Presentation

The Impact of Explicit Instruction on the Pronunciation of French Liaisons

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Abstract

In order to determine if the explicit description of the many rules traditionally given to explain French liaisons have an impact on students’ production of liaisons, I compare seven recordings made by 25 undergraduate students enrolled in an intact third-year class on French pronunciation. Recordings were coded for the accurate production of obligatory and prohibited liaisons and results were analyzed using Goldvarb. The analysis in this pilot study shows that liaisons are pronounced correctly around 80% of the time. Explicit instruction seems to have an effect since the first recording (before instruction) is associated with the lowest rate of accurate production while the sixth recording of the semester is associated with the highest. The trajectory of the improvement, however, is not linear with several setbacks during the semester. Another statistically significant factor is the syntactic environment of the liaison. Some environments show a ceiling effect with high accuracy from the beginning. Others shows gains over the course of the semester while some don’t. The discussion centers on which of these contexts seem to improve most after explicit instruction and should, therefore, be included in overt explanations of liaisons.

How to Cite:

Violin-Wigent, A., (2017) “The Impact of Explicit Instruction on the Pronunciation of French Liaisons”, Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Proceedings 9(1).