<p>The purpose of this study was twofold. Firstly, this study sought to capture second semester language students’ auditory perception of German vowels. Secondly, this study sought to investigate the effectiveness of direct pronunciation instruction in enhancing learners’ perception and consequent production of German vowels. Vowels were selected to be analyzed in this study, as they are the nucleus of words (Derwing, Thomson, Foote, & Munro, 2012). Front rounded vowels in German were given particular attention, as they do not exist in English, and they frequently pose as a challenge for native English-speakers to learn (O’Brien & Fagan, 2016, Hall, 2003). </p> <p>This study was conducted at a large midwestern U.S. university. The project consisted of 47 participants which were divided into experimental and control groups. Throughout the duration of the study, students were administered a biographical survey, and a pre- and post-test which consisted of a listening identification exercise and speaking assessment. Participants in the test group were also offered a lesson on the German phonemic system as it relates to German vowels. Upon the completion of the study, the data analyzed did not yield any significant results. Students’ scores on the perception and production exercises taken from both the pre- and post-tests remained largely stagnant. This was true for the test scores taken from the experimental and control groups. Though the study outcomes did not produce the hypothesized results, they do underscore the need for long-term explicit pronunciation instruction in the language classroom. </p> <br> <p> </p>

This study focuses on how the cross-language perception of German vowels by native speakers of North American English differs based on various levels of classroom instruction and experience in a German-speaking country. Of special interest is whether more advanced students and those with target country experience have a different cross-language perception of German vowels from naive or less-experienced listeners. It further examines how English-speaking learners perceive German sounds that are not found in English, namely the front-rounded vowels. Study participants were students at Brigham Young University, divided into four groups: those 1) without knowledge of German; 2) in their 3rd semester of German without stay abroad; 3) in their 5th semester of German or above without stay abroad; and 4) in their 5th semester or above with at least 12 months in a German-speaking country. The subjects performed two tasks. While listening to German words, they first selected the English word with the vowel that most closely matched the German vowel heard from a list of English words on the computer screen; and secondly, they rated how much alike the German vowel sounded like the English vowel they chose. The results indicate that level of instruction does indeed affect how subjects perceive German vowels. Moreover, perception of the vowels was to some degree affected by the consonant environment. Finally, it was found that all groups rated the similarity of vowels in a similar manner regardless of experience.