2ND-LANGUAGE ACCENT - THE ROLE OF THE PEDAGOGICAL ENVIRONMENT

It has been suggested that the adult second language learner's general ly poor phonetic discrimination and production abilities at both the s egmental and suprasegmental levels may at least partially be due to an inadequate pedagogical environment. To test this hypothesis, a study was carried out to determine whether enhancing the pedagogical environ ment through the development of a French phonetic training program wou ld result in improved discrimination and production ability in adult l earners of French. All treated and control subjects were enrolled in b eginning level French as a second language courses. They were tested t wice, the first time immediately prior to the treated group's introduc tion to the phonetic training program and the second immediately follo wing their completion of the final lesson. Within and across group com parisons indicate that both phonetic production (as measured through i mitation) and discrimination improved as a result of exposure to an en riched pedagogical environment. The implications of these findings for adult second language programs are discussed.