An investigation of the effectiveness of explicit phonetic instruction on Cantonese EFL learners’ segmental pronunciation

Abstract

 This study examines the effectiveness of explicit phonetic instruction on Cantonese EFL learners’ segmental pronunciation. The study is motivated by the lack of evidence on whether Cantonese EFL learners would gain a greater improvement when they are taught under explicit phonetic instruction. This research was conducted primarily: 1) to provide theoretical insights into the effect of Consensus Model of Second Language Acquisition (Ellis, 1999) with the embedded explicit phonetic instruction, and 2) to establish an effective instructional framework for the pedagogical development in English pronunciation class in Hong Kong. To achieve these outcomes, an experimental study was conducted to examine how the Cantonese EFL learners progress under different approaches of English pronunciation teaching. Thirty-eight Cantonese EFL learners were randomly assigned to either an experimental group (n = 18) or a control group (n = 20). Each group attended a four-hour English pronunciation workshop. One particular difference between the two groups was the experimental group received explicit phonetic instruction regarding the English segmental sounds whereas the control group did not receive such instruction. For the data collection of the study, a pretest and a posttest were conducted in the classroom setting in which the participants were invited to complete a reading aloud task. The audio-recorded speech samples by participants were analyzed for a further examination. Results revealed that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in the posttest at the end of the workshop. In view of the findings, this study concluded with the suggestion that the implementation of explicit phonetic instruction in Hong Kong English curriculum should be fostered.