Raising Awareness Of The English Phononogy

Résumé: Teaching pronunciation becomes one of the core basics for learning a foreign language. Attempting to reach a native like-accent imposes on teachers to try their best to raise their learners 'awareness concerning the different aspects of the spoken language. Although many studies have been carried out on pronunciation, the role of explicit phonetic instruction and pronunciation correction practice has received a scant consideration. This research paper aims at examining the impact of explicit phonetic instruction and pronunciation correction practice on the acquisition of aspirated voiceless plosives /P/, /t/ and /k/ in word-initial position. To achieve the aforementioned goal an empirical study has been conducted where 20 LMD students at the department of English at the University of Oum El Bouaghi in their second year have been involved. The study sample has been split into two groups: an experimental group which has been exposed to an explicit teaching of the phonological rules that restrict the production and the pronunciation of the aspirated variants in word-initial position and a control group which has been taught traditionally (received no instruction). Both the experimental and the control group have been pretested. The pretest includes lists of words with /p/, / t/ and/ k/ in the onset position. After the treatment period, both groups have been post- tested. Results highly revealed that there is a positive relationship between the research variables. That is to say, using explicit phonetic instruction and pronunciation correction practice effects positively the acquisition and production of the aspirated variants/p/, / t / and/ k/ when occurring at the beginning of the word.

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