A research-based phonetic trainer for early learners of L2 English 1

French government’s educational policies favour an approach to diverse foreign languages in pre-elementary French classes (MENJ 2023). Foreign languages are said to be acquired while playing, thinking, trying, memorizing and reactivating linguistic units. (MENJ 2019).Notwithstanding the major challenge faced by French-speaking early learners of the British English phonemic inventory — that comprises 20 vowel sounds and 24 consonant sounds — we provide a reflexive account of a recent teaching and learning experiment carried out in a Parisian pre-elementary school. As an extension of what was designed and experimented by Vaissière & Exare (2023) for 6-year-old children in a Norman elementary school, a Cleanaccent© phonetic training program was designed to teach English pronunciation in a Parisian « Petite section de maternelle ». The 27 pre-schoolers involved in the fifteen 30-minute classes are 3 to 4 years old. Since 2020, the material has been augmented and improved while the program now uses fewer words (from 4 to 8 words for level 1 in Cycle 1 ; from 8 to 16 words for level 2 in Cycle 2 classes). First, the linguistic input still relies on : i ) minimal pairs (sheep ~ ship), ii) pairs of words containing a pair of vowels (/e/: red hen), iii) an IPA illustrated vowel chart, iv) L1-L2 cognates (panda, train) to favour phonological awareness and sensitivity to allophonic variation. Besides, phonologization is supported by L2 multiple-speaker auditory input ; passive learning is made possible by relaxation exercises ; and gestures are used for vowel articulation and word prosody. Finally, new music files and songs have been thoughtfully designed to contribute to the acquisition of English rhythm and prosody. Our material, comprising pictures, lottos, card games, board games, video files and sound files, is available online and in paper format to avoid using blue-light screens. This talk is a 20-minute presentation of our concrete, research-based, language teaching program. As French government has just published a new syllabus for language teaching that is bound to be implemented in September 2025 (MENJ 2024), this English phonology course reconciles native and foreign language acquisition.