School of Language and Culture

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https://hdl.handle.net/10292/554
The study of language, society and culture is at the core of the broad spectrum of knowledge known as the humanities. AUT's School of Language and Culture focuses on language in its widest sense — creative writing, English and its relationship with new media, translation and interpreting, international studies and the importance of intercultural competencies, discourse analysis and language teaching.

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Browsing School of Language and Culture by Author "Couper, G"

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    A Conceptual Approach to Teaching L2 Pronunciation: Perception of Word Stress
    (TESL-EJ Publications, ) Couper, G
    Research has demonstrated that pronunciation teaching can be effective, but there have been very few classroom-based studies that have focused on the perception aspect of pronunciation. This article explains the theory and practical application of a conceptual approach and reports on its impact on perception of English word stress. The quasi-experimental study (N=18) involved four fifty-minute lessons on stress in two-syllable words in a high-intermediate ESL class. The experimental (n=10) group was tested pre, post (mid-semester) and delayed (end-semester) and the comparison (n=8) group was tested twice before receiving the instruction in the second half of the semester and being tested again. In line with a conceptual approach, the innovative testing method used moves beyond traditional identification tasks in an attempt to measure changes in participants' conceptual understandings. The tests showed large and significant gains in perception, which were retained eight weeks later. The comparison group made no gains, but after instruction improved on a par with the experimental group. This study presents an effective way of teaching pronunciation concepts, supported by theory, that also leads to improvements in perception. It informs and provides a template for both teachers and researchers who may want to replicate the study.
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    English Language Teachers’ Beliefs and Concerns About Pronunciation Teaching in Uruguay
    (Oasis database, 2019-11-19) Chen, H-Y; Couper, G
    This article reports on the concerns and issues which 28 experienced and well-qualified teachers expressed during individual semi-structured interviews with the researcher. It describes and discusses the participants’ views, pulling together themes representative of a wide range of perspectives on pronunciation teaching. Themes include: teacher anxiety about pronunciation and pronunciation teaching; external factors affecting pronunciation teaching such as curriculum and exam pressures, textbooks, and training received; approaches to teaching and error correction; activities and techniques; and issues related to literacy bias, listen-and-repeat, use of phonemic symbols and pronunciation goals and models. These findings, taken in conjunction with studies of teacher cognition in other contexts, serve to inform all those with an interest in English language teaching, whether they be researchers, teachers or teacher educators, curriculum designers or textbook writers.
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    Teaching and Testing Perception of Word Stress: Many Shades of Perception
    (Iowa State University Digital Press, 2022-09-19) Couper, G
    The teaching and measurement of L2 learners' speech perception has generally focused on high variability phonetic training (HVPT) and phoneme identification tasks. However, it is also necessary to consider how the classroom teacher can assist with perception development. It is argued here that fundamentally,accurate perception requires understanding of the underlying phonological concepts and that once these concepts have been learned they can drive behaviour in both speech production and perception. Because there are many shades of understanding, it is of interest to go beyond a binary assessment of learners' perception. The results presented here are part of a larger project researching the teaching and evaluation of word-stress pronunciation that has been designed for replication. The first rendition found significant quantitative gains were made (Couper, 2022). However, this article discusses the qualitative aspects of the study, attempting to describe and interpret the various shades of conceptual understanding shown by the participants (N=18) and how this changed over time and after instruction. The implications for both researchers and teachers of a new way of testing perception, and the related classroom practices that this testing is designed to reflect, are explored.
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