The interplay among attention, self-esteem, beliefs and L2 pronunciation

The present study intends to investigate whether sustained attention, self-esteem, and beliefs about second language (L2) pronunciation and instruction interact with L2 pronunciation assessed by a reading task. Thirty-nine eighteen-year-old high school Brazilian students participated in the study and answered a beliefs form, Rosenberg’s self-esteem scale (Rosenberg, 1965), and read a sixty-nine-word paragraph. They were all late learners of English as an L2. Twenty-nine participants took the d2-R test which is a Bourdon-style cancelation test validated to assess sustained attention. Statistical analyses were run on the data to verify correlations and effects of different variables. Results indicated that liking English correlated negatively with number of mispronunciations produced. Also, the different processes assessed by the d2-r test yielded different correlations with the different categories of mispronunciation.