Dia i hora: 18 d'desembre, de 12:30 a 13.30 h
Lloc: 52.737
Ponent: Ting Yao
Títol: The effects of oral narrative interventions on second language learning: a meta-analysis
Abstract: The potential beneficial effects of oral narrative interventions have gained increasing attention in second language (L2) learning. In practice, these interventions are of different lengths (between 0.5 and 4.5-hour sessions), encompassing different formats: traditional (i.e., telling and retelling stories) and digital storytelling (i.e., using multimedia elements to create and narrate stories). The present study aims to meta-analyze the effectiveness of peer-reviewed publications on L2 oral narrative interventions, and identify potential moderators: intervention formats, proficiency and education levels. A comprehensive search in three databases yielded 35 articles meeting the inclusion criteria, with 18 providing means and standard deviations for meta-analysis.
The meta-analysis involving 22 unique groups and 574 participants found that the target intervention had an overall moderate-to-large effect on L2 learning. Notably, they had a large effect on enhancing speaking skills and a moderate effect on vocabulary. Further moderator analyses showed significant variations in the effect sizes for learners’ proficiency, with greater effectiveness observed among learners with intermediate proficiency levels. However, the effect of the intervention was not affected by format and education level.
These findings suggest that the choice between traditional and digital storytelling, as well as the implementation across various education levels may not be critical. Instead, interventions should consider learners' L2 proficiency to maximize effectiveness. Importantly, due to limited samples and a large variation in effect sizes, further research is needed to assess the effects of narrative interventions with larger sample sizes and diverse populations. Furthermore, a more systematic exploration of the effectiveness of the specific techniques and design features used within those narrative programs is needed.
Dia i hora: 17 d'octubre, de 15.00 a 16.00 h
Lloc: Online
Ponent: Pilar Prieto
Títol: The benefits of embodied pronunciation instruction. How can we integrate it into communicative language teaching?
Abstract: Recent cognitive models such as the Embodied Cognition and the multimodal enrichment paradigm (e.g., Mathias & vonKriegstein, 2023; Shapiro, 2019) have emphasized the benefits of whole-body movements and hand gestures for the development of cognitive abilities and language learning processes. In the context of second language learning, while some work has shown that multimodally enriched trainings can help L2 vocabulary learning and recall (e.g., Quinn-Allen 1995; Tellier 2008; Macedonia & Klimesch 2014), still little is known about the benefits of embodied practices in the area of L2 acquisition of phonology.
In this talk, I will report on a series of pronunciation training studies that have been carried out in the GrEPG lab at UPFthat test the potential benefits of two types of embodied practices for boosting the acquisition of L2 pronunciation, specifically prosodic-based embodied practices and music-based embodied practices. Crucially, given the parallels between language prosody and music, and the close relationship between melodic and rhythmic skills in L2 speech and music (Chobert & Besson, 2013), it is expected that prosody-based and music-based embodied training are effective scaffolding mechanisms for L2 pronunciation learning. All in all, the results of the training studies show that (a) different embodiment techniques (e.g., the use of hand gestures, hand-clapping, and whole-body movements) marking phrasal sentence prosody are able to boost the learning of both suprasegmental and segmental speech features; and (b) purely embodied music training practices (involving no access to L2 speech) are also able to facilitate the learning of both second language sentence prosody and segmental features.
These results back up the embodied cognition and multimodal enrichment paradigms in their application to phonological learning. Finally, I will suggest that the integration of embodied practices into a more context- and pragmatic-based multimodal approach to teaching L2 language pronunciation has the potential to be successfully applied to a more multimodal view of second language teaching and learning.
Description of the event: Language Acquisition, Multilingualism, and Teaching (LAMiNATE) is a research platform at Lund University, Sweden, which brings together a vibrant and interdisciplinary community of 50+ researchers working on these topics from a range of theoretical and empirical perspectives. LAMiNATE aims to foster interdisciplinary discussion and new collaborations and one forum for this is the LAMiNATE Talks series.
In the autumn of 2023, LAMiNATE organizes a special theme on pronunciation training. We would therefore like to invite you to give a talk in the LAMiNATE Talks series, and would be delighted if you were to speak about any aspect of your work on pronunciation teaching, e.g., effects of explicit training on L2 phonological acquisition, preferably including an overview of your research in this area.