Pronunciation instruction and syllabic-pattern discrimination

Abstract

The present research is an investigation of the role played by pronunciation instruction in the discrimination of English CVC and CVCV syllabic patterns in word-final position. The participants of this study were two groups of Brazilian learners (beginners): the control group (10 students), and the experimental group (12 students). Both groups were given a discrimination pretest and posttest, between which the experimental group received instruction based on a pronunciation manual with activities focused on the English syllable and word-final consonants, whereas the control group received no such instruction. The pre and posttests consisted of an oddity discrimination test, in which the participants had to discriminate between the CVC and CVCV syllabic patterns. The posttest results showed somewhat greater improvement for the experimental group than for the control group, but this difference was not statistically significant.