دانلود رایگان مقاله یادگیری زبان دوم در اتوماتیسیته پردازش گفتار تضاد آوایی ژاپنی

Abstract

We examined discrimination of a second-language (L2) vowel duration contrast in English learners of Japanese (JP) with different amounts of experience using the magnetoencephalography mismatch field (MMF) component. Twelve L2 learners were tested before and after a second semester of college-level JP; half attended a regular rate course and half an accelerated course with more hours per week. Results showed no significant change in MMF for either the regular or accelerated learning group from beginning to end of the course. We also compared these groups against nine L2 learners who had completed four semesters of collegelevel JP. These 4-semester learners did not significantly differ from 2-semester learners, in that only a difference in hemisphere activation (interacting with time) between the two groups approached significance. These findings suggest that targeted training of L2 phonology may be necessary to allow for changes in processing of L2 speech contrasts at an early, automatic level.

4. Conclusion

This study revealed the changes in robustness (automaticity) of JP L2 speech processing appear to need more than two semesters of classroom experience and that the accelerated learning program does not improve L2 speech perception for these vowel contrasts, even though vocabulary and grammatical learning was accelerated. It will be important to further test this claim with a larger group of participants, considering that the current result was based on a small group of participants. If this finding is replicated, specifically that little to no gain in L2 speech processing (as measured by MMF) was observed over the brief period for either the standard or accelerated learning program, it indicates that learning of L2 speech patterns is not facilitated by the current classroom curriculum. It will be important to examine whether adding targeted training of L2 speech patterns to teaching programs will allow for improved L2 speech perception over this short time span (one or two semesters).