2016 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Examining the Effectiveness of Phonetic Negotiation of Form in L2 Pronunciation Pedagogy for Practical Communicative Competence
| Project/Area Number |
25381229
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| Research Institution | Tsuruoka National College of Technology |
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Principal Investigator |
阿部 秀樹 鶴岡工業高等専門学校, その他部局等, 准教授 (20300527)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
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| Keywords | Form-Focused Instruction / L2 Pronunciation |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The current study presents an inquiry which examines the three research questions:
(1)Does FFI affect the interlanguage phonology of Japanese students of English?, (2)If FFI has an effect on EFL learner acquisition of English weak forms, does this approach affect the receptive and/or productive acquisition of weak forms?, (3)Is it appropriate to teach English weak forms to learners whose English proficiency level is around A2 on the CEFR?
The study was conducted at a regularly scheduled classroom The treatment in EG emphasized sound discrimination, focusing on the phonetic characteristics of the speech sounds, as well as encouraging learners to observe the target feature and discovering the rule under their own initiative, and in the production session, the subjects were expected to use the target pronunciation, whilst CG followed a traditional forms-focused instruction in two sessions of perception and production. The participants' ability to perceive and pronounce the weak forms was assessed on a pre- and a post-test design.
Despite several limitations, the developmental changes which demonstrated a significant difference of receptive and productive acquisition of weak forms, unambiguously demonstrate that formal instruction deploying FFI does make a difference for L2 pronunciation, helping learners notice the target form, establishing meta-competence through explicit instruction, and using declarative knowledge in actual communication.
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