Abstract
Effective language teaching can provide children with the satisfaction of succeeding in the challenge of learning a foreign language. All these issues must be taken under consideration when researching children and their teachers. Production training is under-investigated in L2 training studies, and despite the small number of studies with adults, there are very few studies of children. Even fewer attempts have been made to compare classroom instruction with computer-assisted training. The results show that output practice has an advantage over delayed production after only three weeks of training particularly in less marked sounds. Findings also show that learning English before the age of puberty does not warrant accent-free pronunciation.
TopBackground
Children’s acquisition of phonemes shows some similarities across languages among other things.1 For example /ð/ and /ɹ/ are late acquired in some languages and are considered ‘typologically marked’ (Mcleod & Crowe, 2018; Ohala, 2008). That universals are at play has also been taken up by in L2 phonological acquisition for example by Eckman (1977) in his Markedness Differential Hypothesis. L2 sounds and sound structures absent from the learner’s L1 and which are typologically marked are predicted to be more difficult, that is, a “ phenomenon A in some language is more marked than B if the presence of A in a language implies the presence of B; but the presence of B does not imply the presence of A.” (Eckman, 1977, p. 320).
Eckman (2008) argues for universal tendencies as an explanation for the observation that L2 development can resemble L1 learners’ development. For syllables, Kløve and Young-Scholten (2008) conclude that L2 learners simplify consonant clusters not only to conform with their L1 syllable structures, but also with language universals. There are age differences: children favour deletion of consonants when fronted with clusters (Pater & Barlow, 2003) but adults favour insertion of vowels to break up clusters (Broselow & Finer, 1991; Fantazi, 2003; Hancin-Bhatt & Bhatt, 1997; Karimi, 1987; Kwon, 2006; Major, 1994).2 Here markedness also plays a role in the form of the Sonority Hierarchy which governs how consonants in clusters arrange themselves (Broselow & Finer, 1991).
When it comes to training in pronunciation, Piske (2012) discerns several factors which influence acquisition and along with L1-L2 differences and quality and quantity of the input (see also Young-Scholten 1995), they include training tasks in perception and production which target structural differences between the learner’s L1 and L2.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Backward Transfer: An influence from L2 on L1.
Th-Fronting: A phonological process involving the substitution of [f] or [v] for /?/ and /ð/ respectively.
Voice Onset Time: The duration between the start of the release of a plosive and the onset of glottal pulsing.
Deaffrication: A change of a feature in the affricate.
Final Devoicing: A phonological process by which voiced obstruents occurring word-finally become (partially) voiceless.
Forward Transfer: An influence from L1 on L2.
/l/ Vocalisation: A phonological process involving the change of velarised /l/ into a (semi)vowel.
Markedness: A relationship between elements of phonological class based on their degree of complexity.