紀要論文

An Effective Means of Improving Prosody in English : Intelligibility and Fluency in Oral Communication

eng

13494686

https://doi.org/10.15002/00013569

法政大学言語・文化センター

14

125

138

2017-01-10

Version of Record

Prosody in English is important for oral communication and difficult for Japanese EFL learners to acquire. By explain ing the contrast between English prosodic features and Japanese ones, the author investigated if intelligibility and fluency in reading aloud and spontaneous speech could be improved. The combination of explicit instruction and repeating practice had a quick effect upon reading aloud. Though approximately half the participants thought they were conscious of pronunciation in the twoway communicative task, the raters determined that they didn't sound as if they were truly interacting in English, and suggested they needed more practice. The study also found that approximately half the participants had been instructed in pronunciation in English, though they were unaware of the differences in prosody, namely, that English is a stress-timed language, and Japanese is a mora-timed language.

Article

AA11906774