How're Ya Goin' Mate? The Role of Explicit Instruction on the Development of Phonological Awareness in a Second Language

One key aspect of speaking a second language is phonological awareness, which involves storing information in the phonological memory and retrieving stored phonological codes from the memory. Connected speech processing enhances phonological awareness in a second language. This quasi-experimental study investigates whether explicit instruction on connected speech components affects phonological awareness of Turkish high school students learning English as a foreign language. To this aim, an experimental group of tenth graders received a 5-week- explicit instruction on four connected speech elements; assimilation, elision, catenation and intrusion, through tailored-made teaching materials whereas a control group of tenth graders in the same school did not receive such instruction. Both groups took a phonological awareness test before and after the treatment. To analyse responses to the phonological awareness test within and between groups, Independent and Paired-samples t-tests were performed using SPSS. The results indicated that explicit instruction in connected speech led to significant improvements in the perception of phonological awareness both within the experimental group and when compared to the control group. The take home message is that integrating pronunciation training through explicit instruction in the high school curriculum could improve perceptions about phonological awareness and connected speech processing as well as pedagogical practices in second language classrooms.