Effects of explicit phonetics instruction and a podcasting project on L2 Spanish vowel quality production

Abstract

The current study tested changes in the production of the Spanish vowels /a e i o u/ over a semester of study in intermediate second language Spanish learners (first language English) enrolled in either a Spanish phonetics (n = 17) or conversation (n = 12) course. All participants completed an oral text reading task at pretest and posttest time and a podcasting project throughout the semester, but only students in the phonetics course received explicit phonetics instruction. Results found group by time change for F2 values of /a/ and /e/, and for both changes, the instructed group’s values but not those of the uninstructed group were more nativelike at posttest time. These results show improvement over time on vowel quality production by the instructed group, and descriptive results found positive attitudes by both groups toward the project and other promising vowel production changes by the uninstructed group.