Many factors influencing second language (L2) speech fluency have been widely studied, but the effects of first language (L1) fluency on L2 speech fluency are still relatively poorly understood. In contrast to mostly quantitative previous studies, the present study adopted a mixed methods approach to examining the connections between L1 fluency…

The order of difficulty of positions and the segmentability of phoneme categories are discussed in relation to the hypothesis that phonemes are functioning units in the perception and production of speech. The final version of the program for teaching phonemic segmentation is described. (Author/LMO)