Denis Liakin*, Walcir Cardoso*, Natallia Liakina**
*Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
**McGill University, Montreal, Canada
denis.liakin@concordia.ca, walcir@education.concordia.ca, natallia.liakina@mcgill.ca
Learning L2 Pronunciation with a Mobile Speech Synthesizer
Bio data
Denis Liakin
is an Associate Professor of French Linguistics at Concordia University. His
main research interests are CALL, language acquisition and syntax.
Walcir Cardoso
is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at Concordia University.
His main research interest is to explore how insights from phonology can be applied to
the teaching of second language pronunciation in traditional and computer-assisted
environments.
Natallia Liakina
is a Faculty Lecturer in the McGill’s French Language Centre. Her
research interests include teaching second language pronunciation and CALL.
Abstract
The literature on the pedagogical applications of text-to-speech synthesizers (TTS) is
scarce and, to our knowledge, non-existent in the context of mobile devices such as
smartphones and smart media players (mobile TTS henceforth). However, the handful of
studies available indicates that TTS has potential for the teaching of L2 pronunciation
(Cardoso et al., 2012; Soler-
Urzúa, 2011), particularly to raise learners’ awareness about
certain language features in a personalized way. In this study, we examine the impact of
the pedagogical use of mobile TTS on the L2 acquisition of French liaison, a process that
resyllabifies a word-final consonant across two words (e.g., peti/t.a/mi => peti[ta]mi
‘boyfriend’).
The study compared three groups of intermediate L2 learners of French acquiring liaison
via 20-minute weekly activities over two months, following a pretest/post-test/delayed
post-test design within a mixed method approach to data collection. The participants
were divided into three experimental groups: (1) the TTS Group used a commercial (but
free) TTS application on their mobile devices to complete weekly pronunciation tasks
consisting of noticing, listen-and-categorize, and listen-and-repeat activities; (2) the
Non-TTS Group completed the same weekly pronunciation tasks in individual weekly
sessions with a teacher; finally, (3) the Control Group participated in weekly individual
meetings “to practice their conversation skills” with a teacher, who provided no
pronunciation feedback. The analysis of the results indicates that the group that was
treated with mobile TTS outperformed both the Non-TTS and the Control groups in liaison
production. The discussion of our findings highlights how mobile TTS technology can be
used to complement and enhance the teaching of L2 pronunciation. In addition, we
discuss some of the methodological challenges we encountered (e.g., lack of control over
learners’ time
-on-task, reliability of connection, small size of the hardware) and how they
can be minimized in future research.
-234-
2014 CALL Conference
LINGUAPOLIS
www.antwerpcall.be
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |