<p>This study empirically investigated the effect of semester-long shadowing practice with in-class pronunciation training on L2 Japanese learners’ oral fluency and oral proficiency. The participants were 30 intermediate JFL university students at a U.S. university and participated in the experiment as a part of their coursework. This study deployed a pre-post research design and analyzed students’ improvement of oral fluency and oral proficiency quantitatively. </p> <p>Based on the previous finding that there is a lack of pronunciation teaching in current Japanese language education and the effectiveness of shadowing for various L2 skills including fluency, the present research conducted in-class pronunciation training along with shadowing practice as assignments. Then, the researcher examined if shadowing practice improves learners’ fluency and oral proficiency. The experiment was conducted with a control group and experimental group (shadowing and in-class pronunciation training). A read aloud task and a storytelling task were employed as pretest and posttest. </p> <p>The results found that there were no significant improvements in speed fluency or repair fluency in either the read aloud task or storytelling task. However, in the storytelling task, one breakdown fluency measure, silent pause ratio within AS-unit showed significant improvement. This indicates the learners acquired a more native-like pausing pattern by shadowing practice. The difference between the groups in oral proficiency was close to significant, and it suggests the two treatments may be effective for overall skills. </p> <p>Along with the quantitative analysis of students’ improvement, this study reports students’ perceptions toward the shadowing practice and in-class pronunciation training. The results showed that more than 83% of the students found the two treatments effective, and approximately 83% of the students would like to continue the shadowing practice if they had another opportunity.</p>

This degree project is a quantitative study of dialogues and speaking exercises in twelve EFL textbooks used in secondary schools in Sweden. The chosen textbooks are from the four textbook series Happy, Time, Whats’s Up? and Wings Base Book. The aim is to investigate if there is any over-representation of female or male characters in the textbook dialogues. We will be looking at four different typologies, namely the number of initiated dialogues, turns taken, number of characters and words used. Previous research concerning classroom interaction, scholastic performance, textbooks and textbook dialogues is included to provide some background into this area. The findings show over-representation exists in all the textbook series in various degrees of both female and male characters. This degree project maps the over-representation of female and male characters both in the four textbook series and the twelve individual textbooks. Our results will show that while a textbook series might over-represent one gender it does not necessarily mean that the individual textbook within that series over-represents the same gender. The findings make it clear that educators need to be aware of gender-biased textbook dialogues in order to be better equipped to ensure equal opportunities for all learners.