Teaching and learning pronunciation can be challenging for second language (L2) teachers and learners alike. Many people may even adopt that attitude that, 'She'll be right', thinking that L2 learners' pronunciation difficulties will likely sort themselves out in time. Yet many learners consider pronunciation to be the most difficult oral…

Distributional learning is typically understood as (unattended) tracking of stimulus probabilities. Distributional training with speech yields mixed results and the influencing factors have not yet been fully investigated. This study explored whether prior linguistic experience could have an effect on distributional learning outcomes. Czech and…

This study's principal aim revolves around expanding comprehension of the facets affecting people's readiness to use foreign languages. To achieve that, the study investigates the various elements of verbal interaction between undergraduate English as a Foreign Language learners and their instructors in the classroom. Linguistic skills are of…

The potential of high-variability phonetic training (HVPT) to help FL learners improve their pronunciation is well documented. However, research exploring learners' perceptions of the approach adopted after having experienced training is scarce. Likewise, the choice of labels adopted for training is not self-evident and has not been studied…

This paper addresses the techniques of treating patients with functional disorders of pronouncing sibilants in Arabic. The sounds under question are /s/, /z/, /?/. The main disorders that are studied here are: substitution and distortion. A descriptive analytical approach was followed; patients from different ages of functional pronunciation…

This dissertation documents and analyzes phonetic and phonological features of Gua, an under-documented, understudied and nearly-endangered Guang language, spoken in the Eastern Region of Ghana. The language has two dialects, Anum and Boso. The data for this dissertation is from the Boso dialect spoken in the Boso community. The dissertation…

A growing number of researchers have been exploring the cognitions of second language teachers (L2) in a wide scope. The purpose of this study is to investigate English language teachers' L2 pronunciation cognitions and their classroom practices. The sample consists of 164 English teachers and academics in English language and language education.…

Rhotics, particularly the trill, are late acquired sounds in Spanish. Reports of Spanish-English bilingual preschoolers document age-appropriate articulations, but studies do not explore productions once exposure to English increases. This paper reports on the rhotic productions of a cross-sectional sample of 31 Spanish-English bilingual children,…

Three experiments examined 4- to 6-year-olds' use of potential cues to geographic background. In Experiment 1 (N = 72), 4- to 5-year-olds used a speaker's foreign accent to infer that they currently live far away, but 6-year-olds did not. In Experiment 2 (N = 72), children at all ages used accent to infer where a speaker was born. In both…

Traditionally, pronunciation was taught by reference to native-speaker models. However, as speakers around the world increasingly interact in English as a lingua franca (ELF) contexts, there is less focus on native-speaker targets, and there is wide acceptance that achieving intelligibility is crucial while mimicking native-speaker pronunciation…

This research is aimed at investigating the implementation of project-based learning (PBL) using a voice recorder, Orai application, and web as material sources. It is conducted to determine the impact of combining PBL and digital tools on speaking performance. The participants were 80 students who took English subject in State Polytechnic of…

Although pronunciation instruction (PI) has started to gain prominence in second language teacher professional development (PD) research (e.g. Nguyen & Newton, 2021), relatively less attention has been given to PD programs in an online format. Adopting a Sociocultural Theoretical (SCT) perspective, this dissertation explored the role of an…

This study was conducted with Zhuang and Miao students and Mandarin teachers in grades four to six in four township elementary schools in Dehou Township, Wenshan City, Yunnan Province. The purposes of this study were:1) to study the influences of the native language that affect Zhuang and Miao students when they learn Mandarin,2) to study…

This study reports syllable position effects on second language (L2) Portuguese speech perception, revealing that L2 segmental learning may be prone to an influence from the suprasegmental level. The results show that first language (L1) Mandarin learners had diminished performance on the discrimination between the target Portuguese liquids (/l/…

Educators of International Teaching Assistants (ITAs) have been overlooked, erroneously. As teacher educators, their work is exponentially important to North American universities. A multiple case study examined three ITA Educators' ideologies, involving data from two interviews -one being a stimulated recall using classroom observations…