In recent years, increasing attention has been placed on providing pronunciation instruction that meets the communicative needs of nonnative speakers (NNSs) of English. Empirical research and pronunciation materials writers suggest that teaching suprasegmentals before segmentals to intermediate and advanced NNSs could be more beneficial in a shorter period of time. However, the majority of the materials available that emphasize suprasegmentals are textbook-based, relying principally on classroom settings and teacher feedback. The purpose of Pronunciation Progress: Stress in American English is to provide NNSs with pronunciation materials for self-access and student-directed learning environments. These materials are designed as a series of computerized modules that focus on one element of suprasegmentals – stress. Pronunciation Progress: Stress in American English is divided into three units: syllable unit, word unit, and sentence unit. Each unit consists of different sections that include explanations of the content, examples, and practice exercises with immediate feedback. Learners can listen to native speakers on the computer and navigate through the content at their own pace, focusing on specific areas that they deem important for their learning. A pilot study was conducted over a three week period to evaluate these materials. Students at Brigham Young University's English Language Center provided written and oral feedback detailing their reactions to the materials. Participants responded to surveys for each of the three units and participated in a focus group that gathered comments regarding the overall usefulness and design of the program. Overall reactions to the program were very positive. In general, participants responded favorably to each of the three units for statements regarding ease of use, level of enjoyment, clarity of directions, newness of knowledge, interest of practice exercises, understanding of examples, and desires to practice outside of the lab. Many of the students said that they enjoyed all of the units, and all but one who participated in the focus group commented that they liked the sentence unit the most. Student comments also implied that participants had a raised awareness of features of stress in American English.

Second language learners of English often experience difficulties in English lexical stress perception. This has traditionally been attributed to transfer of prosodic unit or settings from their first language (L1). Similarly, the problem of Chinese learners with English stress perception was assumed to arise from tonal transfer. However, little research has been devoted to the investigation of the phonetic details of second language (L2) stress perception. The present research focuses on the perception of English lexical stress by Chinese learners of English. The purpose of this study is to reveal the use of acoustic cues in stress perception by Chinese learners of English. In the experiment, F0, duration and intensity were manipulated, each with five steps, on three disyllabic nonsense words to result in a total of 375 nonsense tokens. A group of native speakers of English (NE) and a group of Chinese learners of English (CE) participated in the study and judged whether the stress was on the first or second syllable in the test stimuli. The responses of Chinese learners of English in stress judgment were compared against the baseline of native English speakers. The statistical tests of reliance measures and logistic regression models were used in data analysis. Results indicated that, similar to NE participants, performance by CE participants showed systematic variation as a result of the manipulation of the three acoustic cues. However, CEs were different from NEs in their reliance on the three cues. CE had significantly lower duration and intensity reliance scores but significantly higher F0 than NE. In logistic regression analysis, compared to the NE group, F0 contributed most to the CE models, while the contribution of duration and intensity was minimal. It is concluded from this study that while all three cues have significant effects on stress perception for native English speakers, only F0 has a decisive effect on stress judgments by Chinese learners of English. This study reveals that, rather than transfer of tone at the phonological level, there is transfer of reliance on F0 in the acquisition of L2 English stress. It is suggested that the investigation of phonetic details of learners’ problems with L2 stress acquisition is necessary for L2 speech learning theories and also for L2 stress teaching.