21.4719, Diss: Lang Acq/Phonetics: Tice: 'The Priority Method for Korean ESL...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-21-4719. Tue Nov 23 2010. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 21.4719, Diss: Lang Acq/Phonetics: Tice: 'The Priority Method for Korean ESL...'

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1)
Date: 15-Nov-2010
From: Bradley Tice [paulatice at att.net]
Subject: The Priority Method for Korean ESL Students: Consonants and vowels
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 20:20:21
From: Bradley Tice [paulatice at att.net]
Subject: The Priority Method for Korean ESL Students: Consonants and vowels

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Institution: St Clements University 
Program: Teaching English as a Second Language 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 1998 

Author: Bradley S. Tice

Dissertation Title: The Priority Method for Korean ESL Students: Consonants and 
vowels 

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition
                     Phonetics

Subject Language(s): English (eng)
                     Korean (kor)


Dissertation Director(s):
B. Rundle

Dissertation Abstract:

The Priority Method, which evolved from theories from first and second language acquisition and child language development, is a language sound pattern testing, diagnostic and retraining system that focuses on traditional and individual segmental sound pattern errors in the production of phonemes of a target language by L2 learners. This theory differs from other SLA theories in that it concentrates on areas of weakness in L2 acquisition and prioritizes common areas of transitional errors from L1 to L2, that commonly occur in the phonetic production and delivery of the ESL student, and focuses on the key areas that have significant effects on the ESL student. This thesis proposes that the traditional transfer errors of the phonemic type can be measured on a theoretical model, via Contrastive Analysis, and on an individual level, those specific to the L2 speaker.

The subjects in the research comprised of three adults speakers all of whom were over 18 years of age. Specifically, there were two Asian ESL speakers, male and female, and one female Hispanic ESL speaker. Each subject was made to read aloud from a printed English paragraph into a tape recording device at different speech rates - normal, fast and slow. The researcher then examined the recordings against the English printed paragraphs and marked all variations from the printed norms of the target L2 based on the phonemic level via the printed English alphabet.

All three subjects scored not less than 90% accuracy in both rate and type of transfer of phonemic errors according to the theoretical projections of traditional Contrastive Analysis literature.  This represented less than 5% of the total sound system of phonemic types possible and focused on traditional 'fossilization' points for adult ESL learners. When the same three test subjects had been retrained on specific phonemic error types encountered for each individual ESL student, the correction of these 'redundant' phonemic errors disappeared in later re-evaluations of L2 speaker proficiency using the same printed material used for the initial evaluation. This and other findings of the study have strong implications for the notion of permanent fossilization of phonemic transfer errors and give strong support for theoretical applications of segmented sound system analysis. 




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