New Perspectives in Teaching Pronunciation

This paper reviews recent technology for teaching pronunciation, and the trends emerging in this field. One particular method for teaching prosody, in particular intonation and pitch patterns, is reviewed in considerable detail. This method uses speech analysis software to provide students with visual data in addition to audio data, and give them feedback on their L2 production. It thus offers visual and audio information on exactly where students’ production differs from native speakers’. The last section reports on a pilot study conducted at the University of Padova designed to implement this pronunciation teaching method in future courses by testing the effectiveness of using these computer-based visual feedback systems to modify non-native speakers’ intonation patterns.