Thanks or tanks: training with tactile cues improves learners’ accuracy of English interdental consonants in an oral reading task

Ozakin, Alev Senem; Xi, Xiaotong; Li, Peng; Prieto Vives, Pilar, 1965-

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2022.2107522

Thanks or tanks: training with tactile cues improves learners’ accuracy of English interdental consonants in an oral reading task

Citation

Ozakin AS, Xi X, Li P, Prieto P. Thanks or tanks: training with tactile cues improves learners’ accuracy of English interdental consonants in an oral reading task. Lang Learn Dev. 2023;19(4):404-19. DOI: 10.1080/15475441.2022.2107522

Abstract

The present study investigates whether training second language pronunciation with tactile cues facilitates the production of non-native sounds involving accessible articulatory features. In a between-subjects experiment with a pretest-training-posttest design, 50 Turkish learners of English received audiovisual training on a set of target words and sentences containing two English interdental fricatives, /θ/ and /ð/, in one of two conditions, tactile and non-tactile. The tactile condition involved self-touching the tongue as it protruded during pronunciation of the two target sounds. Participants’ pronunciation performance was assessed through a word-imitation task, a sentence-imitation task, and a discourse reading task. Results showed that while both training conditions helped learners to improve their pronunciation performance in all three tasks, the tactile condition triggered greater improvements in the discourse reading task. These results extend previous findings on the benefits of tactile input for speech perception and suggest the efficacy of multisensory training paradigms for improving second language pronunciation.