INTRODUCTION
The article is a research based article which is gathered online from Language Learning & Technology Journal, October 2009, Volume 13, Number 3 entitle “The Effects of Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Readings on ESL Learners’ Use of Pausing, Stress, Intonation, and Overall Comprehensibility” by Mark W. Tanner and Melissa M. Landon. Mark W. Tanner is an assistant Professor in Linguistics and English Language – TESOL at Brigham Young University. He taught six courses which are TESOL Methods and Materials, Pronunciation Theory and Pedagogy, Second Language Teaching Practicum, Supervision and Administration in TESOL, Teaching Culture, Advanced Pronunciation. He has B.A. in English from University of Utah (1982), M.A. in Applied Linguistics from University of Southern California (1985), and Ph.D. in Educational Linguistics from University of Pennsylvania (1991. His interests are in Second Language Acquisition, Pronunciation Pedagogy, Accent Reduction, and Second Language Teacher Education. Melissa M. Landon is also an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering in University of Maine. She has B.S. in Civil & Environmental Engineering Lafayette College (2001), M.S. in Civil & Environmental Engineering University of Massachusetts Amherst (2004), and Ph. D. in Civil & Environmental Engineering University of Massachusetts Amherst (2007). She taught three courses which are Soil Mechanics, Ground Improvement Techniques, and Advanced Soil Mechanics. Her interests are offshore geotechnics, including site characterization, physical modelling of soil-structure interaction, and foundation engineering for offshore infrastructure.
SUMMARY
The aim of the research is to analyze the effects of self-directed computer-assisted practice on the ESL learners’ perception and production of key suprasegmental features (pausing, word stress, and sentence-final intonation), and the learners’ level of perceived comprehensibility. The self-directed computer-assisted practice in this in this research is using Cued Pronunciation Readings (CPRs). Thus, these research questions were addressed as guidance in this research which are: to what extent do cued pronunciation readings practiced in a self-directed context affect intermediate ESL learners’ perception of pausing, word stress, and sentence-final intonation?; to what extent do cued pronunciation readings practiced in a self-directed context affect intermediate ESL learners’ use of pausing, word stress, and sentence-final intonation in controlled production?; and to what extent do cued pronunciation readings practiced in a self-directed context affect intermediate ESL learners’ perceived comprehensibility in spontaneous speech tasks?.
There were four types of participants in this research which are ESL students, the native speaking informants (NS), teachers, and listeners. 75 intermediate-level proficiency ESL learners enrolled full-time in a university ESL program participated in the study. 10 NSs, 5 males and 5 female, they are from the western United States with linguistics knowledge and able to speak Standard American English. Six teachers with one to three years of formal teaching experience. Lastly, the listeners where two groups were used, the first group consisted of 10 novice NSs and the second group included two expert NS judges.
Firstly, speech perception and production data were collected at Time 1 and Time 2 from the ESL students in the computer lab. The total test time was 20 minutes and data collection consisted of a sequence of seven computerized tasks: five spontaneous speech tasks, one perception task, and one controlled production task, in that order. The spontaneous speech tasks required the students to discuss based on the pictures such as problems, solutions, suggestions and so on. The perception task required the students to listen to a passage recorded by a NS and marked pauses, stressed words, and sentence-final intonation (rising or falling) on a transcript. The controlled production task required participants to simply read a passage aloud and they were given one minute to read the passage silently before reading it aloud. The test was conducted during the participants’ listening/speaking class period. Different pictures used for Time 1 and Time 2 for the spontaneous speech tasks but perception and controlled production tasks remained the same.
The students were randomly divided into six classes and each taught by a different teacher. Three classes were the control group and the other three were the treatment group. All six classes in the study were taught using the ESL program’s established syllabus and materials. Teachers neither graded recordings nor provided feedback and simply reminded students to complete the weekly CPR tasks, which counted as extra-credit for treatment-group classes. However, the treatment group classes were given 65-minute instructional period during the week two of the study. These groups must submit one completed CPR recording and task sheet each week for the 11 weeks. They also provided 10 minutes each day after class hour to organize their CPR and also had access to the lab every week with the assistance of the lab attendant.
Different scoring procedure used for both tasks. For the perception task, the answer key was created by the NS informants by listening to the same passage and the judges used the key to score the Time 1 and Time 2 perception tasks. For the controlled production task, the 10 NS informants read aloud the same text heard by the students and had gone through the same procedure. Then, the two judges would evaluate the NSs answers and constructed the answer key based on the pooled responses of the NSs. As for the spontaneous speech tasks, the NSs would listen at least 45-second speech sample from the students and assigned a comprehensibility score according to the scoring rubric.
After 13 weeks of treatments, both Time 1 and Time 2 tasks were collected and analyzed by the researchers. Based on the marking result for the perception tasks, the treatment enabled the students to significantly reduce the number of instances where they were unable to perceive pauses and stressed syllables. Then, the quantitative results for the controlled production task show that none of these NS listeners were inconsistently severe or lenient in their ratings.
Above and beyond, surveys were done after completing the CPRs, the students indicated the amount of effort they had put into completing the readings and the level of pronunciation progress they perceived in their speech. Basically, the feedbacks were positive about the CPR even though it is hard. Some difficulties while experiencing CPRs were the sentence stress, understanding the native speaker, difficult vocabularies, and linking some words or phrases as the native speakers. Thus, some recommendations were suggested by the students such as the doing the task at home due to the time constraints, receiving specific feedback after completing the task, and more interesting topics for the readings. Overall, the self-directed computer-assisted learning pronunciation reading is effective in helping the learners comprehension towards suprasegmental and prosodic.
THE REVIEW
The research is basically supporting self-directing learning as one of the effective learning methods where the teachers only work as a facilitator while learning suprasegmental. This research has caught my interest when technologies can be part of learning such hard components of English. Suprasegmental could not be learnt just by reading books or from any other reading sources or materials that can be acquired by self-learning.
This is a well-prepared research and includes many participants in order to make it succeed. The procedures were very well planned including the scoring procedure. However, too many things were introduced in a research that would lead to confusion to the readers. Even it is quite confusing, the researchers have elaborate more in the procedure to enhance the readers’ understanding towards the research. Other than that, this research would lack of focus in certain things such as in this research I could see that less attention be given to the control group but it might be because the main aim of this study is to analyze the effects of self-directed computer-assisted practice especially in Cued Pronunciation Readings (CPRs). Though, it still caught my attention since the method is very effective for the ESL learners and also beneficial for the teachers as well.
Self-directed computer-assisted learning has been integrated in some elite schools. However, many schools especially those in the rural areas do not have the opportunity to use computer as one of the methods in learning English because they do not have enough facilities. My opinion, the use of technology in learning is time consuming. Sometimes the periods allocated in the school for second language learning are not enough. Thus, self-directed computer-assisted learning can be also practiced at home if the students have the facilities in their home. If the students do not have the facilities in their house, they can use the school facilities such as computer in the library and etcetera.
Besides, students in Malaysia are mostly being mouth feeding by the teachers where the teachers would always give inputs to the students without giving them a chance to think independently. Students sometimes need to discover their own ability and self-directed computer assisted pronunciation reading would definitely be helpful.
Other than that, most of Malaysian students are low in self-confidence especially when communicating using second language with their colleagues. Hence, the second language learning process has taken longer time than the teacher expected since they themselves do not want to try among themselves. Some aspects of English could not be learnt through reading such as suprasegmental that listening and speaking skills are required. Since speaking in public is considered as a major problem in Malaysian students, self-directed with computer-assisted learning might be very helpful. Not only for students, but also teachers, who still not confident or comfortable enough to teach pronunciation in the classroom, these would be a useful tool for a teacher.
However, when implementing this method of teaching and learning, it must be conducted continuously according to the plan in order to achieve good results. The results from this research show it really helps especially in learning pronunciation but it required hard work from both teachers and students. As a conclusion, it is not wrong to try new things but it needs big effort to make it succeed.
