Teaching Pronunciation with Phonetics in a Beginner French Course Impact on Sound Discrimination

1. Jessica Sertling Miller millerjs@uwec.edu University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Teaching Pronunciation with Phonetics in a Beginner French CourseImpact on Sound Discrimination PSLLT 2011

2. Introduction • Phonetics taught in advanced classes • Why not earlier? • Phonetics in French 101?

3. Observations • Balancing writing & speaking • Challenges: time constraints, students’ varied abilities and interest, teachers’ training.

4. Attitudes • Pronunciation - 90% • Vocabulary - 86% • Grammar - 73% • Culture - 43% Rated as “very important” by students

5. Phonetics 101: Potential Benefits • To avoid fossilization • To apply concepts early on • To give students learning tools

6. Phonetics 101: Potential Drawbacks • IPA symbols = foreign code • Time-consuming • Not communicative, not authentic

7. Pedagogical Goals • Acquisition of fundamental principles • Intelligibility • Functionality

8. Research Questions • Explicit instruction = positive impact (Elliot on Spanish L2 pronunciation, 1997) • IPA = positive impact(Kendrick on English L2 pronunciation and discrimination, 1997) • IPA = efficient teaching tool(Morin on Spanish teaching education, 2007)

9. What impact on speaking and listening in a beginner college French course?

10. Experimental Design • 4 target sets of sounds • 2 teaching methods • Counterbalanced groups • 15-minute lessons, every 2 weeks • Sound discrimination test after each lesson

11. Target Sounds

12. Reference Approach • Comparing & contrasting • Reflection on spelling to sound • Repetition of sounds • Written & oral application

13. Phonetics Approach • Comparing & contrasting (IPA) • Reflection on spelling to sound • Articulatory information • Repetition of sounds • Written & oral application (IPA)

14. Results: Discrimination

15. “Among the teaching techniques used by your instructor this semester, describe one or more that you feel helped improve your listening comprehension of French and explain how it helped.” Teaching & Learning Survey

16. Content Analysis

17. Discussion • Explicit instruction preferred by learners • Phonetic approach is favored by them:it addresses various learning styles. • Short-term vs. long-term effect?

18. In Support of Phonetics • Importance of explicit instruction • IPA shows what is not heard • Learning tool: notes, dictionaries • Assessment tool: written and oral exams

19. Conclusion • Two ways of approaching instruction • What matters: drawing attention • Phonetics 101 to prepare for 300 level

20. Learners’ Comments • “The handouts describing the differences in pronunciation (...) were very helpful. Rather than overwhelming the class with all sorts of pronunciation rules, it focused in on some of the most important and allowed us to directly compare two (or more) commonly mispronounced sounds.” • “I thought when we used the phonetic symbols with different words such as vous and vu, and the teacher explained the difference between them, was very helpful to me.”

21. Learners’ Comments • “I think the phonetics alphabet helped me. Sometimes you look at a word and trying to pronounce it seems overwhelming, but having it written in only phonetics tells you exactly what sounds to make.” • “(...) I would have liked to spend more time with pronunciation. For example, doing more exercises with different partners, or going over some of the more difficult words for 5 mins. at the beginning of each class period.”

22. Future Research • Exploring current pedagogies • Designing communicative tasks using IPA

23. Thank You! • UW-System Leadership Site for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning • UW-System Office of Professional and Instructional Development • UW-Eau Claire Summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates • UW-Eau Claire Student Differential Tuition Funds • UW-Eau Claire Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning