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Colgate Professors' Research Sheds Light on Foreign-Language LearningHAMILTON, N.Y., Apr 01, 2010 (ASCRIBE NEWS via COMTEX) -- For Japanese learners of English, there is difficulty producing distinct "r" and "l" sounds, as in "rake" and "lake." In fact, these learners cannot even hear that these two words are different. In turn, English speakers, to great comic effect, often mistake the short vowel sound in the Japanese word "shujin" (my husband) with the long vowel sound in "shuujin" (prisoner). Native English speakers can confuse these two words and others because unlike Japanese, length of a vowel does not change a word's meaning in English. So how should students learn to hear sounds that are not part of their native language? A study by two Colgate University professors, published in the April 2010 issue of Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, sheds light on how people can overcome this challenge when learning a foreign language. Research findings by Spencer Kelly, associate professor of psychology, and Yukari Hirata, associate professor of Japanese, indicate that lip movements enhance the learning of speech sounds in second-language learning, while hand gestures can actually detract from comprehending the sounds. Kelly and Hirata investigated whether training people with rich visual information (lip movements, hand gestures) in addition to auditory input (novel speech sounds) would help them learn a language more effectively. Native English-speaking adults participated in one of four types of training: Audio-Only, Audio-Mouth, Audio-Hands, and Audio-Mouth-Hands. Before and after training, volunteers were given phoneme (speech sound) perception tests that measured their ability to identify short and long vowels in Japanese. Although all four groups improved from pre- to post-test, the participants in the Audio-Mouth condition improved more than the Audio-Only condition, whereas the two conditions involving hand gestures did not. In other words, seeing lip movements during training helped learners to perceive difficult sounds in a foreign language, but seeing hand gestures actually detracted from the benefits of the lips. "This finding is important in light of recent scientific and media attention to the benefits of nonverbal information on communication and learning," noted Kelly. On one hand, the findings suggest that visual information such as lips can help learners hear non-native speech sounds better than traditional auditory-only instruction (think of headphones in a language lab). On the other hand, they also suggest that there may be limits on how much visual information is helpful. The research results, added Hirata, have implications for recent practices in the classroom and products in the marketplace that use rich visual media, such as video clips depicting people interacting, to teach a second language to beginners. "When it comes to learning speech sounds in a new language, it may be best to first focus attention just on the lips and mouth before taking in the entirety of a visually complex social interaction," she said. "At least for these beginning learners, perhaps less is more." The research project was funded by the Picker Interdisciplinary Science Institute at Colgate University. SOURCE: Yukari Hirata and Spencer D. Kelly (2010) "Effects of lips and hands on auditory learning ofsecond-language speech sounds." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, Vol. 53, No. 2. pp. 298-310. PICKER INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE INSTITUTE The mission of the Picker Interdisciplinary Science Institute is to foster the creation of new knowledge that is obtainable only through the development of sustained interdisciplinary research. The institute supports internal and external collaborations among Colgate faculty who bring expertise from disparate disciplines to bear on current and emerging scientific problems that remain intractable to the methods used within a single discipline. The institute also encourages interdisciplinary approaches to learning through innovative curricular and research opportunities for students that may arise from the pursuit of interdisciplinary research projects. Founded in 1819, Colgate University is a highly selective, residential, liberal arts college enrolling nearly 2,800 undergraduates. Situated on a rolling 515-acre campus in central New York State, Colgate University attracts motivated students with diverse backgrounds, interests, and talents. - - - - ((AScribe - The Public Interest Newswire / http://www.ascribe.org)) |