The effect of practice frequency on pronunciation gains in a self-paced karaoke training with high school ESL students

Abstract

Research shows that music can assist in second language pronunciation instruction, and that the use of familiar melodies can further bootstrap phonological acquisition. This study tested whether a self-paced karaoke training can improve English pronunciation among 52 Spanish-Catalan bilingual high schoolers aged 14-16. After two in-class tutorial sessions participants voluntarily completed between zero and five approximately ten minute long, self-paced karaoke training sessions over one week using English songs with familiar melodies (N of students with 0-2 training sessions = 22; N of students with 3-5 training sessions = 30). Pronunciation was assessed before and after training for comprehensibility, fluency, and accentedness, using sentence imitation and reading tasks with both trained and untrained materials. Results showed that, while both groups improved, students who completed three to five sessions improved significantly more across all measures and tasks with trained phrases (except comprehensibility in reading), and in comprehensibility for untrained phrases in the imitation task, compared to the zero to two sessions group. A satisfaction questionnaire at post-test showed that 53.9% of participants felt the training had improved their pronunciation, and 79.5% were satisfied with the learning experience. The results suggest that a short karaoke training using familiar songs can effectively enhance second language pronunciation in adolescent learners.