Presentation

Learning to Produce Contrastive Focus: A Study of Advanced Learners of English

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Abstract

Contrastive focus carries an iconic meaning and is marked in English by changes in pitch and length. Previous studies have shown that nonnative speakers of English can be taught to recognize contrastive focus (Pennington & Ellis, 2000). This study examined the ability of international teaching assistants at a U.S. university to improve their production of contrastive focus. The subjects took a pretest to measure their recognition and oral production of sentences with contrastive focus. They were then taught about contrastive focus and given opportunities to practice, followed by a posttest identical to the pretest. Results showed high initial recognition scores that were sustained in the posttest. Oral reading performance improved significantly. The subjects’ improvement indicates that contrastive focus is very learnable and that practice during instruction transfers to greater accuracy in controlled production.

How to Cite:

Levis, G. M. & Levis, J., (2011) “Learning to Produce Contrastive Focus: A Study of Advanced Learners of English”, Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Proceedings 3(1).