Shadowing with Mobile Technology

Using Shadowing with Mobile Technology to Improve L2 Pronunciati0n

Jennifer A. Foote and Kim McDonough

2017

Jennifer Sycamore & Anne-Marie Sénécal

Esto es un párrafo listo para contener creatividad, experiencias e historias geniales.

Background

Issue: Need for pronunciation research to use comprehensibility ratings as a criterion to evaluate a technique Rationale: Improvements in comprehensibility(1) can be perceived by human listeners and (2) can improve intelligibility (Thomson & Derwing, 2014) Research goal: To explore the effects of one technique with potential to improve comprehensibility:

SHADOWING

Learning Gains

Rationale: Shadowing shows potential for pronunciation improvement (e.g, Hsieh et al., 2013) Gaps in the literature: Shadowing and comprehensibility Goal of the research: Provide more empirical evidence and address the gap

Learner Perception

Rationale: For shadowing to be effective, learners need to recognize its value and choose to use it Mixed findings in the literature (e.g., Bovee & Stewart, 2009; Li-Chi, 2009) Goal: Further understand how learners perceive shadowing

Methodology

Participants

Design

Student participants

• n = 16
• L2 English learners (advanced)
• English university (Montréal)

Raters

• n = 22
• Native English speakers
• English university (Alberta)

Design

Pre-test

Interview 1

PRE-MEETING

- iPod + shadowing training

TREATMENT

- 8 weeks - Shadowing (4x/week, 10 mins) - Sample recordings - Shadowing reports

Post-test

Interview 3

POST-MEETING

Mid-test

Interview 2

MID-MEETING

- During week 6 - Language background survey

Treatment

Learning gains

Learner Perception

Rating Comprehensibility

How would you rate this participant’s comprehensibility?

1. Extremely easy to understand

2. Easy to understand

3. Neutral

4. Difficult to understand

5. Very difficult to understand

Rating Comprehensibility

Did you notice a change in the participant's comprehensibility between the pre- and the post-test?

1. Greatly improved

2. Slightly improved

3. No change

Results

RQ1: Learning Gains

Time 2

Main findings:

• Overall significant improvement on measures (except for accentedness)

• Although significant overall improvement, not significant between all testing times

Results

RQ2: Learner Perceptions

Likert-scale items

Main finding:

• Positive perceptions of the use of shadowing

Discussion

Learning Gains

Learner Perceptions

• No significant improvement – Accentedness:
• Supports evidence: accentedness = partially related to comprehensibility
• Not of a great concern (because of comprehensibility)

• Inconsistent improvements between testings:
• Minimal thresholds for noticeable improvement
• Possible decline in benefits at times

• Most findings corroborate with literature
• Exception: time to complete tasks

• Too time-consuming

(Bovee & Stewart, 2009)

• Findings dispute claim that shadowing is "meaningless parrot-like practice"

(Bovee & Stewart, 2009)

• Short amount of time

(Foote & McDonough, 2017)

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Implications

• Careful choice of audio texts

• Motivation: without belief of benefits, method loses efficacy

• Differentiation: addresses individual learner gaps
• Opportunity for stress-free practice outside classroom
• NOT a replacement for classroom-based instruction

For L2 Teaching and Learning

• L1: Language background
• Proficiency level: Beginner vs advanced
• Context: EFL vs ESL

For Research

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Critical Assessment

Strengths

• Rater training
• Inter-rater reliability: Measured statistically (high)

• The Suitcase Story: valid instrument (common in studies)

• Measure beyond imitation: addresses a critique of shadowing

Weaknesses

• Attrition: 28% loss (N = 22 to 16)

• Practice effect: Identical pre-test, mid-test, and post-test

• Ambiguous quantitative data: Meaning of 510.55/1000 on measure

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References

Bovee, N., & Stewart, J. (2009). The utility of shadowing. In A.M. Stoke (Ed.), JALT 2008 Conference Proceedings. Tokyo: JALT. Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D. & Goodwin, J. (2010). Teaching pronunciation: A reference for teachers of English to speakers of other languages. Cambridge University press. Foote, J. & McDonough, K. (2017). Using shadowing with mobile technology to improve L2 pronunciation. Journal of Second Language Pronunciation 3(1), 34–56. Hsieh, K-T., Dong, D-A., & Wang, L-Y. (2013) A preliminary study of applying shadowing technique to English intonation instruction. Taiwan Journal of Linguistics, 11, 43–66. Li-Chi, L. (2009). A study of using shadowing as a task in junior high school EFL program in Taiwan. Master’s Thesis. National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Teipei, Taiwan. Luo, D., Shimomura, N., Minematsu, N., Yamauchi, Y., & Hirose, K. (2008). Automatic pronunciation evaluation of language learners’ utterances generated through shadowing. Interspeech 2008, 2807–2810. Thomson, R. I., & Derwing, T. M. (2014). The effectiveness of L2 pronunciation instruction: A narrative review. Applied Linguistics, 36, 326–344.

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Discussion Questions

Considering that shadowing shows promise for the development of L2 speech in advanced university students as in this study, how would you modify this technique to accommodate for different teaching contexts (e.g., age, proficiency level, L1 background, target language domain)? Would you favour a different technique for different contexts (e.g., dramatic imitative approach using video clips)?

Q1

The intonation in sitcoms aligns well with Celce-Murcia et al.’s (2010) suggestion to use exaggerated prosodic features to teach intonation. What other types of authentic audio texts could be used to provide a rich intonation environment?

Q2