Traditionally, there has been a lack of emphasis placed on proper second language (L2) pronunciation in recent theoretical perspectives on foreign language pedagogy. Pronunciation is important because it is indicative of a learners level of phonemic awareness, an important component of second language acquisition. Inaccurate pronunciation (and therefore poor phonemic awareness) is often the result of a lack of training in this area due to the focus on grammar and syntax in many language classrooms. One often-neglected method of training students in L2 pronunciation discussed in some theoretical literature is the use of authentic materials in the form of musical recordings. This thesis reports on the results of a lengthy longitudinal study in which the researcher measures the effects of musical training in the foreign language classroom on the acquisition of a series of phonemes in Spanish. Pretest and posttest scores for all participants in both the control and experimental groups were judged by native speakers of Spanish and assessed on a 5-point scale. The range of increase for the experimental groups scores ranged from 5% to 53%, with 33.4% as the mean percent of increase. The results of this study indeed suggest that musical training is an effective manner of increasing learners pronunciation accuracy through developing phonemic awareness in the L2 classroom.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-04102008-134208 |
| Date | 15 April 2008 |
| Creators | White, Kelli |
| Contributors | Hegarty, Michael, King, Jeremy W., Orozco, Rafael |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04102008-134208/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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