The Effectiveness of Implicit and Explicit Instruction on German L2 Learners’ Pronunciation
Abstract
Previous research has investigated the effectiveness of implicit and explicit instructional methods on second language (L2) learners’ grammatical accuracy. However, there is a scarcity of studies focused on the effects of the two teaching methods on L2 learners’ pronunciation. To fill this gap, the present thesis examines the effects of implicit and explicit instruction on the pronunciation of beginner learners of German. One group of learners was taught pronunciation explicitly (i.e., using phonetic rules), another group—implicitly (i.e., without phonetic rules), and a third group received no pronunciation instruction. A pretest-posttest design was used to measure learners’ improvement in accent and comprehensibility. No significant difference in progress was found across the three groups. The findings suggest that learner variables might be better predictors of improvement than the type of instruction. Moreover, not all pronunciation features were equally relevant for L2 learners’ comprehensibility. The results have implications for L2 pronunciation teaching.
Description
Keywords
Education, Education--Adult and Continuing, Education--Bilingual and Multicultural, Education--Higher, Language, Language--Modern, Literature--Modern, Literature--English, Literature--Germanic, Education
Citation
Peltekov, P. (2017). The Effectiveness of Implicit and Explicit Instruction on German L2 Learners’ Pronunciation (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28073