While speech analysis technology has become an integral part of phonetic research, and to some degree is used in language instruction at the most advanced levels, it appears to be mostly absent from the beginning levels of language instruction. In part, the lack of incorporation into the language classroom can be attributed to both the lack of…

The present article reports on the findings of a cross-sectional acoustic study of the production of the Spanish /e/-/ei/ contrast, as in "pena-peina" and "reno-reino," by native-English intermediate and advanced learners of Spanish. The acoustic parameter that distinguishes Spanish /e/ from /ei/ is formant change--/e/ is a…

Motivated by predictions of the theory of Input Processing, this study adds to previous research on second language (L2) Spanish pronunciation learning by investigating the impact of two distinct types of pronunciation assignments on first language (L1) English L2 Spanish students' improvement in pronunciation of the vowels /e, o/. Two sections of…

Examines an approach (story squares) to teaching Spanish pronunciation utilizing contextual supports and extralinguistic aids to comprehension. (11 references) (GLR)

Describes a phonetics experiment at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, to test and improve pronunciation in Spanish with the use of an audio device known as Tok-Bak. (DS)

Discussed the pronunciation of the phoneme /s/ in Spanish and all the linguistic variations of it, especially in the dialects that have the sibilant articulation. (NCR)

Despite a survey carried out on the teaching of Spanish language in British and Irish universities that showed one-third of the respondents considered the teaching of Spanish intonation unimportant, examples are presented to show that it is necessary in Spanish language instruction. (HP)

Reexamines the instructional contributions of different approaches to teaching pronunciation, such as Audiolingualism and the Silent Way,and proposes a new student-centered technique for dealing with the teaching of segmental features of Brazilian Portuguese. (Author/CB)

Demonstrates that (1) second-language (L2) textbooks used in the L2 Spanish classroom, at the high school and college level, misrepresent the fundamental concept of dialects, and (2) the textbooks ignore certain important elements of dialects that would be beneficial to the L2 student as listener. (41 references) (GLR)

Discusses research on phonological instruction that indicates that improvement in pronunciation for adult foreign language learners is possible via a multimodal methodology designed to accommodate individual learning styles. An extension of this research examines experimental subjects' improvement in pronunciation accuracy and pinpoints areas…