En situation de perception audiovisuelle de la parole, comme lors des conversations face-àface,nous pouvons tirer partie des informations visuelles fournies par les mouvements orofaciauxdu locuteur. Ceci améliore l’intelligibilité du discours. L'objectif de ce travail était dedéterminer si ce « bénéfice audiovisuel » permet de mieux identifier les phonèmes quin’existent pas dans notre langue. Nos résultats révèlent que l’utilisation de l’informationvisuelle permet de surmonter les difficultés posées par la surdité phonologique dont noussommes victimes lors d'une présentation auditive seule (Etude 1). Une étude EEG indique quel’apport des informations visuelles au processus d’identification de phonèmes non natifspourrait être dû à une modulation précoce des traitements effectués par le cortex auditifprimaire (Etude 2). En présentation audiovisuelle les phonèmes non natifs donnent lieu à uneP50, ce qui n’est pas observé pour les phonèmes natifs. Il semblerait également quel'expérience linguistique affecte l'utilisation des informations visuelles puisque des bilinguesprécoces semblent moins aptes à exploiter ces indices pour distinguer des phonèmes qui neleur sont pas familiers (Etude 3). Enfin, l’étude de l’identification de consonnes plosivesnatives avec une tâche de dévoilement progressif nous a permis d’évaluer la contributionconjointe et séparée des informations auditives et visuelles (Etude 4). Nous avons observé quel’apport de la modalité visuelle n’est pas systématique et que la prédictibilité de l’identité duphonème dépend de la saillance visuelle des mouvements articulatoires du locuteur. / During audiovisual speech perception, like in face-to-face conversations, we can takeadvantage of the visual information conveyed by the speaker's oro-facial gestures. Thisenhances the intelligibility of the utterance. The aim of this work was to determine whetherthis “audiovisual benefit” can improve the identification of phonemes that do not exist in ourmother tongue. Our results revealed that the visual information contributes to overcome thephonological deafness phenomenon we experience in an audio only situation (Study 1). AnERP study indicates that this benefit could be due to the modulation of early processing in theprimary auditory cortex (Study 2). The audiovisual presentation of non native phonemesgenerates a P50 that is not observed for native phonemes. The linguistic background affectsthe way we use visual information. Early bilinguals take less advantage of the visual cuesduring the processing of unfamiliar phonemes (Study 3). We examined the identificationprocesses of native plosive consonants with a gating paradigm to evaluate the differentialcontribution of auditory and visual cues across time (Study 4). We observed that theaudiovisual benefit is not systematic. Phoneme predictability depends on the visual saliencyof the articulatory movements of the speaker.

The effectiveness of teaching synthetic phonics to EFL students Abstract The diploma considers the effectiveness of systematic and explicit Synthetic Phonics teaching methods in the EFL learning environment. The theoretical section examines foreign language methodology - the field of reading acquisition in young learners, especially English language pronunciation. It studies how systematic explicit Phonics approach can help in learning how to read and pronounce words correctly. It explores the similarities and differences between teaching Synthetic and Analytic Phonics, and compares them. Furthermore it discusses whether synthetic phonics is useful not only for native English speakers, but also for EFL students. The practical part focuses on testing two groups of children who have different experiences of phonics. The data were collected in Prague and the Hradec Králové region. There were 62 students tested out of whom 33 were in a control group and 29 were taught using a systematic Phonics approach. A specially designed test consisting of two different activities was applied. It tested word reading, non-word pronouncing and sight word recognition. The aim of the research was to find out whether explicit Synthetic Phonics teaching instruction helps not only native English speakers, but also EFL learners in...

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T19:33:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 VANESSA CARRASCO SANTOS.pdf: 568112 bytes, checksum: 7d6197c30bcd8602e15b311c046c0af8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-11-25 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This dissertation is situated in the area of Portuguese Language Description and limited aspects of nasal vowels articulation pre, post and tonic in Brazilian Portuguese. There has been concern in the quantitative and qualitative description of the standardized pronunciation, by TV Globo, the nasal vowels of Brazilian Portuguese. The aim of this work is to contribute to studies of identity of a standard pronunciation of Brazilian Portuguese, in order to provide the "desestrangeiração" students, speakers of other languages who are learning Brazilian Portuguese. It has specific goals for: 1 - The qualitative and quantitative description of the pronunciation of nasal vowels pre-stress; 2 - The qualitative and quantitative description of the pronunciation of nasal vowels post-tonic; 3 - The qualitative and quantitative description of the pronunciation of nasal vowels tonic; The procedure of analysis was descriptive and explanatory materials being collected in the database of pronunciation stander, file this one from Prof. Dr. Regina Celia Pagliuchi da Silveira. The results enabled the formulation of rules for the pronunciation of Brazilian Portuguese idiom: 1-The pre-stress nasal vowels are articulated following the control of the letter; 2-The vowels post-tonic is made by nasal vowel or the vowel reduction or desnasalação; 3-Vowels tonic is made by nasal vowels monotongações or ditongações, depending on the number of syllables in the word, The 4-ditongações preferably are increasing; We conclude that there is a standardized pronunciation for the nasal vowels of Brazilian Portuguese and this is controlled by phonological rules, phonetic and morfofonológicas / Esta dissertação situa-se na área da Descrição de Língua Portuguesa e delimitada aspectos articulatórios das vogais nasais pré, pós e tônicas do português brasileiro. Tem-se por tema, a descrição quantitativa e qualitativa da pronúncia standardizada, pela TV Globo, das vogais nasais do português brasileiro. O objetivo geral deste trabalho é contribuir com os estudos identitários de uma pronúncia standar do português brasileiro, a fim de propiciar a desestrangeiração de alunos, falantes de outras línguas que estão aprendendo o português brasileiro. Tem-se por objetivos específicos: 1- A descrição qualitativa e quantitativa da pronúncia das vogais nasais prétônicas; 2- A descrição qualitativa e quantitativa da pronúncia das vogais nasais pós tônicas; 3- A descrição qualitativa e quantitativa da pronúncia das vogais nasais tônicas; O procedimento de análise foi descritivo e explicativo, sendo os materiais coletados no banco de dados da pronúncia standar, arquivo este da Profª Drª Regina Célia Pagliuchi da Silveira. Os resultados obtidos possibilitaram a formulação de regras para a pronúncia idiomática do português brasileiro: 1-As vogais pré-tônicas nasais são articuladas seguindo o controle da letra; 2-As vogais pós-tônicas são realizadas pela vogal nasal ou pela redução vocálica ou desnasalação; 3-As vogais tônicas são realizadas por vogais nasais monotongações ou ditongações, dependendo do nº de sílabas da palavra; 4-As ditongações preferencialmente são crescentes; Conclui-se que há uma pronúncia standardizada para as vogais nasais do português brasileiro e esta é controlada por regras fonológicas, fonéticas e morfofonológicas

The effectiveness of teaching synthetic phonics to EFL students Abstract This diploma thesis deals with the effectiveness of systematic and explicit Synthetic Phonics teaching methods in the EFL learning environment. The theoretical part of the text investigates the similarities and differences between teaching Synthetic and Analytic Phonics. Whether synthetic phonics is essential not only for native English speakers, but also for EFL students is examined. Furthermore, it introduces the changes and development in phonics teaching in a historical context. The practical section describes the test preparation and presents how the research methodology was applied. It also examines the data collected from testing four groups of Prague primary school children who have different experience of phonics. Last but not least, the empirical section presents the results of 60 students' readings and analyses their performances concluding with an assessment as to whether explicit Synthetic Phonics teaching instruction helps EFL students in pronouncing words or not. Key words: synthetic phonics, analytic phonics, phonemes, graphemes, pronunciation and articulation, spelling, reading, writing

MA / Department of Communication and Applied Language Studies / Orthographic symbols of languages represent specific speech sounds with their specific phonetic qualities. This research aimed at analysing orthographic representations of murmured speech sounds in the Xitsonga orthography. The qualitative approach was employed to examine the production of murmured speech sounds and their orthographic representations in Xitsonga. The analysis was based on data collected from interviews with speakers of the Xitsonga language, Xitsonga educators and lecturers who are themselves Xitsonga-speaking, Xitsonga authors and Xitsonga subject specialists, and also from existing literature by Xitsonga authors and language scholars. The study made recommendations that will help the development and revitalisation of the Xitsonga language and also benefit the speakers of the language as well as scholars and linguists.

No description available.

O presente estudo teve como objetivo principal aplicar a canção em sala de aula, para medir o seu grau de influência na aprendizagem do aluno no contexto de LE, particularmente da língua alemã. Com base no levantamento bibliográfico, foi constatado que a canção é uma ferramenta importante no ensino-aprendizagem de LE. Porém, sentiu-se falta da descrição dos resultados a partir da sua aplicação em sala de aula. Nos livros didáticos e em sala de aula, há, geralmente, canções elaboradas. No entanto, para despertar a motivação dos alunos da faixa etária de 13-14 anos das 8as séries de uma escola particular de São Paulo, houve a preocupação em selecionar uma canção autêntica que correspondesse ao universo de interesses dos jovens. Antes da escolha da canção houve a preocupação em definir a canção autêntica, segundo Parnitzke (1997). Dentre as canções autênticas, foi adotada a canção popular, que vai ao encontro dos interesses dos jovens. Dessa forma compreende-se por canção popular uma melodia cantada, com uma estrutura conjugada de língua e música, que compõem uma unidade. As suas partes melódicas são fáceis de cantar e de memorizar, as entoações e o ritmo orientam-se pelo texto. Engloba os gêneros musicais cantados, que são produzidos e divulgados em massa. A escolha da canção popular iniciou com um questionário respondido por jovens alemães da mesma faixa etária do público-alvo, passando pela definição do objetivo de aprendizagem para a sua aplicação e pela consideração dos critérios de escolha de canções estabelecidos por Setzer (2003), entre outros autores. O objetivo de aprendizagem com a canção concentrou-se na identificação de fonemas vocálicos característicos da língua alemã, ausentes no português do Brasil, visando uma melhor compreensão na comunicação oral. Para medir o grau de aprendizagem dos fonemas vocálicos, optou-se pela aplicação de um ditado antes e após o uso da canção em quatro grupos, dos quais um representou o grupo-controle, ou seja, não realizou a atividade com a canção. Após a aplicação da canção e a realização do segundo ditado verificou-se que, embora ainda ocorressem diversos erros ortográficos, houve uma melhora na compreensão auditiva refletida na representação de grafia dos fonemas específicos da língua alemã pelos alunos. Ao mesmo tempo, verificou-se que no grupocontrole essa melhora não ocorreu. Diante disso, conclui-se que a canção é um instrumento importante para a aprendizagem da LE. / The application of songs as class room activity, aiming at the measurement of their influence, presumed positive, on the pupils learning process of foreign languages, is the main goal of this study. From the literature review one concludes that songs are considered useful foreign language teaching tools. Nevertheless, there is a lack of measurements showing how effectively music influences the learning process. Text books usually present songs which are deliberately composed for teaching purposes. Considering 13-14 year old students, an authentic song, and thus motivating since it brings up young peoples concerns, was selected. Prior to the choice, Parnitzkes (1997) definition of authentic song was presented and discussed. Among the universe of authentic songs, the so called pop music was chosen, as it meets young peoples expectations. Pop song is understood as a sung tune with an integrated structure of music and language which composes a unity. Its melody is easily sung and memorized, its intonation and rhythm are guided by the lyrics. It comprises songs that are mass orientated and broadcast. The song selection process began with a questionnaire completed by young German students aged like the ones considered in this research, followed by the definition of the learning goal and of the choice criteria proposed by Setzer (2003), among others. The learning goal was focused on the identification of German language characteristic vocal phonemes which are absent in the Portuguese language spoken in Brasil, aiming at the improvement of listening comprehension skills. Four groups of students were considered, one of which was the control group that did not have contact with the song, and in order to measure the learning progress on the phonemes, the students did one dictation prior to and after the song activity. An analysis of the errors made by the students on both dictations showed that, excepting the students of the control group, there was an improvement in their listening comprehension skills, measured by the reduction of spelling mistakes. According to this, one confirms that the song is an important foreign language learning tool

O presente estudo teve como objetivo principal aplicar a canção em sala de aula, para medir o seu grau de influência na aprendizagem do aluno no contexto de LE, particularmente da língua alemã. Com base no levantamento bibliográfico, foi constatado que a canção é uma ferramenta importante no ensino-aprendizagem de LE. Porém, sentiu-se falta da descrição dos resultados a partir da sua aplicação em sala de aula. Nos livros didáticos e em sala de aula, há, geralmente, canções elaboradas. No entanto, para despertar a motivação dos alunos da faixa etária de 13-14 anos das 8as séries de uma escola particular de São Paulo, houve a preocupação em selecionar uma canção autêntica que correspondesse ao universo de interesses dos jovens. Antes da escolha da canção houve a preocupação em definir a canção autêntica, segundo Parnitzke (1997). Dentre as canções autênticas, foi adotada a canção popular, que vai ao encontro dos interesses dos jovens. Dessa forma compreende-se por canção popular uma melodia cantada, com uma estrutura conjugada de língua e música, que compõem uma unidade. As suas partes melódicas são fáceis de cantar e de memorizar, as entoações e o ritmo orientam-se pelo texto. Engloba os gêneros musicais cantados, que são produzidos e divulgados em massa. A escolha da canção popular iniciou com um questionário respondido por jovens alemães da mesma faixa etária do público-alvo, passando pela definição do objetivo de aprendizagem para a sua aplicação e pela consideração dos critérios de escolha de canções estabelecidos por Setzer (2003), entre outros autores. O objetivo de aprendizagem com a canção concentrou-se na identificação de fonemas vocálicos característicos da língua alemã, ausentes no português do Brasil, visando uma melhor compreensão na comunicação oral. Para medir o grau de aprendizagem dos fonemas vocálicos, optou-se pela aplicação de um ditado antes e após o uso da canção em quatro grupos, dos quais um representou o grupo-controle, ou seja, não realizou a atividade com a canção. Após a aplicação da canção e a realização do segundo ditado verificou-se que, embora ainda ocorressem diversos erros ortográficos, houve uma melhora na compreensão auditiva refletida na representação de grafia dos fonemas específicos da língua alemã pelos alunos. Ao mesmo tempo, verificou-se que no grupocontrole essa melhora não ocorreu. Diante disso, conclui-se que a canção é um instrumento importante para a aprendizagem da LE. / The application of songs as class room activity, aiming at the measurement of their influence, presumed positive, on the pupils learning process of foreign languages, is the main goal of this study. From the literature review one concludes that songs are considered useful foreign language teaching tools. Nevertheless, there is a lack of measurements showing how effectively music influences the learning process. Text books usually present songs which are deliberately composed for teaching purposes. Considering 13-14 year old students, an authentic song, and thus motivating since it brings up young peoples concerns, was selected. Prior to the choice, Parnitzkes (1997) definition of authentic song was presented and discussed. Among the universe of authentic songs, the so called pop music was chosen, as it meets young peoples expectations. Pop song is understood as a sung tune with an integrated structure of music and language which composes a unity. Its melody is easily sung and memorized, its intonation and rhythm are guided by the lyrics. It comprises songs that are mass orientated and broadcast. The song selection process began with a questionnaire completed by young German students aged like the ones considered in this research, followed by the definition of the learning goal and of the choice criteria proposed by Setzer (2003), among others. The learning goal was focused on the identification of German language characteristic vocal phonemes which are absent in the Portuguese language spoken in Brasil, aiming at the improvement of listening comprehension skills. Four groups of students were considered, one of which was the control group that did not have contact with the song, and in order to measure the learning progress on the phonemes, the students did one dictation prior to and after the song activity. An analysis of the errors made by the students on both dictations showed that, excepting the students of the control group, there was an improvement in their listening comprehension skills, measured by the reduction of spelling mistakes. According to this, one confirms that the song is an important foreign language learning tool

Aim, of this master thesis is training of phoneme recognizer with phoneme set, which have been made by merging of several phoneme sets, which are containted in SpeechDat-E database and find out if this kind of recognizer will have better results than recognizers which were trained on one language. This work also deals with phoneme sets, principles of phoneme recognition using recognizers based on artifical neural networks, language identification and merging of given phoneme sets. Also is described process of training phoneme recognizer and phoneme recognition.

Exploring the teaching of Grade 1 – 3 English spelling using the Sound Reading System: A case of a Namibian primary school Spelling is crucial for literacy development in children and therefore needs to be taught effectively during the primary grades. A plethora of studies on spelling instruction have been carried out to shed light on the importance of applying scientifically based methods. This study investigated the implementation of the Sound Reading System (SRS) for teaching spelling in Grades 1, 2 and 3 in Namibia – a country where English is mostly acquired as a taught subject. A qualitative design was used to examine the application of the SRS in whole-class instruction in the Erongo region of Namibia. Using observations, interviews and document analysis, data was obtained from one school where the SRS was used to teach spelling. Three teachers were observed and subsequently interviewed on the teaching of English spelling. The findings revealed that, after using the SRS, teachers felt their own alphabetic knowledge had improved and their approach to teaching spelling had changed, leading to an awareness of what meaningful spelling activities entail. They felt that the methodology had provided a systematic approach to their teaching. The teachers were convinced that there is a link between spelling and reading and the methodology provided an opportunity to teach these skills simultaneously. In terms of the SRS, an integrated approach is applied whereby the target sound becomes the focal point of language development to provide an opportunity for skill transfer. However, the teachers found it challenging to slot in all the activities in a timetable that does not cater specifically for spelling. Another challenge perceived by the teachers was the effective teaching of sight words. This study recommends teamwork between teachers and parents to ensure that all SRS activities are completed successfully at home. Furthermore, it emphasises the importance of applying scientific methods in classroom practice. It further suggests that teaching the full range of spellings in the SRS be continued in Grades 4 and 5 to reinforce a deeper understanding of English orthography. Lastly, it is suggested that higher institutions link teacher training to curricular outcomes. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / M. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)