunciation rule?

**RQ2:** What are the learners' perceptions of:

a) videos with audio-synchronised textual enhancement in subtitles?

b) pronunciation-focused audiovisual activities?

**3.2 Participants**

The intervention was implemented with three intact classes of L1 Spanish and Catalan 15-year-
old students learning English as a foreign language. Out of 78 students, 53 completed a survey
after obtaining their parents' written consent. The students' English proficiency level was
estimated to be intermediate, based on the textbook used in class and on the participants'
vocabulary size (m = 2715.09, SD = 592.87) as assessed by the X-Lex test (Milton, 2010). The
groups were not significantly different in terms of vocabulary size (F(2, 50) = .52, p = .60), time
spent in an English-speaking country (F(2, 50) = .09, p = .92), total time spent on English
extracurricular classes (F(2, 50) = .90, p = .41), and weekly exposure to L2 TV shows (F(2, 50) =
.04, p = .96). In order to ensure participant anonymity, a unique identifier was generated using a
combination of alphanumeric characters. For instance, participant 2 in intervention group A was
assigned the code A02.

**3.3 Intervention materials**

Students watched five video clips in which, under the enhancement condition only, a selected number of target words (past tense regular verbs) were enhanced in the subtitles 500 ms before the corresponding auditory onset by highlighting the whole word in yellow and underlining the <-ed> ending together with the orthographical representation of its phonological context, i.e., the vowel or consonant preceding it. Low frequency words and words not clearly audible in the soundtrack were not enhanced, in order to avoid interference with comprehension. In each AV activity, the participants in the intervention groups (see Figure 1) re-watched a clip and were instructed to either: 1) complete subtitles in which some words, including the target words, were missing; 2) order and label excerpts of the clip containing the target words; 3) identify muted target words in shorter unsubtitled excerpts and repeat the whole sentence out loud; 4) revoice a muted clip with the help of the subtitles; and 5) order unsubtitled excerpts containing the target words and revoice the obtained sequence. Therefore, in the first session learners could self-test their perception of the target feature through subtitling, whereas in the second session they needed to pay close attention to L2 speech, although in the context of a meaning-focused comprehension task. Finally, the three sessions that involved revoicing aimed at the automatisation of accurate and fluent production, with the support of (part of) the target utterances spoken by native L2 speakers (the characters). After each AV activity, participants did an awareness raising activity in which they read or listened to a list of verbs and were asked, for example, to underline the letter preceding the <-ed> ending of some verbs and decide if the sound was voiced or voiceless; group the verbs based on how the <-ed> ending sounded; or decide whether the vowel representing letter <e> in the <-ed> ending
was pronounced or remained silent. These activities aimed at explicitly directing learners' attention to some aspects of regular past tense <-ed> pronunciation, such as the existence of different allomorphs, the difference between voiced and voiceless consonants, and the effects of the phonetic context preceding and following the <-ed> ending (Strachan & Trofimovich, 2019).

## 3.4 Procedure

The intervention lasted six weeks, with each group receiving fifty minutes of instruction per week (Figure 1). Intervention group A was exposed to audio-synchronised textual enhancement and carried out the AV activities; Intervention group B did the same activities but watched the clips without enhancement; Control group C followed their conventional textbook-based classes, and no planned or reactive focus on past tense <-ed> pronunciation was implemented by the teacher. The control group provided a baseline of past tense <-ed> pronunciation rule knowledge among learners who belonged to the same population as the intervention groups but had not received focused instruction.

<caption>Figure 1</caption>

*Lesson Plan and Data Collection Procedure by Group*

<figure><img src="image_23.png" /></figure>
After a mock session, in each of the five sessions groups A and B watched a video containing enhanced and unenhanced target words respectively, worked on an AV activity in pairs while the teacher<fnref n="1" /> walked around the classroom offering support, and they received feedback. The feedback phase involved having two or three pairs report on the activity in front of the whole class and asking other students if they agreed with the solution or performance proposed until the correct answer was provided. To conclude, each student answered ten comprehension questions and did an awareness-raising activity individually before receiving group feedback. A written questionnaire was administered in a quiet classroom the week after the intervention. Participants could choose between the Spanish and Catalan version and were asked to complete it within 20 minutes.

## 3.5 Questionnaire

After the language background section, which provided information on the participants' L1(s) and extracurricular exposure to English, all participants (groups A, B and C) were asked to describe the rule about the pronunciation of the <-ed> ending of past tense regular verbs, including examples if possible. Participants in group A and group B expressed their perceptions of the intervention by indicating to what extent they agreed with statements about the videos and the activities. The statements were mostly adapted from Sokoli's (2018) survey of learners' perceptions of AV activities, with a few novel items included. The item on peer collaboration was added as an initial (albeit very limited) measure of social interaction, a construct that has been related to active learning and to a higher focus on the task (Zabalbeascoa et al., 2012). In addition, participants were asked to indicate if they read the subtitles during the viewing, which provided a tentative measure of audiovisual processing under the circumstances (as collecting eye-tracking data during the implementation of whole-class activities was impossible). Sokoli's (2018) questions on participants' feeling of learning were adapted to assess whether the learners' general focus was primarily on grammar or pronunciation, since the intervention may have increased awareness of both the grammatical function and phonological form of the verbs. As a measure of reported noticing, participants in group A were also asked whether any letters were enhanced in the subtitles, what those letters had in common, and whether the participants believed that the enhancement was useful or distracting.

## 3.6 Data analysis

The data reported in this paper were collected via written questionnaire and analysed quantitatively. Yes/No questions resulted in binary variables (0 or 1), whereas the five-point Likert items on learner perceptions resulted in categorical variables with five levels from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). Knowledge of the past tense <-ed> rule was also operationalised as a categorical variable with four levels, with value range 0 (no response) to 3 (completely correct response). The rating of the responses was conducted by the author/teacher. Partially correct answers (value 1) mentioned some relevant elements but missed other important ones, e.g., "it is pronounced like a *t*" (A05). Answers were considered mostly correct (value 2) if they mentioned the existence of three allomorphs and/or the presence or absence of a vowel sound depending on the context, e.g., "in *walked* <e> makes no sound, in *provided* it sounds like /ed/ because the word ends in <e> (sic), other times it sounds like /t/ and others it makes no sound" (B46). An example

<footnote n="1">¹ The first author, Valeria Galimberti, was the teacher during the intervention.</footnote>
of a response considered completely correct is: "There are verbs that in the past are pronounced as if they ended with /t/ (e.g., *walked*), others with /id/ (e.g., *waited*) or with /d/ (e.g., *turned*)" (A02).

Count data is presented for RQ1a, due to the small sample. To answer RQ1b, between group
differences were also explored through Fisher's exact tests with Monte Carlo method (1e4 sampled
tables), due to the low expected frequencies per variable level. When reporting in-text the
participants' responses to the statements in RQ2, the response values 5 (agree) and 4 (somewhat
agree) were collapsed into one category 5 (agree). Similarly, the response values 1 (disagree) and
2 (somewhat disagree) were collapsed into the category 1 (disagree). To offer a complementary
picture of the data, the mean value and standard deviation on the original five-point scale of the
responses to each statement were reported in Table 1 and Table 2 aggregated by group.

4 Results

4.1 Noticing and describing the target L2 pronunciation feature (RQ 1a, 1b)

All participants watching the videos with audio-synchronised enhancement (n = 18) reported noticing the enhanced words in the subtitles, with 16 finding the enhancement useful. Fourteen participants correctly identified that the enhanced words were regular past verbs and/or verbs ending in <-ed>, only one mentioned that the words had been enhanced because of their pronunciation, and three mentioned that the enhancement was related to pronunciation without further specification.

When asked to describe the rule about how to pronounce regular past tense <-ed> endings, 50% of the participants in group A, 12% of the participants in group B, and 22% of the participants in group C did not attempt to answer. The proportion of incorrect answers was 17% in group A, 71% in group B and 56% in group C. Of the twelve acceptable answers, only two for group A and one for group B were rated as mostly correct (11% and 6%, respectively), and two as completely correct (one in group A and one in group B). Fisher's exact tests with Monte Carlo method did not find significant differences between the responses of the three groups (two-tailed p = .66).

4.2 Learners’ perceptions of videos with audio-synchronised textual enhancement and pronunciation-focused audiovisual activities (RQ 2a, 2b)

All participants reported understanding the videos, and around 80% in each group thought they
were fun (Table 1). Two thirds of group A (videos with enhanced subtitles), but only half of group
B (unenhanced subtitles), reported reading the subtitles. Around 70% of the participants in each
intervention group believed that they had learned some English pronunciation from the video.
While 65% also felt that they had learned some grammar or vocabulary from the videos in group
B, only 50% of group A agreed.
<caption>**Table 1**</caption>

*Responses (1–5) to Statements about the Enhanced Videos*

<table><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="3">Intervention group A<br>(Enhancement)</th><th colspan="3">Intervention group B<br>(No enhancement)</th></tr><tr><th><em>M</em></th><th><em>SD</em></th><th>95% CI</th><th><em>M</em></th><th><em>SD</em></th><th>95% CI</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>I understood the videos</td><td>4.83</td><td>.38</td><td>[4.64; 5.02]</td><td>4.53</td><td>.62</td><td>[4.21; 4.85]</td></tr><tr><td>The videos were fun</td><td>4.22</td><td>1.17</td><td>[3.64; 4.80]</td><td>4.12</td><td>.93</td><td>[3.64; 4.59]</td></tr><tr><td>I read the subtitles</td><td>3.72</td><td>1.02</td><td>[3.22; 4.23]</td><td>3.53</td><td>1.18</td><td>[2.92; 4.14]</td></tr><tr><td>I learned some English pronunciation<br>from the videos</td><td>3.72</td><td>.57</td><td>[3.44; 4.01]</td><td>3.82</td><td>1.07</td><td>[3.27; 4.38]</td></tr><tr><td>I learned some English grammar or<br>vocabulary from the videos</td><td>3.50</td><td>.71</td><td>[3.15; 3.85]</td><td>3.65</td><td>.99</td><td>[3.13; 4.16]</td></tr></tbody></table>

*Note.* 1 = totally disagree, 5 = totally agree

Almost all participants reported understanding the instructions of the AV activities and two thirds used the clues offered within each activity to complete them (Table 2). Eighty percent of the participants in group A and 60% of the participants in group B indicated that the activities were fun. Only one third of the participants in group A indicated that the activities were challenging, but in group B almost two thirds of participants found them challenging. Ninety percent of participants in group A and 75% in group B responded that both partners had contributed equally to the activity. Similar to the responses for the enhanced videos, around 70% of the participants in each group reported learning some pronunciation from the activities, but only half in each group reported learning some grammar and vocabulary.

<caption>**Table 2**</caption>

*Responses (1-5) to Statements about the Audiovisual Activities*

<table><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="3">Intervention group A<br>(Enhancement)</th><th colspan="3">Intervention group B<br>(No enhancement)</th></tr><tr><th><em>M</em></th><th><em>SD</em></th><th>95% CI</th><th><em>M</em></th><th><em>SD</em></th><th>95% CI</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>I understood the instructions</td><td>4.39</td><td>.78</td><td>[4.00; 4.78]</td><td>4.29</td><td>.85</td><td>[3.86; 4.73]</td></tr><tr><td>We used the clues to do the activities</td><td>3.72</td><td>.89</td><td>[3.28; 4.17]</td><td>3.76</td><td>.90</td><td>[3.30; 4.23]</td></tr><tr><td>The activities were fun</td><td>3.89</td><td>1.23</td><td>[3.28; 4.50]</td><td>3.53</td><td>1.01</td><td>[3.01; 4.05]</td></tr><tr><td>The activities were challenging</td><td>3.00</td><td>1.19</td><td>[2.41; 3.59]</td><td>3.41</td><td>1.12</td><td>[2.84; 3.99]</td></tr><tr><td>My partner and I contributed equally to<br>the activities</td><td>4.39</td><td>1.24</td><td>[3.77; 5.01]</td><td>4.06</td><td>1.20</td><td>[3.44; 4.67]</td></tr><tr><td>I learned some English pronunciation<br>from the activities</td><td>3.89</td><td>.68</td><td>[3.55; 4.23]</td><td>4.06</td><td>.97</td><td>[3.56; 4.56]</td></tr><tr><td>I learned some English grammar or<br>vocabulary from the activities</td><td>3.50</td><td>.71</td><td>[3.15; 3.85]</td><td>3.65</td><td>1.11</td><td>[3.07; 4.22]</td></tr></tbody></table>

*Note.* 1 = totally disagree, 5 = totally agree
**5 Discussion**

In relation to RQ1, participants who watched L2 videos with audio-synchronised, textually enhanced subtitles and did pronunciation-focused activities, reported noticing the enhanced words and connected the enhancement to the target feature. This suggests that they were able to move past the stage of *input processing* to that of *intake processing*, as the enhanced exemplars seemed to have been cognitively registered with some level of awareness (Leow, 2015, p. 17). However, even after five weeks of intervention, most participants were unable to describe the rule relative to regular past tense <--ed> pronunciation better than the control group. Despite adopting a sequential design in which learners were encouraged to process input for meaning first and then focus on form through subsequent activities, as recommended by Han et al. (2008), the intervention did not seem to promote the type of conceptually-driven processing necessary to extract abstract rules from the exemplars encountered in the input (Leow, 2015). One possible explanation is that the participants may have struggled to integrate visual and auditory input due to the low salience of the target phonological forms (Strachan & Trofimovich, 2019), and the salience created externally by highlighting the target words and creating activities that revolve around these words may not have aligned with the learners' internally created salience (Sharwood Smith, 1991). In line with this hypothesis, very few participants indicated the *pronunciation* of the regular past endings as the reason for their enhancement, which suggested that the processing of regular past verbs may have primarily focused on their grammatical or semantic properties rather than their phonological realisation. Other possible explanations for the null or negative findings associated with input enhancement typically involve the shortness and implicitness of the treatment (Han et al., 2008). However, in studies of similar length that assessed L2 speech production rather than rule acquisition, significant pronunciation gains have been observed from exposure to enhanced input (Stenton, 2013) as well as the implementation of AV activities (Sanchez-Requena, 2018). Considering that almost all participants in this study perceived the enhancement as useful and that the feeling of pronunciation learning was generally very high, exposure to audio-synchronised enhancement and AV activities may have benefited other, more implicit, dimensions of L2 pronunciation learning.

Regarding RQ2, learners' responses to the questionnaire seemed to indicate an overall positive perception of the videos and activities, in line with previous studies on AV activities (Danan, 2010; Sanchez-Requena, 2018; Sokoli, 2018). The learners indicated that they had understood the videos and the instructions of the activities, and that the videos were fun, confirming that the materials were appropriate for the target population. According to their responses to the questionnaire, participants in group A reported that they relied on subtitles more than participants in group B. If group A had been primarily processing the written input, the appearance of an enhanced word may have interrupted the automatic reading process and successfully redirected their attention to the corresponding auditory form (Stenton, 2013). However, this explanation is only tentative in the absence of online measures of attention allocation from eye-tracking and offline stimulated recall protocols. Moreover, participants in group A, who had already focused on the target words during the first exposure to the enhanced video and may have developed a stronger episodic memory of those auditory forms, were less likely to find the activities challenging than participants in group B. Almost all participants reported that both partners had contributed equally during the activities, suggesting that working in pairs may have helped learners overcome the challenges presented by the dual processing of meaning and form, fostering social interaction with positive effects on language learning (Zabalbeascoa, 2012). Finally, learners reported a higher feeling of learning for
pronunciation than for grammar and vocabulary, especially in relation to the AV activities. The lack of speech perception and production tests, which would have allowed us to draw more robust conclusions regarding pronunciation learning, is a major limitation of this paper, and will be addressed in future publications.

# 6 Conclusion

After an intervention featuring L2 video with audio-synchronised textual enhancement and video-based activities, our participants reported noticing the enhanced verbs in the subtitles but were unable to infer the past <ed> pronunciation rule and describe it in writing. However, the intervention was well-received, and the participants' feeling of learning was high, in line with the hypothesis that incorporating these materials into the EFL classroom may foster active and collaborative learning (Zabalbeascoa, 2012). To ensure the successful implementation of AV activities, teachers should carefully select target features and video clips at the appropriate difficulty level and provide clear instructions before each activity. Prefacing the activities with explicit instruction may help direct learners' attention to the phonological properties of the target words, especially with a morphophonemic feature like the regular past <ed>. To ensure active participation, the teacher should monitor the learners' execution of each stage, provide individualised feedback during pair work and foster a safe learning environment in which learners may be willing to perform the revoicing activities in front of the whole class.

This study focused on the participants' perceptions of audio-synchronised enhancement and AV activities and was therefore very limited in scope. The main limitation was the lack of objective measures of phonological development tapping into the learners' perception and production of the target feature. Recommendations for future research include the analysis of L2 pronunciation development through pre- and post-tests involving L2 speech production tasks, as well as the investigation of learners' attention allocation to audio-synchronised subtitle enhancement. Although collecting eye-tracking data in a classroom setting may not be feasible, a lab-based study featuring a comparable sample may provide valuable insights on the processing of audio-synchronised enhancement. Finally, due to our small and homogenous sample, further research is needed to assess how participants of different ages, proficiencies and mother tongues would respond to audio-synchronised enhancement and AV activities.

# Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities [grant PID2019-107814GB-100] and by the Secretary of Universities and Research of the Government of Catalonia and the European Social Fund [grant FI_2019].

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## About the authors

**Valeria Galimberti** is a PhD candidate in Applied Linguistics at the University of Barcelona, and a member of the GRAL (Language Acquisition Research Group). She has conducted research with high school and university students on L2 captioned video processing, vocabulary learning from TV series and production tasks in second language acquisition. Her PhD thesis explores the effects of input enhancement and video-based activities on the acquisition of L2 pronunciation.

Email: galimberti@ub.edu

**Joan C. Mora** is associate professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and English Studies and a member of GRAL (Language Acquisition Research Group) at the University of Barcelona (UB) in Spain. He is interested in understanding how contextual and individual factors shape L2 speech learning. His current research interests focus on the role of cognitive and emotional individual differences in the development of L2 pronunciation and speaking fluency, phonological learning in the mental lexicon, phonetic training methods, multimodal pronunciation training, and task-based pronunciation teaching and learning in instructed SLA.

Email: mora@ub.edu
**Roger Gilabert** is a lecturer and researcher at the University of Barcelona, and he is a member of the GRAL (Language Acquisition Research Group). His research has revolved around task and syllabus design for the last 25 years. The focus of his research has also been L2 oral and written production, multimodal input processing through caption videos ( genres), game-based learning and reading skills. He is currently leading the taskGen project on the automation of second and foreign language task design.

Email: roergilabert@ub.edu
# From research to teaching: The case of English rising contours

Sophie Herment

Aix Marseille University

It is quite common to hear incongruous rises in the speech of EFL learners, and yet, native English speakers produce rising contours in the same contexts. To understand where this discrepancy comes from and how it can be avoided, this paper focuses on the forms and functions of rising contours in English through examples of French learners of English and native English speakers. Depending on the variety of English, the type of speech, the conditions in which the interaction takes place, the relationship between the interlocutors, etc., rises can take different forms and have different functions. On the basis of two studies of native read speech, it is shown that rising contours are rare and that contrary to what is stated in the literature, their main function is not to indicate non-finality and continuation, but rather to convey attitudes. The pedagogical implications of these results are of importance: in read speech, learners should try and avoid rises, even in non-final tone units. In spontaneous speech, learners should be aware of the attitude conveyed by rising terminals. A few examples are given of how the visualisation of prosody can help to better understand the contours and to better hear and produce them.

**Keywords:** EFL, English rising contours, melodic forms, discursive functions, visualisation

<figure><img src="image_24.png" /></figure>
# 1 Introduction

The aim of this paper is to show how research on intonation can inform L2 learning and teaching practice, illustrating this with the example of French learners of English.

For this study we adopted the theoretical framework of the British school of intonation (see, for example, Cruttenden, 1997, 2014; Roach, 2009; Wells, 2006). The British system is based on a configurational approach, which we have argued is better adapted to teaching than the American approach, based on a bitonal model (see Herment, 2018; Niebuhr et al., 2017). In the British tradition, speech is divided into Tone Units (TUs), which correspond roughly to syntax and semantics and are characterised by a coherent melodic contour. A TU is composed of at least one syllable, necessarily the nuclear syllable (or nucleus). The melodic movement starts on the nucleus and spreads on the post-nuclear syllables, if any. Fall (F), rise (R), rise-fall (RF) and fall-rise (FR) are the melodic contours commonly used to describe intonation (with a few variants according to Cruttenden, 1997, 2014; Roach, 2009; Wells, 2006).

French learners of English (hereafter referred to as learners) tend to produce (too) many rises when they speak English. This is why we focus on these contours, which are also found in the productions of native English speakers (hereafter referred to as natives). Rises in learners and natives are therefore examined, and their forms and functions discussed, as they can vary according to many factors, such as the variety of English, the type of speech, the conditions in which the interaction takes place, the relationship between the interlocutors, etc. The canonical functions of English intonation are then called into question based on two studies of native read speech, which are summarised. The following section deals with the pedagogical implications of the results and shows how visualisation can help improve the teaching and learning of prosody.

# 2 English rising contours

Several studies have shown that it is quite common to hear incongruous rises in the speech of learners of L2 English (or EFL learners), for questions (e.g., MacDonald, 2011; Pytlyk, 2008; Santiago-Vargas & Delais-Roussarie, 2012), but also at the end of declarative sentences (Contreras Roa, 2019; Horgues, 2010). Those rises sound inappropriate, and yet, native English speakers produce rising contours in the same contexts. Where does this discrepancy come from? How can it be avoided? How can learners be helped to integrate a more native-like prosody? To try and answer these questions, it is necessary to talk about variation and to focus on the forms and functions of rising contours, both in learners and natives.

## 2.1 Rising contours and learners

It is well known that it is difficult to master the prosody of a new language. One reason is that prosody is acquired in utero. Studies have shown that hearing is operational by the third trimester of pregnancy (Moore & Jeffery, 1994), but maternal tissues function as low-pass filters, removing the fine details of speech and allowing only the prosody (the melody and the rhythm) of the speech signal to pass through. Indeed, studies have shown that foetuses recognise their mother's voice. Kisilevsky et al. (2003) have shown that the heartbeat rate increases when foetuses hear their mother's voice. It has also been shown that new-borns recognise their mother tongue: infants had longer sucking bursts on a nipple connected to a pressure transducer when played recordings in their native tongue than in a foreign language (Moon et al., 1993).

The influence that a speaker's first language can exert on the production and perception of a second language is also well-known and variously referred to as *transfer* or *interference*. To
avoid the negative (and behaviourist) connotations of these terms, Sharwood-Smith (1983) suggested the theory-neutral term *cross-linguistic influence* (CLI) to refer to any kind of influence of a source language onto a target language.

In the case of French learners of English, CLI from French to English is striking, particularly as far as rhythm is concerned. In French, the chunking (the division into rhythm units) is very different from English. An intonation phrase is divided into small groups of words (accentual phrase), which are realised with a rising contour on the very last syllable of the group, whatever the nature of the word. Figure 1 below, which is a screencapture from the PRAAT software (Boersma & Weenink, 2001), shows the production by a French native speaker of the following example sentence (1):

(1) Est-ce que [↑] vous pourriez [↑] me donner la liste [↑] des restaurants [↑] de mon quartier [↑] ?|

*Can you give me a list of the restaurants in the neighbourhood?*

In the example above (and in the ones further on), the division into rhythmic groups is shown by the horizontal bars and the syllable bearing the melodic movement is underlined (the last syllable in each group in this example). The arrows show the melodic movement (rises here). In Figure 1, the rises are marked by the ellipses on the melodic curve.

<caption>**Figure 1**</caption>

*French Sentence Produced by a Native French Speaker*

<figure><img src="image_25.png" /></figure>

*Est-ce que vous pourriez-me donner la liste des restaurants de mon quartier ?*

The production of the equivalent sentence in English by a French learner is shown in Figure 2 and exemplifies CLI. A native English speaker would have divided the sentence into two rhythmic groups, as in example (2):

(2) Can you give me a list of the <u>restaurants</u> [x] in the <u>neighbourhood</u> [x] |
The French learner of English divides the sentence into four groups, as in example (3), and like in their mother tongue, pronounces rises on the last syllable of each group (except the last one), whatever the nature of the word and its stressed syllable:

(3) Can you give me [blue triangle] | a list [blue triangle] | of the restaurants [blue triangle] | in the neighbourhood? [blue triangle] |

<caption>Figure 2</caption>

English Sentence Produced by a French Learner of English

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /></figure>

Can you give me a list of the restaurants in the neighbourhood?

Although this example is particularly striking as far as CLI is concerned, the rising contours in learners are probably not only due to language transfer. Santiago-Vargas and Delais-Roussarie (2015) studied the intonation of questions in Mexican learners of French. They show that some cases of erroneous productions can be attributed to the transfer of L1 contours to L2, but that not all errors can be explained in this way. The authors suggest that the acquisition process itself may be responsible for some of the erroneous contours produced by learners.

These numerous rises might also be linked to the pragmatic functions of intonation and specifically of the rising contours. An upward contour on declarative sentences, which English teachers are familiar with, is often referred to as tentative intonation. It sounds as if the learner integrates a question in their sentence, the pragmatics of which could be *Am I right? Is this the right answer?*. It denotes linguistic insecurity, which is also found in the production of native speakers (see example 4 below). An interesting example from a corpus of Canadian English is to be found in Rodrigues Da Mota and Herment (2016): the authors give an example (4) in which the speaker, who addresses a French person in English, pronounces the French word *Grenoble* with a high rising pattern, probably because she is not sure her pronunciation is right and expresses her insecurity in front of a native French person.

(4) and so now we don't have a car | so we can't get to Maastricht | so we're going to Grenoble [blue triangle] | for a few days I think |
This suggests that the pragmatic functions of intonation should also be taken into account. When a learner uses rising intonation on a declarative, it often sounds tentative. Rising contours are also heard among natives on declaratives, with several pragmatic functions, as explained in the next section.

## 2.2 Rising contours and natives

Rising contours can take different forms and different functions among natives, according to the variety of English spoken, the context of speech or sociological factors. To allow comparison with learners, we focus here on rising contours at the end of declarative sentences.

### 2.2.1 Stylistic rises

The term *stylistic rises* is used in this paper (following Bongiorno, 2021) for the rising contours found at the end of declarative sentences in English for pragmatic and stylistic purposes. Other authors talk about *high rising terminals* (HRTs) (e.g., Wilhelm, 2015) or *uptalk* (e.g., Warren, 2016). We prefer stylistic rises because they do not necessarily appear at the end of a sentence and because we contrast them with systemic rises (see §2.2.2).

Stylistic rises have been widely documented (see Warren, 2016). First attested in Australia and New-Zealand (2nd half of the 19th century), then in North America (Pacific rim) at the end of the 19th century, they are now rapidly spreading in Great Britain. They can take different forms in different varieties of English, but they are most often characterised by a sharp rise and a flat prenuclear contour, as exemplified in Figures 3 and 4 below, in 2 different varieties of English.

Typically, these rises have interactional and discursive functions, among which and not exclusively:

- the integration of an underlying question, such as *Do you see what I mean? Do you know what I am talking about?*, to make sure the interlocutor follows what the speaker is saying;

- the sign of the speaker's uncertainty, for example, when they indicate an approximate distance;

- the mark of the speaker's linguistic insecurity;

- the speaker's wish to obtain feedback, e.g., *Is this what you're expecting from me?*.

<caption>**Figure 3**</caption>

Canadian English

<figure><img src="image_27.png" /></figure>

Let's all hate Toronto (Rodrigues da Mota & Herment, 2016)
**Figure 4**

*Dublin English*

<figure><img src="image_28.png" /></figure>

I was born in Dublin (Bongiorno & Herment, 2018)

**2.2.2 Systemic rises**

Another type of rises heard among natives is referred to as Urban Northern British Intonation (UNBI) and is found, as its name indicates, only in certain varieties of British English and more particularly in the large cities of the North: Belfast, Derry, Glasgow, Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham. In these places, the rising contour is the intonation by default on declaratives, hence the term *systemic* (as opposed to the stylistic rises mentioned above). According to Wilhelm (2015), five different types of rises are heard in UNBI: a) low rise, b) rise-slump, c) rise plateau, d) rise-plateau slump, and e) high plateau. The examples in Figures 5 and 6 exemplify c) and d) respectively.

**Figure 5**

*Rise-plateau on 'Guard Dog' in Donegal English*

<figure><img src="image_29.png" /></figure>

So the other one was like having a guard dog (Turcsan & Herment, 2015)
<caption>**Figure 6**</caption>

Rise-plateau-slump Starting on ‘Anything’ in Newcastle English

<figure><img src="image_30.png" /></figure>

I haven't heard anything from Salford (Herment et al., 2020a)

### 2.2.3 Speaking styles

Intonation also varies according to speaking styles. In spontaneous conversations, speakers tend to use rising contours so as not to lose their speech turn. Rising contours with pragmatic functions (stylistic rises, see §2.2.1) are also more frequent in interactions (spontaneous conversations in particular). In non-prepared speech, hesitations are also more common and often trigger a rising contour. This is the case in sports commentaries, where journalists tend to use numerous rising contours to increase suspense (Samlowski et al., 2018). Falls are more frequent in formal speech. Teachers, for example, know that they will not be interrupted so they do not have to utter rising contours to keep the floor. In reading aloud, which is a rather codified exercise, a canonical intonation is expected, i.e., the intonation described in manuals or phonology books.

### 2.2.4 Canonical intonation

It is difficult to describe a canonical intonation, since so much variation exists - within speakers, between speakers and in different varieties of English. However, many authors like Cruttenden (2014), Tench (1996) or Wells (2006) agree on the following basic functions of intonation for standard British English:

- Rises signal non-finality, falls finality and completeness;

- Rises are produced in yes-no questions and falls in WH-questions;

- Falling-rising contours signal continuity, implication, contrast, the desire to draw the co-speaker's attention to what is being said (Brazil, 1997) or to what follows (Gussenhoven, 2004);

- Rise-falls are used for irony or surprise (Roach, 2009).

These principles are often taught to learners of English. However, when listening to recordings of British English natives, we noticed an amazingly high proportion of falling contours in read speech. We decided to analyse this speech style to determine how many rises
and falls occur, where and why. Our hypothesis is that incomplete statements (non-final tone units), usually described as displaying a non-fall contour, can be, and frequently are, pronounced with a falling tone in read speech, contrary to what is generally admitted.

The next section briefly describes two studies (Herment & Tortel, 2021 and Herment et al., 2020b) in which we tested this hypothesis.

## 3 Analysis of read speech by native English speakers

In order to study L2 English by French learners, two corpora were collected and analysed: the English corpus (Tortel, 2008) and the AixOx corpus (Herment et al., 2014), which contain the same passages in English read by both native English speakers and French learners of English. The hypothesis mentioned above stems from listening to the native English speakers of these two corpora. Our results confirm our hypothesis (see Herment & Tortel, 2021): concerning non-final tone units, 78.5% are produced with a fall. Contrary to what is generally admitted, the rising tone is far from being the most common contour for incomplete statements as only 14.5% were found and 7% were falling-rising tones, which amounts to only 21.5% when combined. As far as final tone units are concerned (534 TUs), the most common tone is the fall with 85%, followed by 10.5% of fall-rises and 4.5% of rises. Falls are clearly the most common contours in read speech. We then conducted a qualitative analysis of the corpus and took a close look at the types of sentences, clauses, and phrases to see how the tones were distributed in relation to syntax and attitudinal functions (Herment et al., 2020b).

Tonal sequences (F/R, R/F, FR/F, etc.) were analysed, i.e., the intonation contours in sentences containing two or more TUs. The notion of dependency, which is important as far as syntax is concerned, was also considered: the elements which are not complete in themselves are dependent on some other structure. An independent element is an independent clause or main clause in a complex sentence or last clause in compound sentences.

The literature (see Cruttenden, 1997; Wells, 2006) reports that a fall is found on the main part of the utterance, and a non-fall on the subordinate or dependent part, whether final or initial (as in adverbials in trailing position). The sequence F/F (fall plus fall) is also commonly found: the information is then presented as two separate and potentially complete items, as is often the case with coordinate clauses, related by *and, but and or*.

The results of our qualitative analysis (248 tonal sequences) show that (see Herment et al., 2020b for details):

* the sequence F/F dominates in our data (especially in coordinate clauses with 95% and subordinate clauses with 82%);

* the rising contour can be described as exceptional in read speech, even in non-final clauses;

* the main function of rising contours is not to indicate non-finality and continuation, or dependency, but rather to convey the speaker's implication or emotional state.

These results run counter to what the literature reports as canonical intonation (see §2.2.4), at least in reading, and thus to what is generally taught. They therefore have important pedagogical implications.

## 4 Pedagogical perspectives

In this section, we develop two main pedagogical perspectives: a) the use of rises depending on the level of the learner, and b) the contribution of visualisation techniques in the teaching and learning of prosody.
## 4.1 Level of learners

Rises are very infrequent in the read speech of natives but they are quite frequent in interactional speech, where they take on particular pragmatic and discursive functions and convey emotions and attitudes. In the speech of French learners of English rises are very common, because of CLI and other reasons, but these rises tend to sound incongruous. Therefore, teaching practices should insist upon falling contours. We are aware that read speech is not necessarily a model for typical everyday speech communication. However, the fact that so many falls are found is intriguing, and shows that it is possible to use mainly falls to communicate, at least at the beginning of the learning process. Knowing this could counteract the overuse (and harmful effects) of rises among beginner learners. Therefore, the level of learners should be taken into account when teaching prosody.

The functions of rises correlate with other aspects such as the variety of English, the speech style, or being a learner. When a learner speaks, native speakers recognise that they are a learner because their pronunciation is not that of a native. This is very important because native interlocutors will adapt to the fact that they have a learner in front of them and will therefore probably understand a rise as a sign of insecurity or uncertainty. The lower the level of the learner, the more native speakers will be tempted to attribute rising contours to a feeling of insecurity. The more advanced the learner, the more native interlocutors will interpret a pragmatic function, as they would when listening to other native speakers.

Beginner or intermediate learners should therefore avoid rising contours, even in non-final contexts and in yes-no questions. Teachers should make them practise the realisation of falling contours as much as possible. In contrast, advanced learners should not ban rises from their speech, but they should be (made) aware of the pragmatic and discursive functions of rising contours, especially in final TUs, so that possible misunderstandings are avoided.

## 4.2 Visualising prosody

As already argued in Herment and Tortel (2021), learning (and teaching) prosody is facilitated by its visualisation. The representations of prosody shown in Figures 7–11 below were generated using the ProZed plugin (Hirst, 2005) implemented in PRAAT. In each Figure, from top to bottom, one can see the sentence read, the melodic curve (the green line), each syllable of the sentence (yellow balls on the curve), and the oscillogram. The green curve is a representation of the fundamental frequency, and thus provides a visualisation of the intonation contour. The size of the yellow balls corresponds to the duration of the syllable: the bigger the ball, the longer the syllable. The size of the ball is a good clue for lexical stress in English. If the ball is big, the syllable is very likely to be accented, at least not reduced (apart from the last syllable, which is longer than average because final and not necessarily accented). In Figures 7 and 8, the same sentence is read by a native and a learner respectively and the equivalent sentence in French is read by a native French speaker in Figure 9.

The intonation of the learner is clearly very different from that of the native, and strikingly modelled on that of French. Showing such representations to learners is probably very helpful because they can see what they produce, and it is well-known that seeing helps perceiving.

Another example of the difference between French and English contours is illustrated in Figures 10 and 11, where a WH-question is read, with a typical falling contour by the native, and a typical rising contour by the learner. The teacher could show such examples in class to help learners visualise the difference. The size of the yellow balls could also be commented upon by the teacher, to help learners with word stress and reductions (e.g., *for*).
<caption>Figure 7</caption>

Native English Speaker

<figure><img src="image_31.png" /><figcaption>Figure 8</figcaption></figure>

French Learner of English, Intermediate Level

<figure><img src="image_32.png" /></figure>
<caption>Figure 9</caption>

Native French Speaker

<figure><img src="image_33.png" /></figure>

Allo, les Magasins Réunis?
Hello, is this the Magasins Réunis?

<caption>Figure 10</caption>

Native English Speaker

<figure><img src="image_34.png" /></figure>

What can I have for dinner tonight?
<caption>Figure 11</caption>

French Learner of English, Intermediate Level

<figure><img src="image_35.png" /></figure>

What can I have for dinner tonight?

**5 Conclusion**

Avenues of research and of teaching practice, derived from our experience of teaching English prosody to learners, have been proposed in this paper. The next step is to analyse the impact of visualisation on the learning of prosodic contours. A study testing two groups of learners, one learning prosody with the help of visualisation and the other without, could be set up. Other visualisation techniques could be used and developed. We believe that this is one way to effectively improve the learning and teaching of prosody, which is sorely lacking in English language classrooms.

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## About the author

**Sophie Herment** is a full Professor in the department of English studies at Aix-Marseille University, France. She has taught English phonetics and phonology to French students at all levels of the university curriculum, including the teacher training programme, for 25 years. As a member of the Speech and Language Lab (LPL, co-funded by the university and the CNRS – the French National Centre for Research), of which she is deputy director, she works mainly on prosody. Her research interests concern L2 prosody, the varieties of English, the prosody/syntax interface and corpus prosody. She co-supervises the PAC programme (Phonology of Contemporary English).

Email: sophie.herment@univ-amu.fr
# How L2 English pronunciation contributes to miscommunication in two French/English tandem conversation tasks

Céline Horgues

Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3 University

Sylwia Scheuer

Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3 University

The paper is a contribution to the study of miscommunication in native-non-native speaker (NS-NNS) conversations. It analyses pronunciation-induced communication breakdowns (CBs) found in video-recorded face-to-face tandem conversations held in English by 21 pairs of students, each consisting of a native speaker of English and a native speaker of French (SITAF tandem corpus; Horgues & Scheuer, 2015). These NS-NNS interactions are shaped by specific linguistic, discursive, intercultural, and psycho-affective characteristics of the Tandem learning framework.

We draw on our previous research which showed that pronunciation was the single most important linguistic factor behind CBs arising from the speech of the NNS in a debating task. We now aim to look for possible task effects on the frequency and nature of the CBs by comparing two collaborative speaking tasks in English.

Our results confirm that the amount and types of CBs are indeed shaped by the tandem learning setting and tasks, and that pronunciation is the main impediment to the intelligibility of NNS English speech in the corpus. We hope our study contributes to a better understanding of the communicative impact of L2 pronunciation in authentic NS-NNS exchanges.

**Keywords:** L2 intelligibility, L2 pronunciation, tandem learning, NS-NNS communication, communication breakdowns

<figure><img src="image_36.png" /></figure>
# 1 Introduction

Conversations between a native speaker (NS) and a non-native speaker (NNS) are generally described as presenting more opportunity for miscommunication than NS-NS exchanges (Varonis & Gass, 1985b), because the former setting presents a wider language proficiency and intercultural gap between interactants. *Miscommunication* has been used as an umbrella term to describe various kinds of “communicative turbulence” (Mauranen, 2006, p. 128), or instances of the flow of communication getting broken and therefore requiring some kind of reparation (repair negotiation in Nakahama et al., 2001). In the Second Language Acquisition (SLA) framework, miscommunication is often studied as the comprehension component of negotiation of meaning (NoM) (Bower & Kawaguchi, 2011; Gass, 2003; Varonis & Gass, 1985a, 1985b) or of language-related episodes (LREs). The latter are defined by Swain and Lapkin (1998) as moments in an interaction when participants “talk about the language they are producing, question their language use, or correct themselves or others” (p. 326), which involve the interactants attending to both mutual comprehension difficulties arising in conversation and non-target like language use through negative evidence (corrective feedback).

For the sake of clarity, we will use the term communication breakdown (CB) as a synonym for miscommunication or unintelligibility (taken in a broad sense, see §2), therefore including cases of non-understanding, misunderstanding or problematic comprehension. We will look at cases where communication breakdown is signalled (verbally, vocally or visually) by at least one of the interactants, and collaboratively attended to.

One particular context fostering NS-NNS communication is that of language tandem learning, which consists of non-formal spoken exchanges between two NSs of two different languages, who collaborate through regular, autonomous, spoken interactions to learn each other's language and culture (Brammerts & Calvert, 2003). Depending on which language is spoken in the tandem conversation, each participant takes on the role of the (relative) expert in the L1 language and culture, while the NNS partner is a (relative) novice or less proficient language user. What makes the tandem setting particularly fruitful is that the expert-novice relationship is fluid, dynamic, and reversible. The latter aspect refers to the role reversal resulting from the language switch, which allows for what Vassallo and Telles (2006) describe as a symmetrisation process (which they term *global symmetry*) reducing the local asymmetries in linguistic and cultural expertise between tandem participants (p. 95). The relationship between the two tandem interactants is, therefore, much more symmetrical, reciprocal, and non-hierarchical than in formal instructed language learning, or even in other NS-NNS conversations naturally occurring in daily life. These linguistic, intercultural, communicative and socio/psycho-affective characteristics of tandem learning will certainly play a key role in shaping the emergence and resolution of miscommunication in the course of tandem exchanges. Tandem partners may, on the one hand, be excessively charitable (Dascal, 1999; Varonis & Gass, 1985b) with their conversation partner and therefore downplay any communicative issues, but, on the other hand, such a non-threatening environment may encourage them to more readily signal miscommunication and engage in its management.

In this paper we focus on the emergence of CBs triggered (in part) by pronunciation issues (henceforth pronunciation-induced CBs) in the output produced by the NNS in the course of a tandem conversation in English with a NS partner. We aim to explore whether the speaking task may affect the quantity and quality of such miscommunication instances.
## 2 Previous research

Many studies that looked at how L2 speech may affect communication focus either on intelligibility or comprehensibility. With respect to the effects of L2 pronunciation in particular, the experimental method generally consists in submitting selected audio excerpts taken from L2 speech to (asynchronous) perceptive evaluation by NS listeners (see Wheeler & Saito, 2022, for a recent review of various intelligibility measurement techniques). This method tests how much verbal content these listeners can decode (word recognition level – narrow definition of intelligibility) or gauges how much processing effort is required of these listeners (definition of comprehensibility; see for instance, Levis, 2018; Munro & Derwing, 1995). It appears that not only segmental (Suzukida & Saito, 2019; Zielinski, 2008) but also – and sometimes predominantly – suprasegmental deviations in NNS speech (Henderson, 2008; Kang, 2010) hamper intelligibility and/or comprehensibility for NS interlocutors. These results need to be put into perspective, as the perceptual evaluation techniques and learners’ L1 backgrounds are not directly comparable across studies. In line with Bamgbose (1998) who defined intelligibility as “a complex of factors comprising recognizing an expression, knowing its meaning, and knowing what that meaning signifies in the sociocultural context” (p. 11), we take a broader view on (un-)intelligibility, encompassing subconcepts such as intelligibility, comprehensibility, and interpretability because, although these levels can be teased apart in (quasi-)experimental perceptual designs, they are closely intertwined in situated, authentic interaction.

In experimental research, the evaluation of the predicted effects and gravity of L2 phonological deviations is often operationalised using the functional load principle, which takes a *theoretical* approach to the interpretation of lexical confusion (Munro & Derwing, 2006; Suzukida & Saito, 2019). However, the *actual* impact of such deviations on real-life interactions has been understudied and authors such as Henderson (2008) have also pointed out the necessity to take the sociolinguistic (not just functional) weighting of pronunciation errors into account as well. On the other hand, in research exploring NS-NNS miscommunication from an interactionist point of view (Bower & Kawaguchi, 2011; Nakahama et. al., 2001; Strawbridge, 2021; Varonis & Gass, 1985a, 1985b), pronunciation issues are generally given very little or no detailed attention. In his study of Spanish/English e-tandem exchanges, Strawbridge (2021) determined that 21% of the Reactive LRE triggers were phonetic (33% lexical, 33% global, 14% morphosyntactic). However, this proportion merged both L2 Spanish and L2 English speech results and his global category did not specify the contribution of pronunciation-related errors. Our previous study (Scheuer & Horgues, 2021) showed that in a selected part of our tandem corpus (Game 2 in English, see §3), L2 pronunciation represented the single most crucial CB trigger emerging from the speech of French learners of English addressed to NSs (ahead of lexical or morphosyntactic triggers). There were also more suprasegmental (especially word stress-related) than segmental triggers. We would now like to extend this study to explore potential task effects on the role of L2 pronunciation on NS/NNS communication.

In previous studies exploring these kinds of effects, task-types are often distinguished in terms of planning, structuration, control, and predictability of the speakers’ output. These tasks vary from unplanned open-ended conversations resulting in basic “information exchange” (Strawbridge, 2021), to information-gap activities (e.g., picture description, map tasks, spot-the-difference) or academic lectures. Compared to controlled speech, less planned speech may be expected to present more comprehension difficulty (by virtue of being unpredictable and unstructured). On the other hand, it is also characterised by lower lexical density and fewer polysyllabic words (Henderson, 2008). Furthermore, it allows speakers to drop or avoid problematic topics (Nakahama et al., 2001). Nakahama et al. (2001) found that task-type not
only influenced the quantity of miscommunication events (fewer in uncontrolled conversations) but also their quality; there were more mechanical, local management and resolution events in the information gap-activity compared to the conversation task. Looking at pronunciation more specifically, contrary to Crowther et al., (2015), Suzukida and Saito (2019) found no task effect in their comparison of the contribution of L1 Japanese L2 English on NSs' comprehensibility ratings. High functional load consonant substitutions hampered comprehensibility equally in their two tasks (picture description task vs. unstructured IELTS<fnref n="1" /> long-turn interview). Differences in the types of speech analysed (monologic vs. interactive), L1/L2 configurations, specifics of the learners' L1 phonology, but also in the methods used to compare speaking tasks or investigate L2 intelligibility/comprehensibility may explain the mixed results obtained in these studies.

Most previous research has focused on raters' indirect and *a posteriori* evaluation of the communicative impact of L2 pronunciation, where speaking materials and perceptual tasks are often not naturalistic or contextualised. It is, however, important to explore L2 intelligibility in action (i.e., in interaction) by focusing on its real-life *in-situ* effects. Therefore, we have adopted a methodology observing interactants' actual communicative behaviour in the course of authentic NS-NNS conversations. Exploiting a video-recorded corpus also makes it easier to examine the main speaker's and their interlocutor's non-verbal reactions, which are otherwise absent from any audio analysis. This was pointed out by Wheeler and Saito (2022) who regret that “the vast majority of L2 intelligibility research relies on audio-only stimuli” (p. 429).

**2.1 Research questions**

Our overarching research question is: does communicative task-type have an effect on how a NNS's output (especially L2 pronunciation) may generate miscommunication with a NS interlocutor? We will address it by raising the following sub-questions:

**RQ1:** Are CB episodes more, or less, prevalent in the narrative vs. the debating task in this tandem setting?

**RQ2:** What is the relative contribution of pronunciation issues compared to other types of triggers in these two tasks?

**RQ3:** What is the relative contribution of segmental vs. suprasegmental errors to the pronunciation-induced CBs?

**3 Research methodology**

The SITAF corpus (Horgues & Scheuer, 2015) consists of video-recorded face-to-face tandem conversations held in English and French by 21 pairs of students, each tandem being formed by a NS of English and a NS of French. All participants were undergraduate students at Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3 University and their self-reported L2 proficiency level ranged from intermediate to advanced. The 21 Anglophones were speakers of different English varieties (British, American, Irish, Canadian, Australian) and the Francophones were French students majoring primarily in English studies. The tandem pairs met weekly for autonomous tandem conversations over one academic semester. They were recorded twice, performing the exact same speaking tasks in the two languages (two collaborative game-like activities and one monitored reading task) at the beginning of their tandem experience (session 1) and then three

<footnote n="1">¹ International English Language Testing System (IELTS)</footnote>
months later (session 2). This study only concerns miscommunication arising in the semi-
spontaneous activities held in English. Game 1 (story-telling) consists in the L2 speaker
narrating a personal story integrating three lies which their interlocutor tries to elucidate by
asking questions. The narrative performed by the NNS is monologic for the most part, albeit
interactive at times. Game 2 (debating) consisted in the two interactants giving their opinion
about a set of controversial topics, in order to then decide on the degree of like-mindedness
between them. It is characterised overall by more symmetry (the NS and the NNS's speaking
times and contributions to discourse) than Game 1.

We will look at cases where communication breakdown is signalled (verbally, vocally or visually) and resolved through interactional work. We will therefore exclude cases where breakdowns are prevented from happening through anticipation (Preemptive LREs; Strawbridge, 2021) or where a speaker self-resolves comprehension issues individually or avoids engaging in miscommunication management (let-it-pass strategy). To determine a case of CB, the two authors inspected all video-recorded sequences independently and followed the same perspective as Nakahama et al. (2001) in relying on the observation of the *interlocutor’s* verbal, vocal, and visual reactions to problematic NNS speech, i.e., when the recipient demonstrably had difficulty, or was incapable of, grasping the meaning of an utterance as seemingly intended by the speaker. We agreed in our identification and classification of 80% of CB cases and then discussed the remaining 20%, to reach a consensual decision after further and joint reviewing of the debatable multimedia sequences. We study CB sequences using Varonis and Gass (1985a)’s overall structure: Trigger (Speaker), Indicator or Signal (Hearer), Response (Speaker), Reaction to Response (Hearer). In this study, we are mostly interested in defining the type of trigger (pronunciation, morphosyntactic, lexical, pragmatic, cultural, or a mix of any of these) emerging from NNS output (i.e., the French learner of L2 English being the initiator). Example (1) is an instance of a CB sequence from Game 1, where the main trigger was L2 pronunciation:

(1) NNS: [There were] Hens (['ens]) [TRIGGER]
NS: (silence at first) Ants? [SIGNAL]
NNS: (makes a clucking sound and a gesture of flapping wings) [RESPONSE]
NS: Chickens? [REACTION TO RESPONSE]

We also quantified the amount of speech produced by the native and the non-native speakers by counting the number of words produced by each interactant during a collaborative speaking task. This was done through automatic extraction (Unix/Linux script) of word counts from the manual transcriptions prepared by the SITAF team members (Transcriber programme).

4 Data analysis and results

4.1 Communication breakdowns (CBs) in narrative vs. debating task in tandem setting (RQ1)

In total, the narrative Game 1 generated more CBs than the debating Game 2 (see Table 1 for a summary) – 39 tokens as opposed to 21 respectively, which represents an increase by a factor of nearly 1.9. The difference very nearly reaches statistical significance, although it needs to be considered in context. The two tasks differed significantly in length, understood as the number of words produced by the NNS; on average, 831 words in Game 1 and 501 in Game 2. The fact that, lengthwise, the narrative exceeded the debate by a factor of nearly 1.7 means that there were, proportionally, more communication breakdowns in Game 1 than in Game 2, although the difference between the CB-to-word ratios in the two tasks was not statistically
significant. It should therefore be concluded that no tangible task effect was found on the relative frequency of CB episodes generated by NNS discourse.

<caption>**Table 1**</caption>

*Length and Communication Breakdowns Frequency: Game 1 vs. Game 2*

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>Game 1</th><th>Game 2</th><th>p</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Total number of CBs in NNS discourse</td><td>39</td><td>21</td><td>.0537</td></tr><tr><td>Average number of words produced by NNS</td><td>831</td><td>501</td><td>***.00012</td></tr><tr><td>CB-to-word ratio in NNS discourse</td><td>0.0024</td><td>0.0015</td><td>.36</td></tr><tr><td>Average number of words produced by both partners (NS + NNS)</td><td>1174</td><td>1063</td><td>.2</td></tr></tbody></table>

*Note.* All the word counts and ratios were calculated on a sample – deemed representative – of 15 pairs for which transcriptions were fully exploitable.

To further put our results in context, the relative contribution of the NS – i.e., the mis- or non-understander – to the conversation is worth mentioning. As expected, the nature of Game 1 gave more speaking time to the learner. This resulted in the NNS uttering on average 2.4 times more words than their NS partner (831 words vs. 343; very highly significant). Game 2, conversely, presented a fairly symmetrical picture, with the NS actually producing marginally more speech on average than the NNS (562 words vs. 501; non-significant). Game 1 was somewhat longer than Game 2 in terms of the average number of words produced by both tandem partners, i.e., the NS and the NNS: 1175 words in Game 1 vs. 1063 in Game 2 (non-significant). It should be clarified that, as per the task instructions, the two games were intended to be roughly of the same length (5 mins each).

Finally, it should be noted that there were marked differences between individual pairs, both in terms of word counts and, especially, the number of signalled CBs arising during the two tasks. While some tandems consistently showed no CBs in either game or session, one (Pair 09) contributed 9 tokens, i.e., 15% of the total of 60 found in the corpus.

## 4.2 Relative contribution of pronunciation issues as triggers (RQ2)

As previously mentioned, pronunciation was identified as the most important trigger of CBs in Game 2, accounting, at least partially, for 10 out of the 21 CBs in the debating task (48%). There are, proportionally, even more pronunciation-induced CBs in Game 1: 27 out of 39 (69%). These numbers include the more complex mixed cases, where pronunciation was identified as one of the linguistic factors. Even though the difference is not statistically significant, pronunciation once again surpassed vocabulary, as well as the other triggers explored (see Figure 1).
<caption>**Figure 1**</caption>

*Communication Breakdowns by Trigger Type*

<figure><img src="image_37.png" /></figure>

*Note.* The mixed cases are included in each applicable category. Therefore, some CB instances appear more than once in the above data, which accounts for % values which add up to more than 100.

Example (2) illustrates a mixed CB trigger, involving and counting as both pronunciation and vocabulary (wrong preposition):

(2) NNS: I went in Latvia [*'lad'vja]
NS: You went where?

**4.3 Relative contribution of segmental vs. suprasegmental errors to the pronunciation-induced CBs (RQ3)**

While the vast majority of the pronunciation-induced CBs in Game 2 had a suprasegmental overlay (9 out of 10), this was not the case in Game 1. In the narrative task, suprasegmentals were identified as playing a role in 14 out of the 27 instances, some of which were also compounded by segmental inaccuracies. Word stress emerged as the key issue among the suprasegmentals, featuring in 11 CB cases in Game 1. This is shown in the following exchange in example (3), where the stress problem was accompanied by a lexical one, at least from the American NS's perspective:

(3) NNS: I'm going to talk you about my last summer vacation
NS: Summer...? (*forward movement of head / trunk*)
NNS: Summer vacation
NS: Vacation, yeah.
The remaining three suprasegmental items concerned incorrect syllable count (i.e., deletion or addition), as illustrated by example (4), where the NS's comprehension is compromised by a missing syllable:

(4) NNS: It was great. I was the sixth [*'sıkstiθ] err floor

NS: sixth floor (nod)?

NNS: yeah, err...sixteenth...err sixty (hand gesture for height)

NS: sixtieth floor?

NNS: yeah!

5 Discussion

The present analysis of the narrative Game 1 complements the existing picture of
miscommunication in the English conversational data of the SITAF corpus. The tendency for
this largely monologic task to generate more CBs than the dialogic Game 2 (RQ1), even after
adjusting for length differences, is perhaps not altogether surprising. Game 1 revolved around
the NNS's individual conceptualisation and encoding of their own personal story (life
anecdotes unknown to the interlocutor). Since there was no common background set by the
task instructions, most of the content was initiated solely by the NNS, who was therefore the
only 'knower'. The NS, being largely the recipient of the story, may therefore have had a more
difficult job trying to interpret their partner's L2 output than in Game 2, where there was a set,
imposed topic, and therefore more room for collaborative structuring of the debate dynamics.
Examples (2) and (3), which occurred at the beginning of Game 1, show how this 'out-of-the-
blue' effect may have contributed to the lack of understanding: the NS was not primed to
process *Latvia* or *summer holidays*, whose rendition was – additionally – imperfect. The task
rules and goals of Game 1 may also have created a stronger need for the NS to understand the
details of the NNS discourse than that of Game 2, and therefore a need to overtly signal
communicative turbulence. Given that the NS was meant to identify the three lies incorporated
into their partner's story, there was probably less room for the let-it-pass strategy, whereby the
listener can choose to simply ignore certain processing difficulties. These possible task effects
are not directly comparable to what previous studies found, as – although characterised by a
convergent goal and outcome – the speaking tasks in our corpus are neither as open-ended and
unplanned as free conversations (Strawbridge, 2021) nor as controlled and limiting as a map-
task or spot-the-difference activity (Nakahama et al., 2001).

The findings relating to the linguistic triggers of communication breakdowns (RQ2) point
to the powerful role played by L2 pronunciation problems in impeding intelligibility. This is
true for both tasks, but the trend is even stronger in Game 1 than Game 2 (69% vs. 48%). The
reasons may tie in with the interpretations previously offered: L2 mispronunciations have vast
potential for blurring the word's identity, but this becomes an even more acute problem when
the context is largely unknown and unpredictable, compared to a dialogue where the
interlocutors usually build on each other's contributions. The fact that Game 1 provided more
extensive data than Game 2 (both in terms of length and total number of CBs) testifies perhaps
even more strongly to the true weight of pronunciation in maintaining smooth NS-NNS
communication, relative to other linguistic domains such as vocabulary or morphosyntax.

Comparisons between the two tasks should, however, be drawn with caution, due to the
sometimes-low number of tokens involved. This becomes particularly relevant when
interpreting data from RQ3, with suprasegmental problems coming strongly to the fore in
Game 2 but not as much in Game 1. Another complication stems from the fact that it is often
difficult to disentangle suprasegmentals from segmentals. For example, stress and vowel
quality are usually intertwined, to the extent that "nonstandard English word stress is largely
*defined* by the presence or absence of vowel errors” (Richards, 2016, p. 105). Despite such methodological issues, it is likely that the nature of the task played a role in shaping the results. The NNS, being in charge of the narrative in Game 1, may have been more successful in avoiding complex polysyllabic words than in Game 2, which resulted in the scope for suprasegmental errors being somewhat reduced in the former. Conversely, this may have enhanced the importance of segmental details in Game 1, as single segmental errors have a larger effect on reducing intelligibility in monosyllabic than in polysyllabic words (Wheeler & Saito, 2022).

## 6 Conclusion and implications

The SITAF miscommunication data, now complemented by the analysis of the narrative task, point to pronunciation as the principal trigger of CBs arising in connection with non-native English speech. Yet, pronunciation is often viewed as an optional component of L2 teaching, an “add it on if we have time” feature (Levis, 2018, p. 1). This is in contrast to morphosyntax, which tends to be a long-standing favourite in the EFL classroom, but which actually ranked last among the four linguistic triggers in our CB data. Importantly, our findings demonstrate the potential of seemingly minor (from the student’s perspective) pronunciation errors for generating miscommunication, such as the missing /h/ in example (1), and the rightward stress shift in (3). The latter are characteristic of L1 French learners of English and their communicative impact should be brought to their attention. More general pedagogical implications suggest L2 learners should be taught how to develop strategies to manage these CBs effectively (rather than avoiding them altogether) in NS/NNS interactions. Our study also points towards some effect of task type and this should be investigated further to account for the emergence, type and resolution of pronunciation-induced CBs in our corpus. We hope our study contributes to a better understanding of the communicative impact of L2 pronunciation in authentic, real-life NS-NNS exchanges.

## Acknowledgements

We are very grateful for the methodological and financial support received from Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3 University, Labex EFL program (ANR-10-LABX-0083), Ircom/Ortolang, and M. Adda-Decker who helped with Unix/Linux scripts to export word counts. We thank all SITAF participants and team members.

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## About the authors

**Céline Horgues** is an Associate Professor in English phonetics and phonology at Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3 University, France, where she teaches English phonetics/phonology, listening comprehension and acquisition/teaching of L2 pronunciation. In 2010 she defended a PhD on the prosody of French learners of L2 English. Her main research interests are L2 pronunciation teaching/learning, L2 prosody, foreign accentedness, native/non-native interactions and tandem learning. With Sylwia Scheuer, she coordinated the collection and analysis of a multimodal corpus of English-French tandem spoken interactions (the SITAF corpus, 2012-2014). Since 2012 she has been running a tandem course and a free tandem programme for the students of her department. In 2019 she co-edited a book on tandem language and culture learning in higher education with Claire Tardieu.

Email: celine.horgues@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr

**Sylwia Scheuer** is an Associate Professor in phonetics and phonology at the Department of English, Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3 University, France. She got her PhD from the School of English, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, where she worked as an Associate Professor until 2005. Her PhD dissertation provided a corpus-based analysis of interference-motivated pronunciation errors in Polish students of English. She was a visiting lecturer at the Department of Linguistics, University of Vienna, 1998-2001. Her teaching and research have focused on second language acquisition, phonetics and phonology, general linguistics, sociolinguistics, and English as an International Language. With Céline Horgues, she coordinated a research project for the collection and analysis of a multimodal corpus of English-French tandem spoken interactions (SITAF, 2012-2014).

Email: sylwia.scheuer-samson@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr
Kalvodová, L., & Skarnitzl, R. (2023). Production and perception aspects of weak forms in Czech-accented English. In A. Henderson & A. Kirkova-Naskova (Eds.), *Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on English Pronunciation: Issues and Practices* (pp. 108–121). Université Grenoble-Alpes. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8173995

**Production and perception aspects of weak forms in Czech-accented English**

Lenka Kalvodová
Charles University, Prague

Radek Skarnitzl
Charles University, Prague

Czech is mostly syllable-timed, while English is mostly stress-timed and partly constructs rhythm through connected speech processes (CSPs), which cause unstressed grammatical words to change into weak forms. Since these are particularly challenging for speakers with syllable-timed mother tongues, this study addresses the production and perception of weak forms in proficient Czech speakers. In the production part, we examined Czech-accented speakers producing material loaded with grammatical words and CSPs. Subsequent listening analysis confirmed that the more accented the speaker, the fewer weak forms and associated CSPs can be found in their production. In the perceptual part, we used two perception tests containing realisations where CSPs had been manipulated to create one more and one less native-like version of a sentence. Czech respondents were asked to assess comprehensibility and accentedness. The results suggest that comprehensibility is easier for them to assess than accentedness, regardless of whether they had received phonetics and phonology instruction prior to the experiment. Our results correspond with and expand upon previous findings, both for Czech speakers (e.g., Skarnitzl & Rumlová, 2019) and for non-native speakers in general (e.g., Barańska & Zając, 2014), showcasing non-native patterns in Czech speakers. Yet, despite their importance and frequency, CSPs have been given little space in research and teaching.

**Keywords:** connected speech processes, grammatical words, weak forms, Czech-accented English

<figure><img src="image_38.png" /></figure>

This chapter is based on the poster presented by the authors at the 7th International Conference English Pronunciation: Issues and Practices (EPIP 7) held May 18–20, 2022 at Université Grenoble-Alpes, France. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of the license, please go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
# 1 Introduction

Given the differences between Czech and English, it is likely that Czech speakers will transfer their native language (L1) habits into their L2 English. Among others, this will affect rhythmic patterning, which includes, particularly in English, the pronunciation of weak forms (WFs) of grammatical words. The aim of our study is to establish whether there are any patterns in production and perception of WFs and associated connected speech processes (CSPs) in Czech-accented proficient learners of English. The importance of weak forms as part of connected speech (CS) in English language acquisition is highlighted.

# 2 Previous research

## 2.1 Speech rhythm and connected speech

Speech rhythm is treated today not as a regular occurrence of a speech unit in time, but rather as a sequence of contrasting units, i.e., those with greater and smaller prominence (Nolan & Jeon, 2014; Turk & Shattuck-Hufnagel, 2013). In line with this approach, the traditional binary division of languages into strict categories is replaced by a rhythm continuum whose theoretical ends would correspond to the stress- and syllable-based languages (Nolan & Jeon, 2014). Crucially, however, (strict) timing regularities are no longer part of the definition of speech rhythm (see also Cauldwell, 2002), and no language corresponds to either theoretical end. Languages' rhythm profiles lie on this continuum, meaning that, when compared, two languages can be relatively closer to or further away from each other, the latter being the case of Czech and English.

The mostly stress-based rhythm of English is largely constituted by prominence contrasts at stress group level (Brown & Kondo-Brown, 2006, p. 2), with stressed syllables functioning as peaks of prominence, as compared to unstressed syllables. In contrast, all syllables are of roughly the same prominence in Czech (Skarnitzl & Eriksson, 2017), a language traditionally described as syllable-timed.

Out of the four levels of stress in a unit of speech as defined by Volín & Johaníková (2018, p. 181), unstressed syllables are of interest for us, since they can be further divided into full unstress (containing a full vowel) or weak unstress (containing a reduced one).

A language's rhythm profile is facilitated by the (partially) language-specific CSPs; otherwise, rhythm would be disrupted, inhibiting perception (e.g., Barańska & Zając, 2014). CS helps maintain speech rhythm through several processes, with modifications taking place in some words when they occur in CS (Shockey, 2003). As there is still a lack of extensive research on CSPs, and the terminology is far from unified, we find it fit to include an overview of the core CSPs as referred to in this article (but see, e.g., Alameen & Levis, 2015 for a slightly different categorisation).

First of all, vowel reduction contributes strongly to the rhythmic profile of English (e.g., in the phrase There was a man [ðə wəz_ə], the first three words will only have the mid central vowel schwa). Schwa is known to constitute approximately one quarter of all vowels occurring in natural English speech (e.g., Volín et al., 2013, pp. 32–33).

The second group of processes contains various types of assimilation: a) place of articulation (e.g., /n/ → /m/ in *in Prague* [m̝rɑ:ŋ]); b) manner of articulation (e.g., /d/ → /n/ in *good night* [gɒn̝naɪt]); and c) coalescence (e.g., /d+j/ → /dʒ/ in *could you* [kʊdʒu]). An instance of place assimilation is dentalisation, which occurs frequently in English (e.g., alveolar /t/ influenced by (inter)dental /ð/ in *get this* [get̝ðɪs]). In native-like speech production, stop consonants are often unreleased (e.g., /t/ in final position in *not* in the phrase *not to* [nɒt̝tə]).
Linking is a key characteristic of English sound patterns, with words beginning with a vowel typically linked to the previous word (e.g., *can I* [kən_aɪ], see it [si:(j)It]). Finally, elision, or, the deletion of a sound, is also an integral part of English CS (e.g., /r/ in *from* in the phrase *from Paris* [fəm pərɪs], /d/ in *and* in the phrase *you and me* [ju:(w)ən mi:]). Naturally, in certain contexts, more CSPs may be combined, as is the case of an elision of word-initial [h] in *he* with linking to the preceding word (e.g., *does he* [dəz_i]).

## 2.2 Weak form words in English as L1 and L2

Grammatical words constitute a major component of the rhythmic pattern of English: bearing little prominence and semantic load, they participate strongly in CSPs, where they are frequently realised as what is called their weak form (e.g., *must* realised as [məst] or [məs], *them* as [ðəm] or [əm]). These weak forms of grammatical words (see the comprehensive overview by Cruttenden, 2014, or the discussion of CSP typology by Shockey, 2003) almost invariably contain the reduced vowel schwa [ə], and they make up the “filling” between the prominent peaks of lexical words.

The absence of WFs and CSPs in the speech of L2 speakers may impact not only their accentedness (i.e., the strength of foreign accent), but also their comprehensibility (i.e., the subjective ease of processing of their speech). From the contrastive perspective, this may be partly caused by the absence of (systematic) vocalic reduction in the native language of L2 speakers. Alameen and Levis (2015, p. 160) point out that the way L2 speakers produce CS may pose a challenge to native speaker listeners. At the same time, comprehensibility issues may arise even for other L2 speakers who speak a different variety. However, native-like production of WFs by L2 learners may also cause problems in the perception of other L2 speakers of English, especially beginners.

Given the high frequency and the essential role of connected speech phenomena in English, they should certainly be targeted in pronunciation teaching. However, several publications, including Brown and Kondo-Brown (2006) or Alameen and Levis (2015), point out that CSPs and WFs are marginalised in EFL curricula. A number of studies (e.g., Alameen & Levis, 2015; Brown & Kondo-Brown, 2006; Izumi, 2003) show that WF and CSP instruction is beneficial for learners’ production of the target language, as well as the perception of native speech. Greater attention should also be given to vowel quality instruction (see Barańska & Zając, 2014 or Volín & Johaníková, 2018).

## 2.3 Research questions and hypotheses

In this study, we are interested in how relatively advanced Czech speakers of English produce weak forms of grammatical words and associated connected speech processes in specially designed sentences which are rich in these phenomena. Our second objective is to find whether speech manipulated to feature near-native-like patterns of WFs and CSPs will be regarded by Czech listeners as less accented and more comprehensible.

Specifically, our hypotheses are as follows:

**H1A:** Czech-accented speakers of L2 English show deviations from native-like production of weak forms of grammatical words and the associated CSPs.

**H1B:** The deviations from native-like production are modulated by the speakers' overall accentedness.

**H2A:** Czech learners of English perceive WFs and CSPs in English through the qualities of accentedness and comprehensibility.
**H2B:** Comprehensibility is more difficult to assess for Czech-accented learners of English than accentedness.

**H2C:** The more advanced the student, the more their perceptual assessment of accentedness and comprehensibility will correspond to stimulus manipulations.

# 3 Experiment 1: Production

## 3.1 Research methodology

To map how advanced Czech learners of English produce weak forms, we recorded 34 volunteers reading out loud 24 sentences from paper. The sentences were designed to ensure the occurrence of all types of WFs. The expected default realisation of WFs and CSPs (see Appendix) was based on Standard Southern British English.

All speakers were L1 Czech female first-year BA students (aged 19–25) in English Studies and English Translation Studies at the Faculty of Arts in Prague, for which they had previously passed an entrance exam, ensuring proficiency at the B2/C1 CEFR level (Council of Europe, 2020). Although the speakers had not yet received any instruction concerning weak form words or CS at the time, to assure that the sentences are not perceived as unnatural, we used varied but simple lexical words to complement the large concentration of grammatical words. The recordings were obtained in a recording booth of the sound-treated studio at the Institute of Phonetics in Prague, using an AKG C4500 B-BC condenser microphone at a sampling rate of 32 kHz with 16-bit quantisation.

The 34 speakers were divided into two groups based on their overall accentedness, as determined by the authors. Subsequently, 12 speakers per group, representing the most and the least accented productions, were chosen for analysis by the authors. It should be noted that assessing the speakers' overall accentedness involves subconsciously taking into account WFs and associated CSPs, as these are likely to participate in the perception of accentedness. While it could therefore be argued that the group division is to a certain extent circular, this did not interfere with our research purpose.

Each realisation of a phenomenon of interest was analysed in Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2021) and labelled, and all entries were extracted using a script. Processed in R (R Core Team, 2021), the refined data was visualised using the ggplot2 package (Wickham, 2016).

## 3.2 Data analysis and results

### 3.2.1 Linking and glottalisation

In Figure 1, the proportion of linked vs. glottalised (i.e., not linked) items is shown separately for linking towards lexical and towards grammatical words (for example, *who arrive* and *arrive at*, respectively). As expected, the less accented speaker group did link slightly more than the more accented one (51.4% for the former compared to 38.0% for the latter). Almost without exception, linking (marked in blue in the figure) was more frequent in grammatical words (in lighter shades, on the left for each speaker) than in lexical words. However, the results point to considerable between-speaker variability, even within the two groups. This is especially evident in the lexical words, with the less accented group having speakers who glottalised (as opposed to linking) in all instances, as well as some who linked most of the items.
<caption>Figure 1</caption>

*Linking and Glottalisation in Less and More Accented Speakers (Separately for Grammatical and Lexical words)*

<figure><img src="image_39.png" /></figure>

3.2.2 Vowel reduction

The difference in the degree of accentedness is more salient in vowel reduction: as shown in Figure 2, the more accented group of speakers reduced the quality of canonical schwa vowels markedly less frequently, and the difference amounts to approximately 20 percentage points. An ‘intermediate’ realisation category was introduced, since 4.4% of all vowel realisations were neither full, nor reduced, but elsewhere on the spectrum. For instance, the first vowel in *to you* was realised as not only [u:] or [ə], but also [u], [u·], or [ʊ], thus lying on the continuum from full to reduced. Finally, in contrast with linking, within-group variability is much lower here.
<caption>Figure 2</caption>

Reduction of Canonical Schwa Vowels in Less and More Accented Speakers

<figure><img src="image_40.png" /></figure>

3.2.3 Assimilation

As for assimilation, the task yielded seven possible contexts of coalescence; of these, pronunciation with coalescence (e.g., /z+j/ → /ʒ/ in as your [æʒɔ:] or /d+j/ → /dʒ/ in did you [dɪdʒɔ]) appeared in 55% of the items of the less accented group, and in 37% of the items of the more accented group – a result in line with our expectations. A more interesting tendency is revealed in the context of [n] before the dental [ð]; this occurred four times in the text. As shown in Figure 3, there were three possible realisations: a) with no assimilation (e.g., [ɪn ðə] or, more frequently, [ɪn̄ də]; b) with partial assimilation, which involved the change in articulation place [ɪn̄ðə]; and c) complete assimilation, which involved regressive place and progressive manner assimilation [ɪn̄n̄ðə]. Items where no assimilation was realised were much more frequent in the less accented speakers; the same applies, however, for the complete assimilation where there is, phonetically speaking, a long dental nasal sound. On the other hand, intermediate realisations were dominant in the more accented speaker group.
<caption>Figure 3</caption>

Assimilation of Place and Manner of [n] and [ð]

<figure><img src="image_41.png" /></figure>

### 3.2.4 Consonant elision

The results for elision show that speakers from both groups deleted the word-final [d] in *and* [t] in *must* before another consonant in approximately one half of the instances, and almost always pronounced stops as unreleased before another stop (e.g., *some men; what does*).

### 3.2.5 Elision (h-dropping) followed by linking

The results for the combined phenomenon of [h] elision and subsequent linking, as in *does he* (see the end of §2.1) can be observed in Figure 4 which shows that linked pronunciation without [h] was quite rare, occurring in only 10% of the items. However, there is a difference between the less and more accented speaker groups, with productions like *should have [ʃʊd_əv]* or *for his [fər_ɪz]* appearing more often in the former group.
<caption>Figure 4</caption>

Elision of [h] Accompanied by Linking

<figure><img src="image_42.png" /></figure>

# 4 Experiment 2: Perception

## 4.1 Research methodology

We used two perception tests to examine whether and, if so, then how advanced Czech speakers of English perceive accentedness and comprehensibility of the recordings described in the previous section. A total of 24 sentences were read by 10 of the 34 speakers. Recordings from these 10 speakers were selected based on the accentedness level, so as to facilitate the subsequent manipulations. Each sentence was manipulated towards a more native-like version of the original sentence (containing uses of WFs and CSPs more natural for spoken English), and towards a less native-like version (where WFs and CSPs were suppressed).

Adobe Audition and Praat were used to perform the manipulations. We simulated full and reduced vowels by changing their duration (deleting or adding pitch periods) and amplitude. To eliminate linking, we spliced in a short period of silence; it was sometimes necessary to make the release of the word-final consonant more robust. To simulate lack of assimilation, release, and absence of elision in consonants, we have extended the duration of plosive closure or the noise component of fricatives and plosives; vice versa to achieve native-like consonant segments. Another method, used for both vowels and consonants, was splicing the target segment taken from the same speaker's data into the word being manipulated. Finally, fundamental frequency ($f_0$) was altered, transitions smoothed out, and amplitude adjusted where necessary.

Because of the social distancing measures associated with the COVID-19 epidemic, two perception tests were created using the MFCExperiment tool in Praat and sent to potential respondents via email. One test targeted accentedness, the other comprehensibility, and the respondents' task was to choose the recording (one more and one less native-like, as described above) which they regarded as less accented and as easier to understand, respectively. The order of the stimuli was randomised for each listener. The test set was accompanied by detailed instructions, which included saving the results into a binary file and sending it back to the
experimenter by email. Based on the Praat reaction time statistics, the whole test took 15 minutes, on average.

Another aim was to explore whether proficiency plays a role; for that reason, we had two
groups of respondents, all between 19 and 25 years old. Group 1 consisted of 15 first-year
students (F = 10, M = 5) with little formal knowledge of the sound patterns of English. Group
2 were eight third-year students (F = 7, M = 1), who had already completed a year-long course
in English phonetics, including an overview of WFs and CSPs. None were familiar with the
topic or the specifics of the study.

## 4.2 Data analysis and results

To assess the statistical significance of the perceptual comparisons, we employed the bootstrap method; this method is suitable for estimating the confidence interval of the mean value of a relatively small number of binary responses which are not normally distributed. Instances where our respondents were able to correctly assess accentedness (i.e., pick the more accented sentence realisation from a pair) were coded as 1, the opposite (i.e., they were not able to recognise the more accented version) as -1.

Figure 5 shows that, at the alpha level of 0.05, listeners in both groups were mostly able to correctly recognise the more accented sentence realisation. Interestingly, two listeners in the third-year group were slightly more ambivalent, with their responses approaching the significance boundary (the confidence interval nearly including zero).

<caption>Figure 5</caption>

*Estimation of the Listeners' Ability to Assess Accentedness*

<figure><img src="image_43.png" /></figure>

*Note.* First-year respondents in red, third-year respondents in blue.

The results are much less unambiguous for comprehensibility, as shown in Figure 6. Most
listeners' intervals intersect the zero value, which means that they were mostly unable to assess
comprehensibility levels correctly. In total, only three listeners displayed significantly higher
awareness of the phenomenon (F04, F06, F09), while one listener's responses may be considered as marginally significant in the opposite direction (M04).

<caption>Figure 6</caption>

Estimation of the Listeners' Ability to Assess Comprehensibility

<figure><img src="image_44.png" /></figure>

Note. First-year respondents in red, third-year respondents in blue.

**5 Discussion**

In line with hypothesis H1A, Czech-accented EFL speakers showed deviations from the native-like production of WFs and associated CSPs. No single CSP was produced in a native-like way in all contexts by a single speaker. As is characteristic of non-native speech, the percentage of native-like CSP use ranged widely, from 10% (elision of [h] with linking) to 90% (unreleased consonants). Intermediate realisations on the CSP continuum (Alameen & Levis, 2015) are also typical of L2 speakers, represented in our results by various “degrees” of vowel reduction, consonant elision lacking subsequent linking, and dentalisation instead of assimilation. Similarly to Barańska and Zając (2014, pp. 281–282), vowel reduction was found to be problematic, a characteristic which Slavic speakers of English seem to share. In all, this shows that there are, indeed, more problematic aspects of CS that deserve attention in EFL teaching.

Our results also supported H1B, according to which more accented speakers will employ fewer WFs and CSPs, with the less accented group typically producing by 15-20 percentage points more CSPs. However, the overall difference between the groups was not substantial, which is in line with the findings by Barańska and Zając (2014).

The results of the perception test show that Czech listeners are at least somewhat aware of WFs and CSPs in English speech (H2A). The hypothesis claiming that comprehensibility is more difficult for Czech speakers of English to assess than accentedness (H2B) was also confirmed, with accentedness assessed correctly in 80-85% of cases, and comprehensibility in 60%.
Kukačka (2018) found that having taken phonetics and phonology classes had no effect on the results in WF production (p. 51). We reached the same conclusion, failing to support H2C (the more experienced the respondent, the more successful they are in assessing accentedness and comprehensibility), as the two groups' results were quite similar.

## 6 Conclusion and implications

Connected speech phenomena and weak-form realisation of grammatical words constitute an important component of the sound patterns of English, and specifically of its rhythm. This study has shown that even advanced, university-level students of English do not pronounce these in a native-like way, which may impact their comprehensibility (Anderson-Hsieh, 1990; Brown & Kondo-Brown, 2006; Ito, 2006). Our research has also presented evidence for the claim that none of the phenomena analysed here should be regarded as binary categories; rather, the realisation of WFs and CSPs typically occurs along a continuum. Similarly, in perception the awareness of these phenomena also ranges widely on a spectrum with the (theoretical) ends of ‘no awareness whatsoever’ and ‘native-like perception’.

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## Appendix

*The predicted distribution of weak word forms and connected speech processes in the 24 sentences used as stimuli in the production experiment.*

<table><tr><td>Schwa</td><td>Assimilation<br/>- Assimilation of place or manner<br/>- Coalescence (= coalescent/fusional assimilation)</td></tr><tr><td>Consonant elision</td><td>Unreleased consonants</td></tr><tr><td>Linking</td><td>Elision (h-dropping) + linking<br/>(where the linking can only occur together with elision)</td></tr></table>

1. I would have told you about it.
   [aɪ wəd əv 'təʊldʒ ʊɪ(w)əbaʊt ɪt]

2. Can I talk to you about something?
   [kən ɑɪ 'tɔ:k tə ju(w)əbaʊt sʌmθɪŋ]

3. When did you want to meet and discuss it?
   [ 'wen dɪdʒ ə wɒnt 'tə 'mi:t ən dɪ'skʌs ɪt]

4. There was a young man there.
   [ðə wəz ə 'jʌŋ 'mæn ðɛ:]

5. We must look in the locker and in the drawer.
   [wi məs 'lɒk ɪn ə 'lɒkər ʌn ɪn ə 'drɔ:ə]

6. What have you been doing?
   [ 'wɒt əv jə bɪn 'du:ɪŋ]

7. The people who arrive at five PM are too late.
   [ðə 'pi:pl hu(w)ə 'raɪv ʌt faɪ pi:(j) 'em ʌ: tu: 'leɪt]

8. When does he arrive from Paris?
   [ 'wen dʒ ɪ(j)ə 'raɪv fəm 'pærɪs]
9. She should have asked for his permission.
[ʃiʃədəv̥ ˈa:skt fər ɪz pəˈmɪʃn̥ ]

10. You shall be on the list.
[juʃəlˈbi:(j)ɒnˌhəˈlɪst]

11. He can't have gone behind your back!
[hiˈkɑ:ntəvˈgɒn|bəˈhaɪndʒəˈbæk]

12. He got me her number and email.
[hiˈgɒ? mɪŋ(ʃ)əˈnʌmbər ən| ˈi:meɪl]

13. There is a lack of answers.
[ðər ɪz əˈlæk əv ˈɑ:nsəz]

14. Could you have been there?
[kədʒu(w)əvˈbi:ŋnɛ:]

15. There were some men who knew them.
[ðə wə səm ˈmɛn uˈnju: ðəm]

16. His university was as good as your college.
[hiʒˌu:nɪˈvɜ:səti|wəz əzˈgʊd əz əˈkɒlɪdʒ]

17. No, but there is an umbrella.
[ˈnəʊ|bʌt ˈdər ɪz ən ʌmˈbrelə]

18. Do you like her more than Jane?
[dʒəˈlaɪk ʒɪmə: ðənˈdʒeɪn]

19. It's a gift from us for him and his wife.
[ɪts əˈgɪft fləm ˈʌs|fəˈhɪm ən ɪzˈwaɪf]

20. The parents were nice to them.
[ðəˈpɛrənts wəˈnaɪs tə ðəm]

21. To be, or not to be?
[təˈbi:(j)|əˈnɒt tə bi]

22. Out of everyone here, I am the best.
[aʊt əv ˈevriwʌn ˈhɪər| ˈaɪ(j)æm ðəˈbest]

23. What does it mean to us?
[ˈwɒt ədʒ ɪ?ˈmi:n tʊ(w)əs]

24. He said that his brother was an artist.
[hiˈseɪd ət ɪzˈbrʌðə wəz ən ˈɑ:tɪst]
## About the authors

**Lenka Kalvodová** is an alumna of the BA in English studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague. Having previously focussed on phonetics and phonology of English, she is currently pursuing an MA in Phonetics at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Her background includes experience in EFL (English as a foreign language) pedagogy and in technology, and her interest is in exploring the intersection of these. She is particularly interested in how combined knowledge from these fields can be applied in various domains of our lives (e.g., the use of speech technology in language acquisition or accessibility).

Email: lenka.kalvoda@gmail.com

**Radek Skarnitzl** is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague, and director of the Institute of Phonetics. He is interested in various aspects of speech communication, with expertise in speech prosody, acoustic phonetics, and second language (L2) acquisition. His research focuses on L2 pronunciation and on the effect of various pronunciation features on the socio-psychological evaluation of a speaker in both native and foreign languages. He is also interested in issues related to speaker identification and forensic phonetics, especially the effects of voice disguise on human and automatic speaker recognition performance.

Email: radek.skarnitzl@ff.cuni.cz
# Engaging research: Empowering ESL/EFL teachers to teach pronunciation

Anastazija Kirkova-Naskova

Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje

The ongoing debate about the research-practice link has raised the point that research advances are far more progressive and teaching practice is failing to keep up. An important aspect that has received little attention is understanding teachers’ classroom reality – a reality that for many involves an ever-increasing workload, limited resources, and a lack of autonomy and self-confidence. It is evident that teachers should be encouraged to address pronunciation in their teaching more frequently. However, they also need support to navigate the personal and institutional challenges.

This paper proposes a conceptual agenda which empowers teachers to learn how to reflect on their pronunciation teaching practices. Current issues in pronunciation research relevant for the teaching context are discussed, followed by an overview of the most effective research findings that can be successfully applied in the classroom. These insights are then contrasted with preliminary results from a qualitative study that investigates teachers’ experience with pronunciation teaching. In the last section, ways of providing support for teachers’ learning and professional development are explored.

**Keywords:** pronunciation research, pronunciation teaching, research-practice link, classroom practices, professional development

<figure><img src="image_45.png" /></figure>
# 1 Introduction

Pronunciation is without doubt as important as any other language skill. Yet, with the rise of communicative language teaching (CLT), its equal presence in coursebooks and in classrooms has been overlooked, as traditional pronunciation activities did not fit ideally within the CLT framework and new ones were not adequately implemented (Celce-Murcia et al., 2010). One particular reason why L2 pronunciation will always matter to L2 learners is the fact that it is not only a cognitive skill but it is also a motor skill. As such, it has a physical reality that results in the speech produced by learners, which is often L1-accented. From a linguistic perspective, having accented speech results in pronunciation that may lead to communication breakdowns. From a social perspective, such speech may have social consequences on the learners, who may experience stereotyping, bias, and discrimination in personal communication or in the workplace (Lippi-Green, 1997).

Traditionally, foreign accent (FA) was treated as a by-product of L2 pronunciation and its elimination was the end goal of pronunciation learning. However, three aspects lurked over this conceptualisation, making it difficult for teachers to know what to do. Firstly, the complexity of the FA phenomenon was difficult to grasp despite authors investigating the predictors of FA (Piper & Cansin, 1988; Purcell & Suter, 1980) and factors affecting the degree of FA (see overview in Piske et al., 2001). Secondly, globalisation processes led more and more people to communicate in English as a lingua franca, which made it clear that L2 pronunciation does not always prevent successful communication. Thirdly, the diversity of English varieties posed a serious problem when choosing a native variety as a reference model for L2 learners. A conceptual breakthrough came with the work of Munro and Derwing (1995) when they deconstructed the phenomenon of foreign accent and demonstrated that it consists of three perceptual phenomena: accentedness (i.e., how different a pattern of speech sounds when it is compared to the local variety), comprehensibility (i.e., how easy/difficult a listener finds it to understand someone's speech), and intelligibility (i.e., to what degree a listener actually understands an utterance). Munro and Derwing's (1995) oft-cited study was followed by two influential developments, in 2000 and 2005. Jenkins (2000) observed interactions between non-native speakers (NNS) and concluded that the assumption that L2 learners of English communicate solely or even mostly with native speakers (NS) is not accurate; in fact, NNSs are more likely to communicate with other NNSs than with NSs. She proposed a Lingua Franca Core (LFC), i.e., a set of pronunciation features that are likely to cause breakdowns in intelligibility (p. 158–160), hence, they could be given precedence in pedagogy. Furthermore, Levis (2005) addressed the issue of pronunciation models and goals and made a distinction between the Nativeness vs. Intelligibility Principle, suggesting that intelligibility is the way forward; while it is possible to achieve native-like pronunciation in the foreign language classroom, learners more importantly need to be understandable and to communicate successfully despite a noticeable or a strong foreign accent.

Such a change in viewpoints has prompted a re-examination of traditional teaching approaches. Pronunciation research has flourished with many studies investigating the development of L2 pronunciation, the potential of various teaching methods and activities, as well as various social and individual factors that affect successful speech acquisition. New avenues in the interplay of speech phenomena have been explored to provide answers to relevant questions such as:

* Is pronunciation instruction effective?

* Should the focus of pronunciation instruction be on the auditory mode (perception) or the articulatory mode (production)?
* Which is more important, teaching segmental features or teaching suprasegmental features?

* What kind of pronunciation techniques do teachers use in the classroom?

* What types of pronunciation tasks are most effective: controlled or spontaneous?

* How do teachers address pronunciation errors?

* Is pronunciation learned more effectively if taught separately or combined with the other language skills?

* Is pronunciation integrated in coursebooks and national curricula?

* Do teachers teach pronunciation regularly? Do they feel competent to teach pronunciation (Foote et al., 2011; Henderson et al., 2012; Macdonald, 2002)?

All in all, the results overwhelmingly show that pronunciation instruction is effective (see Lee et al., 2015; Saito & Plonsky, 2019; Thomson & Derwing, 2015). However, are these promising research findings applicable in the classroom?

## 2 Effective pronunciation teaching: Research findings and recommendations

In their comprehensive overview of 150 years of pronunciation teaching, Murphy and Baker (2019) define emerging trends in empirical research about pronunciation teaching. They classify the following macro-level themes: a) explorations on *what* features of English phonology are necessary to teach; b) explorations on *how* to teach L2 pronunciation effectively; and c) teachers’ cognitions (beliefs and knowledge) and learners’ views on pronunciation instruction (p. 56–58). This paper only focuses on the second theme with its specific micro-level subthemes (priorities, instruction, strategies), presenting positive research findings (from a selection of empirical and review studies) and analysing their implications for the L2 classroom in §2.1–§2.4.

### 2.1 Priorities in pronunciation teaching

Establishing priorities in pronunciation teaching is the first logical step in helping teachers make research-informed decisions. This includes shedding light on issues such as foreign-accented speech, gravity of pronunciation errors, effectiveness of pronunciation instruction, and L2 identity (teacher and learner).

Results from research studies investigating foreign-accented speech show that L2 speech can be accented, yet remain intelligible and comprehensible (Munro 2008). This is an important insight because it supports the view that accent reduction should not be the goal of pronunciation teaching and learning. Various linguistic aspects also play different roles when it comes to processing L2 speech. For instance, Trofimovich and Isaacs (2012) identified that accent is related to aspects of phonology (rhythm, segmental accuracy, and syllable structure accuracy), while comprehensibility is related to grammatical accuracy and lexical richness.

Research has also pointed out that some but not all phonological errors cause communication breakdowns, especially when L2 speakers use English as a lingua franca (ELF) in NNS-NNS interactions. Jenkins (2000), for instance, defined the core phonological errors as LFC (here presented in a simplified way): all consonants except /r/, /t/, /θ/, /ð/, [t], aspiration, fortis/lenis consonant distinction due to their effect on vowel length, consonant clusters (initial not simplified; medial/final simplified), vowel length contrasts, nuclear stress placement, and division of speech. Many authors immediately recognised the practical potential of LFC and explored ways applying it in the classroom (e.g., Walker 2010). Even so, more important was the conclusion that in such interactions intelligibility should be prioritised; hence the
recommendation that the goal of pronunciation teaching and learning is acquiring intelligible speech (Levis, 2018; McAndrews & Thompson, 2017).

Understanding the impact of pronunciation instruction was also given meticulous attention in research studies. Results show that pronunciation instruction is indeed effective and should be integrated in coursebooks and in teacher training programs (see Darcy, 2018; Derwing & Munro, 2005; Derwing & Rossiter, 2003; Jones, 2016; Lee et al., 2015; McGregor & Reed, 2018; Saito & Plonsky, 2019; Thomson & Derwing, 2015).

As for developing acceptable L2 identity, studies show that raising awareness of native and non-native varieties should also be addressed in the classroom, preferably through comparison and discussion. Teachers still see native accents as necessary reference models; on the positive side, there is a wider awareness and acceptance of non-native accent diversity (Červinková Poesová & Lancová, 2021).

To summarise, these findings have the following classroom implications:

* teachers should accept intelligible L1-accented pronunciation;

* teachers should create opportunities for NNS-NNS interaction practice;

* teachers should promote intelligibility and positive attitude to non-native accents;

* teachers should teach pronunciation as frequently as all other language skills in any educational context regardless of learners' age and proficiency level.

As simplified as they seem, implementing these aspects in the teaching practice might require a change in teachers' mentality, especially in terms of diverging from the nativeness principle, but also in prioritising pronunciation when necessary over other language skills. Valuable pronunciation practice time should not be systematically sacrificed for other language skills to be practised.

## 2.2 Choices to make in pronunciation instruction

Giving priority to pronunciation instruction in the classroom implies that teachers make instantaneous choices and decisions about: 1) the type of phonological feature their students struggle with and which needs to be taught and practised; 2) the most appropriate type of approach they should adopt; and 3) the types of techniques/activities they should choose in order to practise specific pronunciation features. The implications of research findings related to these aspects are discussed in §2.2.1, §2.2.2, and §2.2.3.

### 2.2.1 Type of phonological feature

Addressing learners' pronunciation difficulties is a daunting task – teachers cannot attend to every potential mispronunciation but have to decide which aspects of pronunciation are most important and which ones should be tackled at a later stage. This challenge has been acknowledged by research, especially when it comes to which should be taught first, segmental or suprasegmental features. Research findings show that neither should be neglected or given precedence. In fact, the overall conclusion is that it is important to address both segmental and suprasegmental features at once (broad framework suggested), with prosodic features (suprasegmentals) given priority over segmental features when aiming for general improvement in oral communication (Derwing et al, 1998; Levis & Muller Levis, 2018). Moreover, teachers should select phonological features for instruction and practice based on their learners' goals, L1 backgrounds, and proficiency levels (Saito, 2012).

A concept that has been revisited in empirical research with regard to its effects on listeners is the Functional Load Principle (Brown, 1988; Catford, 1987), or ranking phonemic contrasts
according to their frequency and importance in English pronunciation. High functional load errors largely affect comprehensibility and accentedness, whereas low functional load errors have only minimal impact on comprehensibility (Munro & Derwing, 2006). In addition, errors with high communicative value help listeners distinguish between low- and mid-level proficiency learners, while errors with low communicative value help listeners distinguish between mid- and high-level proficiency learners (Suzukida & Saito, 2022).

An aspect of pronunciation that has also been given prominence in research is the relevance of connected speech. For example, Cauldwell (2013, 2018) advocates teaching learners how to decode rapid informal spontaneous speech, emphasising that it should be the goal of learning listening and that it can also help to improve oral fluency.

From a teacher's perspective, these findings indicate the following classroom implications:

* teachers should address segmental and suprasegmental features in a balanced way;

* teachers should assess learners' pronunciation and identify learners' goals;

* teachers should focus on errors that impede communication more frequently;

* teachers should explain connected speech phenomena as an example of where good listening skills can go hand-in-hand with pronunciation work.

To make effective use of these implications, teachers are expected to have a certain level of phonological competence and knowledge of key concepts. It is assumed that they are sufficiently trained and skilled to teach pronunciation.

### 2.2.2 Type of pronunciation instruction

In terms of what type of instruction is most effective, many attempts have been made to test different approaches. For example, Saito and Plonsky (2019) conclude that explicit pronunciation instruction at a controlled level allows teachers to explain detailed phonetic information, which enables learners to notice and practise the accurate production of segments, syllables, prosodic, and temporal features of speech in a careful manner. Saito (2012) shows that Focus on Form (FonF) instruction in meaning-oriented communicative contexts enables learners to improve both during controlled and spontaneous practice (meaning that these learners can more easily generalise their knowledge), while Focus on Forms (FonFs) instruction yields improvement only in controlled contexts (with focus on accuracy via mechanical drills and choral repetition) and does not allow learners to transfer what they learnt in the classroom to outside of the classroom. Such approaches develop perceptual and noticing skills in learners, and these seem to be as necessary as practising L2 productive skills, i.e., perception-based pronunciation instruction is equally important as production-based instruction (Lee et al., 2020).

Concerning the communicative focus of L2 pronunciation, it has been shown, for instance, that regardless of whether task-based pronunciation teaching directs attention either to form or to meaning (depending on the task instructions), it leads to better accuracy in the long run (e.g., Mora & Levkina, 2017). Within the discourse-pragmatic approach (Pickering, 2018), findings show that intonation (pauses, prominence, pitch) is easier to understand through discourse contexts as opposed to isolated or partial utterances. Levis (2018) argues that in both ESL and EFL contexts the intelligibility-based teaching approach (i.e., focus on pronunciation features that affect intelligibility) is more appropriate.

These findings are particularly relevant for guiding teachers' choices as they reflect on the following classroom implications:
* teachers should be able to explain the sound system in detail but with simple language appropriate to their learners' age and proficiency level;

* teachers should vary activity types between controlled and communicative;

* teachers should work on both speech perception and speech production;

* teachers should integrate pronunciation through task- and project-based activities;

* teachers should work on pronunciation at both utterance and discourse level.

Perhaps these implications, if regularly implemented into the teaching practice, will seem to impose a heavy burden onto teachers' otherwise busy professional lives. They might need to develop skills such as being resourceful, being creative with developing materials, and becoming efficient time managers.

### 2.2.3 Type of pronunciation teaching technique

The effectiveness of various pronunciation teaching techniques has also been investigated, because not all activities which are often recommended in coursebooks and practice resources give favourable results and thus valuable classroom time may be wasted on them. One such activity that has proven most beneficial is High Variability Phonetic<fnref n="1" /> Training (HVPT). Research has shown that HVPT used with nonwords and real words is effective and results in long-lasting improvement in learners' pronunciation (Ortega et al., 2021; Thomson, 2018). Another activity frequently employed in the classroom is the use of phonemic symbols or keywords to focus on segmental differences. Both serve as effective reference labels for developing and consolidating perceptual sound categories, as shown by Fouz-González and Mompeán (2021).

The usefulness of critical listening has been confirmed, in terms of raising learners' awareness of acceptable vs. unacceptable L2 speech (Couper, 2011). Its benefits are especially enhanced if oral corrective feedback is provided in the form of reformulations (recasts and explicit correction) and prompts for self-repair (elicitation, metalinguistic clues, clarification requests, repetitions) – strategies which are favoured by learners (Lyster et al., 2013).

The potential use of technology for teaching and learning pronunciation has also been examined. Research shows that technology-based activities such as shadowing (Foote & McDonough, 2017) or Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) dictation (McCrocklin et al., 2019), to name but a few, improve learners' comprehensibility and fluency and promote authentic language use.

In sum, such findings lead to the following classroom implications:

* teachers should use HVPT to enhance L2 sound discrimination;

* teachers should teach phonemic symbols to develop sound-to-symbol connections;

* teachers should record and analyse learners' speech and give corrective feedback frequently;

* teachers should integrate the use of online tools and resources, both in the classroom and for self-learning.

To use these activities with learners, teachers are expected to first understand their benefits, then familiarise themselves with step-by-step procedures, and finally employ them regularly in L2 lessons.

<footnote n="1">¹ The term 'phonetic' in HVPT is sometimes optionally replaced by 'pronunciation' (see Thomson, 2018) or 'perceptual' (see Qian et al., 2018).</footnote>
## 2.3 Pronunciation strategies

Another avenue of research has considered the effectiveness of pronunciation strategy use. For instance, Osbourne (2003) concluded that advanced ESOL learners employ self-monitoring strategies to repair their mispronunciations by using imitation, paralanguage (speed, volume, clarity), voice quality settings, and by focusing on individual sounds/clusters or syllable/words, and on prosodic structure. Other studies show that high- and low-achieving learners use different pronunciation learning strategies (PLSs) and these differ depending on the task (Szyszka, 2021). Szyszka (2021) noted that the most frequently used PLSs by both groups of learners were checking pronunciation in the dictionary and reading words and texts aloud. Sardegna (2022) conducted a strategy-based instruction and tested its efficacy. She found out that such instruction promotes learner autonomy and self-regulated learning – learners trained to use pronunciation strategy protocols demonstrated: a) greater success when they practised frequently; b) higher motivation to continue practising after instruction ended; and c) a high sense of self-efficacy.

With obvious learning potential, these findings suggest the following classroom implications:

* teachers should train learners to use various pronunciation learning strategies;

* teachers should teach their learners to use self-monitoring strategies;

* teachers should encourage autonomous learning.

Familiarising their learners with pronunciation learning and self-monitoring strategies may be far from a simple task – it might, in fact, require devoting class time to train learners in the appropriate use of strategies.

## 2.4 The reality clash: Teacher and learner challenges

Recent calls for more research-informed pronunciation practice (e.g., Derwing & Munro, 2015; Pennington & Rogerson-Revell, 2019) and the ensuing re-evaluation of the research-practice link have brought to light a frustrating state of affairs: even with such a wealth of findings, the connections between L2 pronunciation research and L2 pronunciation teaching have become more blurred, with “many interesting studies today [that] do not have clear implications for teaching, and many practically oriented publications [that] show minor grounding in research” (Levis, 2021, p. 18). In addition, research into L2 pronunciation has continued to advance with impressive strides, while at the same time, there are few observable improvements in developing and adapting teaching materials (in the form of publications, e.g., Jones, 2016; or in the form of online resources, e.g., English Accent Coach 3.0 by Thomson, 2012–2023²). In other words, pedagogy is failing to keep pace with research progress.

Despite the latest attempts to narrow this gap by promoting publications that devote special sections to practical applications of key research findings (e.g., Kirkova-Naskova et al, 2021; Levis et al., 2022; Sardegna & Jarosz, 2023), pronunciation is still marginalised in the classroom and teachers are left to rely on their own intuitions and experiences as L2 learners. They struggle with real challenges (see Figure 1), including: a) difficulty grasping *re-defined* concepts such as intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accent; b) dilemmas on *which approach* to adopt given that there are so many (conflicting) ideas and techniques; c) a lack of competence on *how to integrate* pronunciation features in general English lessons; d) not knowing *how to adapt materials* to learners of different proficiency levels and ages; e) a lack

<footnote n="2">² https://www.englishaccentcoach.com/</footnote>
of self-assurance on *how to assess* their learners' pronunciation; f) being uncertain about *how to give feedback* on their learners' pronunciation goals, given their varied linguistic experience and developing L2 identities; and g) inability to cope with a *lack of time*.

<figure><img src="image_46.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1**

*Challenges Teachers Face*</figcaption></figure>

Another angle that needs to be considered is that applying research findings in the teaching practice is not always straightforward, for example, the LFC and intelligibility. From teachers' perspective, LFC was interpreted as a set of features that should be *the only* focus of pronunciation instruction and was widely accepted by teachers as the much-needed tool that would provide that quick fix to all problems. In fact, the LFC only lists the phonological errors that are most likely to occur and cause misunderstanding when NNS of various L1 backgrounds interact. It does not mean that *all* features are problematic for a given group of learners that share the same L1. From learners' perspective, the LFC diminished the importance of practising pronunciation. Unless properly trained, learners do not easily comprehend the complexity of the intelligibility concept and thus interpret the LFC and being intelligible as a free pass to use 'whatever' pronunciation. As a result of such extremes, neither improvement nor successful implementation are achieved, leaving teachers and learners struggling with L2 pronunciation issues. It seems that putting research-based classroom implications into effect, as suggested in our analysis in §2.1–§2.3, is not a simple undertaking and demands teachers devote substantial effort to familiarising themselves with current research findings and, maybe more vitally, being creative and motivated to try out new ideas.
# 3 A case in point: Teachers' views on their pronunciation teaching practices

## 3.1 Aims and a research question

In a larger on-going study, I am investigating teachers' views on their formal pronunciation instruction and current teaching practices. More specifically, the study explores: a) their reflections on the relevance of pronunciation vis-à-vis nativeness/intelligibility principle; b) their knowledge of the English sound system prior to university; c) their views on the formal pronunciation instruction they received during their English Phonetics and Phonology undergraduate course; d) the type of teacher training they received for teaching pronunciation; and e) their current pronunciation teaching practices. The analysis presented below focuses on the last section only, i.e., their practical experience with teaching pronunciation, addressing the following research question:

**RQ:** What kind of practices do teachers employ when they teach pronunciation with reference to: frequency of teaching; type of approach used; pronunciation features taught; pronunciation activities used; and type of corrective feedback given?

## 3.2 Participants, instruments and data analysis

Twenty-nine Macedonian teachers of English as a foreign language (F = 23; M = 6) had participated in the study by April 2022. Their age ranges from 24–39 years old and their teaching experience from 2–16 years. They work in varied teaching contexts: a) in state schools (elementary and high); b) in private language schools (all levels); and c) a private international school (elementary, middle, high). Qualitative data was elicited through semi-structured interviews and then analysed with thematic category analysis. The participants were coded MK01–MK29 for anonymity.

## 3.3 Preliminary results

At the beginning of the interviews, the participants were asked about their impressionistic view on teaching pronunciation, in particular, whether they find it necessary to teach and whether they find it teachable at all. All participants (n = 29) gave favourable responses to both questions, indicating that they regarded pronunciation as a relevant language skill.

However, when asked how much class time on average they spent on teaching pronunciation features, most of them replied that they sporadically address pronunciation in class (n = 13) and a few responded that they regularly address pronunciation, especially with young learners (n = 4). The rest of the participants specified the approximate time they usually spend on pronunciation issues (n = 11), with 10 minutes on average. Those who mentioned that they do not pay enough attention to pronunciation gave the following reasons: lack of time (n = 5) and pronunciation not being addressed in the national curriculum (just one mention), therefore, not being required to assess it (n = 3). The following remark by one participant best exemplifies this viewpoint:

> ... Pronunciation is one of the most important elements of language learning but it's been really neglected by us as teachers. First of all, because we don't want our students to feel down if we correct them all the time about their pronunciation. Second, our pronunciation is not as good as it should be I think, and third, the curriculum does not give us enough space