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Preliminary Results on the Development of the Perception of Spanish /e/ and /ei/ by Heritage Learners vs. L2 Learners of Spanish in the Classroom
| Content Provider | MDPI |
|---|---|
| Author | Isasa, Ane Icardo |
| Copyright Year | 2022 |
| Description | This exploratory study gives a first glance at the development of the perception of the Spanish /e/-/ei/ contrast by heritage learners in comparison to that of L2 learners in the classroom. To this end, two types of semester-long, explicit phonetic instruction training are compared: High Phonetic Variability Training (HPVT) with exposure to multiple sources of speech, and regular standalone phonetics courses with low variability of speech input (LPVT). Data from two identical pre-test and post-test ABX perceptual discrimination tasks were obtained from 27 students, as well as 7 control speakers whose primary language is Spanish. Results show that heritage learners perceive the contrast better than L2 learners, and that HPVT significantly improves the perception of the /e/-/ei/ contrast. Although heritage learners perform close to a native ceiling and do not significantly differ from native controls, the improvement from pre-test to post-test is larger in heritage learners enrolled in HPVT than LPVT training. These results suggest that, although the discrimination accuracy of Spanish /e/ and /ei/ is already high for heritage learners at the pre-test stage, High Phonetic Variability Training can be beneficial in the perceptual development of their heritage language, even matching their accuracy to that of native speakers. |
| Starting Page | 7 |
| e-ISSN | 2226471X |
| DOI | 10.3390/languages7010007 |
| Journal | Languages |
| Issue Number | 1 |
| Volume Number | 7 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | MDPI |
| Publisher Date | 2022-01-04 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Languages Language Studies Heritage Language Perception High Phonetic Variability Training Explicit Phonetic Instruction Classroom Acquisition Spanish Phonology |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
