An Experimental Look at the Production-Perception Relationship for Arabic-Speaking Learners of English (February 2014)
The Department of English is pleased to present a lecture byDr. Gary Linebaugh, Assistant Professor of English at AUS.
In L1 acquisition, perception precedes production of speech sounds. It is widely believed that a similar precedence relationship necessarily holds for L2 acquisition (Krashen, 1996; Ur, 2008). Our results cast doubt on that belief by showing that training Arabic speaking learners in the production of perceptually confusable English sounds leads to improvement in their ability to perceptually discriminate between those sounds. Thus, production can lead and inform perception. The finding that instruction in pronunciation enhances perception has important implications for second language teaching. Extensive exposure to the second language may bring about the desired results regarding pronunciation and perception of many second language sounds, but for certain perceptually confusable sounds, explicit instruction in production is advisable.
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