The Combined Effects of Immersion and Instruction on Second Language Pronunciation

Home , Foreign Language Annals, Second Language Research

488 Fall 2010

Gillian Lord University of Florida

Abstract: This preliminary study investigates the acquisition of second language phonology with respect to two variables: immersion in a target language community, and explicit instruction in the form of a phonetics/pronunciation class. Specifically, the research examines the second language acquisition (SLA) of specific properties of the Spanish phonology system as achieved by native speakers of English participating in a summer program in Mexico, some of whom had previously taken a Spanish phonetics course. Results suggest that it is not one factor or another in isolation that is most beneficial, but rather the combination of the two. The findings are analyzed not only in terms of how the SLA of sound systems develops, but also with respect to pedagogical, curricular, and administrative implications.

Key words: Spanish, immersion, instruction, phonetics, phonology, second language acquisition

Introduction The goal of this article is, broadly speaking, to add to an understanding of the potential linguistic benefits of study abroad (SA). Specifically, it investigates what factors, or combination of factors, can contribute to the acquisition of second language (L2) sounds by considering the roles of immersion and instruction in the second language acquisition (SLA) process. While previous work has investigated both of these areas individually, as I discuss below, inconsistent findings are unfortunately the norm. The aim, therefore, of this preliminary study was to add to this existing literature regarding the effects of SA on the SLA process, but it takes the investigation further by considering the combination of factors. The results suggest that it is not one factor or another in isolation that is most beneficial, but rather the combination of the two. The specific feature under investigation in this study is the fricative/occlusive distinction in Spanish voiced consonants, e.g., the contrast between occlusive [b, d, g] and [, j, g] (bilabial, dental, and velar, respectively), as acquired by native English speakers. English and Spanish both have voiced fricative and occlusive sounds, but they do not share the same pairs of allophones and, even where there are articulatory similarities, their contexts can differ. It is generally recognized (i.e.,

Gillian Lord (PhD, Pennsylvania State University) is Associate Professor of Spanish and Linguistics at the University of Florida. Foreign Language Annals vol. 43, No. 3 489

Cressey, 1978; Hualde, 2005; Schwegler & the Spanish [j], is interdental rather than Kempff, 2007, among others) that while the dental as in Spanish. The English sound is a occlusive phones are considered the base phoneme rather than an allophone, and it is phonemes and the fricatives their allo- most often realized faithfully with its [j] phonic variants, the fricatives are in fact allophone. An additional difference from much more common in Spanish. In vir- Spanish is the fact that /j/ is represented tually all dialects of Spanish, the occlusive orthographically with the letters th rather allophones are found after a pause (i.e., in than with the letter d. Finally, while the fri- word- or phrase-initial position) and after a cative sounds [] and [g] can occur nasal (i.e., /m, n, n/); the dental [d] occurs sporadically in rapid speech in English (for additionally after a lateral (i.e., /l, l/). The example, in the word ‘‘sugar,’’ if uttered fricative allophones occur in all other con- rapidly), they do not occur consistently in texts, be they word-initial, word-medial, or any dialect and are not considered standard word-ﬁnal. While there is some dialectal allophones of /b/ and /g/, respectively. variation in this distribution, it is not sub- The challenges facing L2 learners, stantial compared to other consonantal therefore, are multiple. They must not variation in the Spanish-speaking world only learn the different articulations in the (i.e., Hammond, 2001). In parts of Colom- two languages, but also understand the bia, for example, an occlusive variant may differences between the phonemes and allo- be used after another consonant, even if that phones and learn their respective distribu- consonant is not a nasal. In no case, how- tions. Granted, the differences between the ever, is the above distribution considered sets of Spanish and English sounds are, on unacceptable. Further, what I describe the whole, minor when considering overall above is what is taught to English-speaking pronunciation, comprehensibility, and com- students as the standard rule (i.e., Ham- municative needs. However, the inability to mond, 2001; Schwegler & Kempff, 2007, in select and produce the correct allophone in addition to many others). Table 1 provides a the correct utterance can undoubtedly lead summary of the fricative/occlusive allo- to the perception of a foreign accent. Given phone occurrences in Spanish. the frequency with which the sounds, and While English has some of these same particularly the fricative sounds, occur in sounds, as I mention previously, they do not Spanish, it is a feature that L2 learners occur in the same patterns (see, for exam- should endeavor to learn. ple, Chomsky & Halle, 1968, for general English phonology), a situation often termed ‘‘allophonic split’’ (i.e., Eckman, Second Language Phonology Elreyes, & Iverson, 2003). English also has Within the realm of L2 phonology there are a fricative /j/ sound which, while similar to multiple avenues of investigation (see, for

TABLE 1 Comparison of Fricative and Occlusive Contexts in Spanish

Phrase- After After Other Allophone initial nasal lateral contexts pp Occlusive ([b, d, g]) ([d] only) pp Fricative ([, j, g]) 490 Fall 2010

example, Zampini, 2008). Previous work sounds and distributions, but not one-to- in the past few decades has examined one associations. The question that arises, the acquisition of vowels, consonants, and then, is: What is the nature of this interac- suprasegmental features. Generally speak- tion between systems, and how can we help ing, the findings have been promising learners overcome it? Two obvious answers (albeit perhaps inconsistent), showing that are those variables that are the focus of learners can be trained to produce new this study: immersion on one hand, and sounds and can acquire new phonological instruction on the other. patterns. For example, learners have been observed to acquire voiceless consonants with different L2 voice onset times (i.e., Immersion Flege, 1987; Flege & Hillebrand, 1984; Conventional wisdom, academic and other- Magliore & Green, 1999), to acquire new wise, holds that study abroad (SA) is the vowel systems (i.e., Kingston, 2003; McAll- best way to acquire a foreign language and, ister, Flege, & Piske, 2002), or to learn to for the most part, the research has con- pronounce rhotic sounds in the L2 (i.e., curred (see, for example, Lafford, 2006; Colantoni & Steele, 2006; Face, 2006). It is Lafford & Collentine, 2006; Segalowitz, rare that acquisition is complete or entirely Freed, Collentine, Lafford, Lazar, & Dıáz- successful, of course, in any of these areas Campos, 2004, for general reviews of re- (i.e., Flege, 1987; McAllister et al., 2002; search). Findings have, on the whole, been Zampini & Green, 2001), and of great positive, indicating that SA does benefit L2 interest to researchers is which factors con- abilities, although they have not always tinue to hinder learner pronunciation. been consistent. While there are a number of models Fluency2 has been the focus of a great and approaches to L2 phonology, and it is deal of work. For example, Freed, So, and well beyond the scope of this article to Lazar (2003) found that SA students address those here, it is widely accepted demonstrated more characteristics of oral that the first language (L1) somehow inter- fluency than at home (AH) students, al- feres in the L2 phonological system. While though the SA participants were slightly the process is more complicated than a less fluent in written Spanish. In a similar mere transference of the L1 characteristics study, Segalowitz and Freed (2004) com- to the L2, there is undoubtedly some inter- pared the acquisition of oral fluency by SA ference from the phonological properties of and AH students, and they also found that the first language (i.e., Hecht & Mulford, SA students made significant gains in 1982, among others). Due to difficulty in their fluency while the AH group did not. mapping the L1 and L2 sounds correctly, Dubiner, Freed, and Segalowitz (2006) learners have been observed to produce also found that SA students were judged sounds that are neither entirely L1 nor L2 more fluent at the semester’s end than AH but rather share characteristics of both, or students. fall somewhere in between the two (i.e., Others have examined the acquisition Flege, 1991; Flege & Eefting, 1987, 1988; of particular morphosyntactic areas of Major, 1992; Thornburgh & Ryalls, 1998). Spanish during an SA experience. Isabelli Some have proposed that the greatest diffi- and Nishida (2005) investigated the devel- culties may lie in areas where the L1 and L2 opment of the subjunctive by students are not drastically different but rather share participating in an SA program and found certain (but not all) features (i.e., Eckman, greater accuracy than in the AH group. At 2008; Flege, 1987; Major & Kim, 1999).1 the same time, they noted that the SA The sounds under investigation here fall group’s acquisition of the subjunctive was into this category, as there are clear simila- nowhere near complete. Similarly, Ryan and rities between the English and Spanish Lafford (1992) examined the acquisition of Foreign Language Annals vol. 43, No. 3 491

Spanish copula choice during SA; their nunciation in a small-scale study of Spanish results indicated that most participants L2 speakers. While most of his partici- made considerable progress in this area pants improved to some degree, their during their SA experience. Howard (2005) fluency improvements were not always sig- studied the acquisition of French preterit/ nificant or notable, and findings were imperfect and found overall benefits for the relatively inconsistent with respect to vowel SA students, who were able to use the past quality. Simo˜es saw some improvements, tense more often, more accurately, and but the participants continued to reduce and in more varied ways than the AH group. lengthen vowels, features that are found in Likewise, Duperron (2006) also found English but not in Spanish. In another study, advantages for the SA group in preterit- Dıáz-Campos (2004) studied the L2 pro- imperfect accuracy, although she found that duction of eight Spanish sounds that are most of the gains were made during the first typically problematic for L2 learners ([p, t, semester of the yearlong study. Finally, a k, , j, g, l, n]) in a pretest-posttest design recent case study by Lord (2009) revealed with an SA group and an AH group. Dıáz- overall improvement in general accuracy on Campos found that while both groups made the part of her SA participant, although some improvement on some of the sounds, gains were inconsistent and no one error there was no consistent advantage for the SA type dominated or reached perfection dur- group. Of interest to the current study is that ing the SA period. the fricatives [, j, g] appeared to be most In spite of the documented benefits of resistant to improvement, confirming the SA, findings have not always been con- difficulty that L2 learners have in acquiring sistent or easily interpreted. For example, these sounds. Finally, Lord (2006) investi- Freed, Segalowitz, and Dewey (2004) com- gated students’ pronunciation and mimicry pared SA, AH, and immersion students’ abilities in Spanish before and after SA, oral fluency and found that the AH group using nonce words. She found that while made more grammatical repairs, indicating pronunciation overall did not improve sig- greater grammatical knowledge and/or nificantly, the participants did improve in awareness. The SA students exhibited some- their capacity to repeat greater strings of what greater fluency than the AH students, as sounds. She interpreted these findings to did the immersion students. In terms of relate to phonological memory, and claimed grammatical acquisition, other studies have that while we may not readily observe not shown evidence in favor of SA over AH phonological changes, i.e., improved pro- experiences. Geeslin and Guijarro-Fuentes nunciation, acquisition may be taking place (2005) examined copula choice in Spanish in other areas. and found that their SA and AH groups What is evident from these studies is showed no significant differences. In a large- that, in many ways, the conventional wis- scale study, Collentine (2004) investigated dom that SA is indeed beneficial holds true. general grammatical accuracy (i.e., morpho- What is less clear, though, is what specific syntax, lexicon, etc.) in Spanish during a areas the SA experience can help, or how. semester-long SA program. His findings Thus, the goal of this study is to seek fur- indicated that while the SA group showed ther support for the positive outcomes of SA better narrative abilities and the capacity to by examining it in relation to another vari- produce semantically richer language, the able often considered beneficial to language AH group showed superior grammatical learning: instruction. accuracy. Far less work has examined the effects of immersion or SA specifically on L2 Explicit Instruction pronunciation. Simo˜es (1996) examined While a great deal of research into the overall fluency in addition to vocalic pro- effects of teaching pronunciation is carried 492 Fall 2010

out in a laboratory setting to train specific perhaps most relevant to the present study sounds in isolation or in limited contexts, because they investigated participants at the and while these studies can further an same level as the population under investi- understanding of L2 phonological systems, gation here. In the present study the of greater relevance here are those studies method of instruction itself is not a factor, that have incorporated pronunciation into but rather the end effects of explicit the standard foreign language curriculum. instruction are of interest. Pronunciation is often not given the same treatment in classrooms as other aspects of the language, so research in this area is less Methodology readily available than in areas such as syn- The primary inquiry at the heart of this tax or morphology. Nonetheless, a growing exploratory study was what effect the body of research has found benefits to its combination of instruction and immersion inclusion (see Elliott, 2003, for a review of could have on L2 acquisition of the frica- relevant studies). tive/occlusive distinction in Spanish. From In very general terms, Elliott (1995) this query I derived the following research found that accuracy in L2 pronunciation is questions: related to the number of years of instruc- RQ1: What is the effect of explicit in- tion, from which one can surmise that struction on the L2 production of voiced increased phonological proficiency comes occlusive and fricative allophones in with increased instruction. Other studies Spanish? have looked at the inclusion of specific L2 features in lower- or intermediate-level RQ2: What is the effect of an immersion classes. For example, in Gonza´lez-Bueno’s experience on the L2 production of voiced (1997) study on the acquisition of occlusive occlusive and fricative allophones in Spanish sounds [p, t, k, b, d, g], the experi- Spanish? mental group of intermediate learners RQ3: What is the combined effect of received daily pronunciation instruction explicit instruction plus immersion on over the course of a semester. In her post- the production of L2 voiced occlusive test, she found that there were significant and fricative allophones in Spanish? improvements in student pronunciation of some of the sounds as compared to a con- It must be noted that the term immer- trol group. One can interpret these findings sion is used here to refer to an intensive 2- to imply that the inclusion of such instruc- month summer SA program and is therefore tion was beneficial to learners. comparable to other studies that have At higher instructional levels, other investigated SA and immersive experiences. studies have looked at the effects of a pho- The investigation of instruction, though, is netics class on learner pronunciation. For perhaps somewhat different than previous example, Castino (1996), Lord (2005), and research has reported. While the instruc- Lord (2008) all examined the incorporation tion itself was standard, as is described of explicit phonetic instruction in uni- below, the participants who received pro- versity Spanish phonetics classes. The nunciation instruction did so prior to studies varied in terms of their focus on the immersion experience, not during it. specific teaching techniques and employed Therefore, the questions asked here are not different methodologies, ranging from so much regarding the straightforward articulatory instruction to self-analysis to effects of instruction but rather what the podcasting. Nonetheless, all three found possible interactions may be between it and positive effects of this instruction on their immersion, and if the order of the experi- participants’ abilities to pronounce some ence has any role to play in the acquisition sounds more accurately. These works are process of the learners. Foreign Language Annals vol. 43, No. 3 493

Participants was to provide the students with a working A total of 8 intermediate learners completed knowledge of the sound system in Spanish, the study. The participants were students theoretically and practically. enrolled in an 8-week university immersion program in Mexico. They were all Spanish majors or minors at the time of testing and Procedures and Analysis had all taken approximately the same num- Data consist of oral recordings from both ber of university-level Spanish courses participant groups, both prior to and after beyond the language requirement, placing the SA program. For these recordings, par- them at an intermediate level (i.e., third- ticipants read out loud a list of 60 words and fourth-year coursework in Spanish). and phrases in Spanish, each one contain- I classified the participants in two ing one of the tokens in question ([b, d, g, , groups according to the one primary differ- j, g]). There were 10 instances of each ence between their language background: token, presented in randomized order.3 their previous experience with explicit The phonetic environments of the tokens pronunciation instruction. Half of the par- differed as much as possible in order to ticipants had not taken any course on achieve a variety of phonetic contexts for Spanish phonetics or pronunciation; these the allophones and to avoid any kind of formed the No-Instruction group. The practice effect. In some cases, short phrases other participants had taken the Spanish rather than isolated words were used in phonetics course offered by their home order to create enough different contexts department either the spring or fall semes- for both allophonic variants. Given the ter prior to participating in the summer SA variety of words, word structures, and envi- program; these were the Instruction group. ronments, it was unnecessary to include The phonetics course was required for both any distractor items. The list of words and the major and the minor in their university phrases used is presented in the Appendix. but could be taken at any time. There- The first test session took place the fore, the fact that some participants had week prior to departure. All recordings taken it and others had not should not lead took place in a quiet room and were recor- to any claims of higher motivation for the ded using a microphone placed approxi- former participants, as their enrollments mately 6 inches from the participant. Parti- related more to scheduling and other ad- cipants received the written list of words (in ministrative factors. randomized order) and read them out loud This phonetics course was a fairly tra- as naturally as possible, with a slight pause ditional course in Spanish phonetics and between items. After finishing this record- phonology with an emphasis on the theore- ing, the participants learned that they tical aspects of the sounds of the Spanish would be asked to return for a second ses- inventory and a focus on improving stu- sion after their program, but they were not dents’ pronunciation. Students learned the given any information regarding the pur- articulation of Spanish sounds and their pose of the experiment. distribution and the contrasts between During their stay in Mexico, all parti- English and Spanish. Class time was used to cipants took the same three courses: carry out phonetic transcription practice as Spanish conversation, Mexican literature, well as to work on oral pronunciation, par- and Mexican architecture. The architecture ticularly of phones that contrast with class was given in English, but the other two similar patterns found in English. Students were taught entirely in Spanish, and the spent time discussing the occlusive/fricative participants were otherwise immersed in allophones that are the focus of this study the Spanish language. They lived with but no more so than any other area of pro- host families, one student per family, and nunciation. The ultimate goal of the course pledged to use only Spanish during the 494 Fall 2010

8-week program (except, of course, during sounds. In other words, I predicted an over- their architecture class). During their stay, use of occlusive and underuse of fricative they received no explicit instruction in sounds. According to most of the previous specific features of the Spanish language literature reviewed above, both instruction (i.e., no grammar or pronunciation instruc- and immersion can play a beneficial role tion). Some participants mentioned that in acquiring L2 phonological patterns. their host families or friends occasionally Therefore, I further hypothesized that the commented on their pronunciation, but Instruction group, even prior to SA, would only when a severe error interfered with produce more accurate allophones in the communication. correct contexts than the No-Instruction Upon completion of the SA program, group. I also hypothesized that the benefits the participants performed the same read- of SA could be extended to phonological ing task again, with the words in a different systems and expected both groups to im- randomized order. After finishing the sec- prove after their immersion experience. The ond recording, they also filled out a short following sections discuss the findings of the written follow-up survey that asked if they analysis in light of these hypotheses and of had knowledge of any pronunciation rules, the research questions that motivated the if they were aware of a rule for the produc- study. tion of /b, d, g/ in Spanish, and if they were conscious of any rules while speaking. They answered questions about aspects of their Results and Discussion general Spanish knowledge and pronuncia- General Findings tion before, during, and after their experi- As predicted, students produced the occlu- ence abroad. Only after all testing was sive sounds more accurately than the frica- complete did participants learn the purpose tive sounds in the corresponding occlusive of the study. contexts. In fact, students produced occlu- I then isolated the six sounds in ques- sives 100% of the time in the required tion in the participants’ recordings and contexts,5 as can be seen in Table 2. then analyzed them using the Signalyze4 It is most likely that these perfect software program. Through spectrographic accuracy scores were the result of transfer analysis, this program allows for the visual from the L1 (i.e., Eckman, 2008), which in confirmation of the continuant or occlusive this case is possible and beneficial, and they nature of the sound. For the subsequent are probably not indicative of a learning analysis, I assigned every token produced process. I cannot claim that this success is correctly according to its phonetic context due to instruction, as the No-Instruction assigned a value of 1, while I assigned an group also performed with the same accu- incorrect production a 0, thus providing a racy. While these results may be encou- score, out of 60, for each participant. I then raging, indicating that some aspects of the calculated accuracy percentages per parti- Spanish phonological system can success- cipant for each sound, as well as average fully be transferred from English, they are accuracy percentages per group and per not of great interest here as they cannot class of sounds (occlusive versus fricative). shed light on either of the processes under investigation. Therefore, I do not discuss the occlusive sounds further. Hypotheses The fricative allophones, on the other I hypothesized that, because English (the L1 hand, provide more interesting results and of all participants) systematically employs open the door for a discussion of both in- only occlusive sounds in the contexts struction and immersion and their potential examined here, the default value used by roles in the learning process. Table 3 pro- participants would be the occlusive [b, d, g] vides an overview of the pre-immersion and Foreign Language Annals vol. 43, No. 3 495

post-immersion accuracy scores on the three fricative sounds, for each group. Figure 1 presents the accuracy percentages visually, allowing for a greater comparison between groups and between pre- and posttest values. I ran Friedman tests6 on the three fricative sounds prior to and after immersion, and they revealed no signiﬁcant differences between the sounds for either group (pretest p 5 1.000, posttest p 5 0.135), so from this point forward I discuss the sounds as a group.

Effects of Instruction While neither group performed at even 25% accuracy, it is clear that prior to SA the Instruction group had higher accuracy percentages than the No-Instruction group on all three allophones. On the pretest, the No-Instruction group averaged 3.3% (1.98/ 60 tokens) accuracy in fricative production (examining [, j, g] together), while the Instruction group started with an average of 8.6% (5.16/60 tokens) accuracy. The difference between the two groups prior to the immersion experience was signiﬁcant (Mann-Whitney U; Z 5 -2.646; p 5 0.029). In this respect, one can say that the effects of prior instruction are positive, because those who had taken the phonetics class outperformed those who had not. However, two factors must be considered Pre-immersionhere. First, Post-immersion the purpose of this study was to investigate the combined effects of instruction and immersion, and it was therefore not designed speciﬁcally to test the results of

[b] [d]instruction [g] alone; [b] it is possible that [d] the stu- [g] dents in the Instruction group would have outperformed the others even without the Score % Score % Score % Score % Score % Score % instruction experience. With no data prior Raw Scores (/60) and Accuracy Percentages (%) on [b, d, g] Before and After Immersion to the instruction, it is impossible to know for sure. It is nonetheless worth recalling that those in the Instruction group had taken the course at different times and with different instructors, so any effects of instruction No-InstructionInstruction 60 100.0 60 60 100.0are 100.0 in 60 fact 60 100.0generalized 100.0 60 60 100.0 across 100.0 60 those 60 100.0 variables. 100.0 60 60 100.0 100.0 60 100.0

TABLE 2 Also of note are the low accuracy rates for all participants, even those in the 496 Fall 2010

Instruction group, which are strikingly evident in Figure 1. While one may claim that pronunciation instruction can help improve the accuracy of L2 fricative allophone production, it is clear that instruction alone is ] g insufﬁcient to produce the correct allophone even one-quarter of the time. It is precisely for this reason that I turn now to the other factor at the heart of this study: immersion.

Effects of Immersion ][

j If immersion were to have a beneﬁcial effect on L2 phonological acquisition, then one would expect to see an increase in accuracy rates after the immersion experience, in both groups, as I have hypothesized. This was in fact the case, as both groups improved in their fricative production from ][

] Before and After Immersion the pretest to the posttest, increasing from g

, 3.3% accuracy (on [, j, g] together) to j

, 5.8% for the No-Instruction group, and from 8.6 to 28.7% for the Instruction group. According to a pair of Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Tests, both groups experienced sig-

][ nificant changes between the two testing g periods (No-Instruction group p 5 0.046, Instruction group p 5 0.024). In other words, both groups evidenced significant improvements in their choice of fricative allophones after the immersion experience. One can therefore claim that SA is beneficial ][

j in the acquisition of L2 phonology. However, of additional interest is the

Pre-immersionfact that Post-immersion the two groups’ accuracy rates remained signiﬁcantly different from each other after immersion (Mann Whitney U, Z 5 -2.309, p 5 0.029). Therefore, while

][ both groups made improvements during [ the two months abroad, the Instruction group retained its superiority in terms of Score % Score % Scoreability % to Score produce % the Score correct % allophone Score % in

Raw Scores (/60) and Accuracy Percentages (%) on [ the correct context.

Combined Effects of Instruction Plus Immersion Participants with instruction in phonetics No-InstructionInstruction 3 4.5 5.0 1.38 7.5began 9.54 2.3 the experiment 15.9 1.5 1.5 2.5 with 2.5 4.8 greater 16.8 8.0 28.0 accuracy 2.7 27.3 4.5 45.5 7.5 3 12.5 5.0

TABLE 3 than those who did not, and all participants made signiﬁcant gains during the immer- Foreign Language Annals vol. 43, No. 3 497

FIGURE 1 Average Accuracy Results (%) on [, j, c] Before and After Immersion

sion experience. In this respect, immersion pronunciation. Participants who had appears to be beneficial, but it seems that had instruction in Spanish phonetics those with instruction in addition to immer- started off with higher accuracy ratings sion may reap even more benefits. It must than those who had not. be noted, though, that in no case did either RQ2: What is the effect of an immersion group achieve above 45% accuracy on any experience on the L2 production of particular sound, with the highest post- voiced occlusive and fricative allophones immersion accuracy ratings averaging only in Spanish? about 30% (17.22/60 tokens). In other words, even those participants who bene- Similarly, the data presented here indi- fited from both instruction and immersion cate that the immersion experience is were phonologically accurate only about also beneficial for L2 phonological one-third of the time. The variables in ques- acquisition. Both groups, those with and tion are beneficial, but insufficient in terms without prior instruction, made signifi- of native-like production. I discuss these cant improvements in accuracy over the issues further in the following sections. course of the immersion experience. RQ3: What is the combined effect of Conclusion explicit instruction plus immersion on Summary of Findings the L2 production of voiced occlusive and fricative allophones in Spanish? With the data presented above in mind, I now return to the three research questions Both variables have been shown to be that motivated this study. beneficial, although the Instruction group improved their accuracy by a far RQ1: What is the effect of explicit in- greater degree than the No-Instruction struction on the L2 production of voiced group. The No-Instruction group eviden- occlusive and fricative allophones in ced an accuracy improvement of 2.8%, Spanish? while the Instruction group improved by It appears that explicit instruction can be 20.1%. Thus, based on these findings, it beneficial in acquiring this aspect of L2 would appear that the combination of 498 Fall 2010

variables is more beneficial to learners prior to SA, so they could not make use of than either one variable alone. or automatize it during their immersion. This is not to say that this group did not Given these findings, why did two benefit from the SA experience. On the groups who shared the same SA experience contrary, they improved their fricative pro- evidence different results? One possible duction accuracy (although not as much as account may be found in psycholinguistic the Instruction group) and also most likely approaches to language learning and pro- improved other linguistic areas as well. On cessing (i.e., Pienneman, 1999, 2007), and the follow-up survey, all participants indi- specifically in Bialystok’s (2001) Analysis cated some degree of improved fluency and Control Model. This proposal distin- (self-perceived) or comfort with Spanish in guishes between the two processes of general. Participants noted that they felt analysis and control processes, whereby the more confident, that they had improved analysis of knowledge enables mental vocabulary, and that they thought they were representations to be organized into explicit more fluent or speaking ‘‘faster’’ as a result representations of formal structures, and of their time abroad. control of processing is the means by which In sum, the immersion experience attention is focused on specific representa- allowed these L2 learners to automatize tions as they are needed in real time. aspects of their language production, which Quantitative and qualitative findings of in turn facilitated the access of previous the present study can be supported by this knowledge of other processes. They thus view. could control their attentional resources and Whenaskedinthefollow-upques- concentrate specifically on other areas. In tionnaire about specific pronunciation rules, the case of the Instruction group, they used all the participants in the Instruction group these newly available resources to improve accurately described the rule for fricative/ aspects of their pronunciation, thanks to occlusive distribution in Spanish, while only knowledge they had gained previously one member of the No-Instruction group through explicit instruction. Although not a mentioned this rule. Thus, it seems that the conscious process on the part of the lear- students who did possess the specific /b, d, g/ ners, obviously, it is indeed remarkable that distribution rule prior to SAFthanks to the learners ‘‘stored’’ the knowledge acquired in instruction they had received at an earlier the classroom 6 to 12 months prior to data point in their acquisitionFmay not have collection until their linguistic systems were been able to make use of this information able to make use of it with the necessary prior to their immersion but were able to time and resources. By these standards the access the knowledge later, most likely No-Instruction group would also have due to a greater control and automatization automatized certain language functions and (McLaughlin, 1990) over other linguistic could devote more attentional resources to functions that, according to those studies other linguistic functions as wellFthey just reviewed above, have been shown to improve were not the functions under investigation during SA (fluency, morphosyntax, or lexical here. As these students did not possess the knowledge). The greater input and increased knowledge of the fricative/occlusive dis- output opportunities (e.g., Ellis, 1995; Ellis tinction in Spanish, they did not make as & He, 1999; Swain, 1985, 1995) of the noticeable gains in that area. While the immersion experience most likely enabled benefits of either variable are clear, the the real-time use of previous phonetic combination of the two on learners’ abilities knowledge, resulting in the greater gains to process and utilize linguistic information overall for the Instruction group. allows for increased language gain. The No-Instruction group, on the other These findings raise many further hand, did not possess this phonological rule questions and open a variety of research Foreign Language Annals vol. 43, No. 3 499 avenues in language acquisition in general, followed by instruction, as well as instruc- and the roles of instruction and immersion tion during immersion, to be able to more particularly. Of course, as with any compare to the instruction-then-immersion study, there are a number of methodological findings. In addition, the duration of time issues that future research must remedy. abroad should be considered as well. Per- I address these drawbacks, along with haps a short-term summer program is questions for future research, in the follow- insufficient for making certain phonologi- ing section. cal changes in some learners’ systems, but longer-term stays, such as a semester or a full academic year, might evidence greater Limitations and Future Directions gains in pronunciation skills. Future studies The greatest flaw with this study is unques- can address this issue by incorporating par- tionably the small sample size. The fact that ticipants from a variety of SA experiences. only 8 participants took part was a con- Another relevant question is how sequence of circumstances related to the necessary explicit instruction in phonology student population as well as the small size is. In other words, can learners acquire of the SA program. It was unavoidable in pronunciation without knowing or being this case, but similar studies should be car- able to state (as in the follow-up survey) the ried out with larger populations. A greater specific rule for a phonological process? sample size would allow for better sta- The No-Instruction group did improve in tistical procedures, less probability of the present study, so it is probable that skewed data, and greater confidence in the explicit metalinguistic knowledge is not findings. strictly necessary. SA provides a maximum Another methodological weakness of language input and output, which are inherent in the study design is the fact that likely the most important factors. In the no data were collected prior to the phonetics case of fricatives, too, is the issue of the fre- course taken by half of the participants. quency and salience of the feature. The Because the students took this course at dif- fricatives are undoubtedly frequent in ferent points in their undergraduate careers, Spanish but may not be acoustically salient and because participants were identified to learners, as they are not essential in cap- upon enrolling in the SA program, it would turing meaning or communication. Ac- have been impossible to test them one or cording to Schmidt (1990, 1993), frequency two semesters prior to the start of the study. and salience determine whether input is In sum, given the promising findings of this noticed or not, and only input that is study, a more ambitious methodological noticed can be available for intake and pro- design should be undertaken, tracking stu- cessing. Future work can investigate in dents longitudinally through specific courses more detail the differences between those as well as immersion experiences. Such a who have explicit awareness and those who study could sort out the effects of one variable do not, to determine the role of noticing. from the other and more confidently analyze the combined effects of the two. Nonetheless, the possibilities opened Implications up for future study are numerous. For ex- In spite of the methodological drawbacks ample, will the No-Instruction group, upon and the remaining unanswered questions, return and enrollment in the required pho- the contributions of this study should not netics course, catch up to the Instruction be forgotten, especially considering the group’s accuracy levels? Will they surpass implications they offer. While the above them? In other words, is there an ideal order paragraphs have described some research of presentation for the variables? Future questions that future work will want to work should examine cases of immersion address, there are also numerous implica- 500 Fall 2010

tions in terms of language teaching, course Notes offerings, and curricula in general. Based on the present findings, language 1. Of course, in cases where the L2 con- departments should recognize the value of tains brand new sounds for learners, both instruction and immersion, both in there may also be difficulties of a purely general and with respect to L2 phonology. articulatory nature, as in the case of the The majority of college and university trill /r/ in Spanish: Learners generally Spanish departments offer a course on know when to use it, but they are not Spanish phonetics and phonology that always able to carry out its articulation addresses the primary pronunciation pro- successfully (e.g., Face, 2006). blems for students, but most do not require 2. Fluency is notoriously difficult to define, it for undergraduates. In light of the and I do not attempt a definition here. In increased accuracy seen here for students this case, as in the case of the majority of who had taken this course, administrators studies reviewed, I use it as being synon- may want to consider making it a require- ymous with general oral communication ment. At the same time, then, one must skills. consider the most effective ways of teaching 3. Due to an error on the part of the pronunciation, an issue that has yet to be researcher, there were only 9 instances settled (e.g., Elliott, 1995; Gonza´lez-Bueno, of occlusive [g], and 11 instances of 1997; Lord, 2005, 2008). fricative [j]. I did not discover this error In addition, while most language until data collection was complete, but I departments already offer and encourage took the different totals into considera- SA programs, they now can offer additional tion in all analyses. evidence in favor of the linguistic gains 4. Signalyze (http://www.signalyze.com) is such an experience may have. Language an interactive program, made specifically instructors tend to recognize the inherent for Macintosh computers, designed to benefits of language immersion, although analyze speech and other acoustic mate- research has not always consistently backed rial. It contains a large set of signal editing, these intuitions, as discussed above. Finally, signal analysis, and signal manipulation the issue of when to do what must be tools and thus allows for easy analysis of addressed. Based on the findings of this certain acoustic phenomenon such as fri- study, instructors may want to encourage cative/occlusive distinctions, voice onset their students to enroll in a pronunciation time, or vowel formants, to name just a course prior to participating abroad. Of few. course, future work may determine that a different order is more or equally beneficial. 5. There were two cases in the data of For the time being, however, it should be occlusive contexts in which it was F clear that both variables can only help stu- not clear either through audio analy- F dents’ language acquisition, and specifically sis or spectrograph analysis which their pronunciation. sounds were produced. I elimina- ted these two tokens (from two No- Instruction group participants) from further analysis. Acknowledgments 6. Due to the small sample size, all statis- Special thanks go to Holly Nibert, Manuel tical tests were nonparametric. Further, Dıáz-Campos, and Francisco Salgado their outcomes must be interpreted RoblesFas well as the two anonymous extremely cautiously given the limited reviewersFwho all helped at various stages number of participants, as is discussed of this manuscript. All deficiencies, of further in ‘‘Limitations and Further course, remain my own. Directions.’’ Foreign Language Annals vol. 43, No. 3 501

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APPENDIX List of Words and Phrases Used Items were presented in randomized order and in regular text. They are presented here by phone, in alphabetical order and with the token sound phonetically transcribed and bolded.

[b] [d] [g] [][j][g] 1. asombroso Aldea gabinete abuela absurjoacua 2. barrio condos gallina al a cuidajoalcunos

3. bastante cuando garbanzo ceolla edaj esto´maco 4. bata entender gato daaﬁjeo fueco

5. embargo Grande gracias encontraa hablajojucar 6. en bez de Decir grama´tica Estoyien Majre llecar

7. hambbe hablando ninguno garanzo pasajos necra 8. hombre Mundoungozo ha´itos projuce ore´cano

9. tambie´n profundos un gran chico responsale sarjinas pelicro 10. un buen nin˜ oundı´asore sorja unascotas 11. tarje