The present study focuses on students at two Swedish secondary schools and the pronunciation errors that are the most prominent during reception and production of specific speech sounds. The primary focus of this degree paper is to establish whether or not certain speech sounds such as e.g. the /tʃ/ sound, which do not occur in the Swedish language in initial position are difficult or not and whether or not they act as an obstacle for Swedish students learning English as their L2. The aim was to establish which specific pronunciation errors that occurred in the L2 language classroom. Since this was the aim, primarily quantitative studies were carried out at two secondary schools in southern Sweden. The results from the four different tests show that the tested Swedish L2 students seem to have a greater difficulty with speech sounds placed in initial position than in final position of a specific word. According to this degree paper this is due to the fact that the Swedish language does not have an equivalent to the difficult speech sound in initial position, therefore making it difficult and often resulting in negative transfer from the L1. Furthermore, the English sounds that posed the biggest problems for the students were ones that sometimes can be found in the Swedish language. These sounds were very similar to native sounds creating a challenge for the Swedish students when perceiving and producing the English sounds. However, it was shown that when these sounds were presented in a context, they proved to be less challenging for the students to receive and produce. Moreover, although the syllabus only mentions that communication should be functional, there still needs to be an element of focus on form in order to become a proficient language user.

TITLE: Error correction of pronunciation of Czech students in German lessons ABSTRACT: This master thesis deals with error correction of pronunciation of Czech students in German lessons. Theoretical part of this thesis explains the importance of phonetics in German lessons, first the term error is defined in general sense and then the thesis focuses on pronunciation errors of Czech speakers. The thesis also deals with methods of pronunciation correction, question what is considered as an error in the field of phonetics and also reflects the error tolerance of teachers while correcting the pronunciation errors. The practical part of the thesis introduces a phonetic experiment that was conducted at elementary and secondary schools in Prague. On the basis of the evaluation of phonetic questionnaires and analysis of the inspections in the classes, the thesis comes to the conclusion about the tolerance threshold of teachers while correcting pronunciation errors of Czech speakers. KEY WORDS: Error, correction of pronunciation errors, autocorrection, tolerance threshold of teachers, type of appeal to error correction

The diploma thesis examines the space, which is devoted to the work with the phenomena of the Russian language phonetics level, both on phonemic and prosodic levels in the selected coursebooks for teaching Russian language at lower and upper secondary schools. The theoretical part deals with the main principles of phonetics didactics and its importance and goals. Next, the approaches to teaching phonetics and the ways in which phonetics can be taught are also defined. Finally, attention is paid to the issue of interference phenomena. The theoretical part of the thesis provides the basis for the practical part of the thesis. The practical part offers the characteristics of the examined coursebooks, which is followed by the results of content analysis of coursebooks. The research focuses on the quantity, i.e. the number and frequency of assignments to form phonetic literacy, and the quality of the assignments. Both textbooks and workbooks of selected coursebooks are subjected to analysis. Methodologically, this work is based on the already realized analysis of the supervisor of this diploma thesis. The results of the analysis are presented at the very end of this part of the work and are provided first for each coursebook, then the result of the comparison of coursebooks with the results of the...

<div>Typing in Japanese is a difficult process for novice and intermediate learners of Japanese due</div><div>to the writing system of the Japanese language and its comparatively involved input method on a</div><div>keyboard. Considering that spell checkers, which enable the user to check and correct their own</div><div>errors and select the correct kanji word, are designed for native speakers, the learners of Japanese</div><div>as a foreign language (JFL) may not recognize their spelling errors and are thus unable to selfcorrect using this built-in tool.</div><div>The present study addresses this problem and conducts an experiment to evaluate the</div><div>effectiveness of a visual feedback tool by its error recognition rate on the learners spelling errors</div><div>when typing in Japanese. The participants were 46 beginner level JFL learners in a third semester</div><div>Japanese course, and the majority consist of native speakers of Chinese or English. The</div><div>participants participated in two experimental sessions. In both sessions, participants were audio</div><div>recorded while reading aloud a list of words in Japanese for pronunciation analysis and screen</div><div>recorded while typing the same list of Japanese words. These recordings are used to analyze the</div><div>characteristics of error patterns in both pronunciation and typing. During the typing sessions, visual</div><div>feedback is provided to the participants via a customized dictionary tool when participants make</div><div>a spelling error.</div><div>The results show that regardless of the native language, the learners have difficulty on certain</div><div>words that include long vowels or double consonants. The recorded error patterns align with the</div><div>findings of previous studies (Hatasa, 2001; Nakazawa, 2003; Tsuchiya, 2000), and the visual</div><div>feedback showed an average error recognition rate of 76% of the participants’ spelling errors. The</div><div>participants also assessed the dictionary tool in terms of usability, and their responses indicate that</div><div>such tools are very useful during typing. The researcher concludes that using a visual feedback</div><div>dictionary tool is effective in recognizing the spelling errors of the learners when typing, and it</div><div>increases the learner’s awareness of spelling accuracy.</div>