چکیده:
Phonological awareness has been defined as the speaker’s sensitivity to
the phonological characteristics of a language. The present study is
aimed at exploring the relationship between Iranian EFL learners’
explicit phonological awareness, their foreign accentedness and speech
comprehensibility as perceived by native and non-native Englishspeaking
EFL teachers. To determine the relationships, the
researchers used a set of tasks that measured 34 EFL learners’
phonological awareness in five domains of rhyming, alliteration or
onset, segmenting, blending, and manipulation. They also asked the
participants to read a short text which was recorded and later rated
for accentedness and comprehensibility on a 9-point scale. Results
indicated that there was a significant correlation between the learners’
phonological awareness and perception of foreign accentedness. The
same was true about the correlation between phonological awareness
and speech comprehensibility. Furthermore, a strong positive
correlation was found between foreign accentedness and
comprehensibility, suggesting that foreign accentedness could affect
comprehensibility of L2 speech. The findings suggest that pedagogical
strategies that highlight formal properties of language be employed in
second language classrooms to reduce learners’ foreign accent and
increase their speech comprehensibility.
خلاصه ماشینی:
Second Language Learners' Phonological Awareness and Perception of Foreign Accentedness and Comprehensibility by Native and Non-native English Speaking EFL Teachers Musa Nushi Kochaksaraie Assistant Professor Shahid Beheshti University m_nushi@sbu.
The present study is aimed at exploring the relationship between Iranian EFL learners’ explicit phonological awareness, their foreign accentedness and speech comprehensibility as perceived by native and non-native English- speaking EFL teachers.
Keywords : phonological awareness, foreign accent, comprehensibility, EFL learners Received: 14/03/2017 Accepted: 06/01/2018 Corresponding author There are a number of different skills involved in learning and speaking a second language (L2) such as grammar, vocabulary and pragmatics, yet pronunciation seems to be the most challenging skill, especially for adult learners, as it involves intricate coordination of a set of cognitive and physiological skills (Celce-Murcia, Brinton, Goodwin, & Griner, 2010).
Foreign accent is potentially influenced by some factors such as cross-linguistic transfer (Gass & Selinker, 2008; Navehebrahim, 2012), the age of L2 learning (Hurford 1991; Long, 1990), motivation (Gatbonton, Trofimovich & Magid, 2005; Gilakjani, 2012), attitude (Elliot, 1995), and instruction (Derwing, Munro, & Wiebe, 1998; Lord, 2005).
Is there any significant relationship between L2 learners’ phonological awareness, their degree of foreign accentedness and speech comprehensibility as judged by native and non-native English-speaking EFL teachers?
Materials and Instruments The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between L2 learners’ phonological awareness, their degree of foreign accentedness and speech comprehensibility as judged by the native and non-native EFL teachers.