The role of gestures in learning pronunciation

The researchers in this project want to study whether gestures can aid in the teaching of pronunciation. Previous studies, albeit focusing on languages other than Swedish, have shown that gestures can help in learning new speech sounds. These effects remain little understood, however.

Language teachers often use body language to emphasize the pronunciation of a language. Beating in time to syllables, for example, can highlight the rhythm of a language, and an extended horizontal movement of the hand can illustrate which vowel sounds are “long” and which are “short”, as in the difference between “eat” and “it”, for instance. It is also common to show the position of the tongue when producing the “th” sound.

The effect of gestures may depend on many factors, including the pronunciation features to be practiced, the gestures used, whether it is the teacher alone or also the learner who uses the gestures, and how well the gestures are performed.

Previous studies also differ, depending on whether it is the learner’s own pronunciation or their perception of the pronunciation feature that is to be tested. Moreover, nearly all previous studies in this field have been carried out in a laboratory environment. Laboratory studies enable researchers to control the use of gestures very carefully. They can therefore provide a clear answer to the question of whether the use of gestures can improve pronunciation training. But they cannot show whether the effect is long-lasting, or whether similar effects can be measured if the training is performed in a less controlled way in an authentic classroom environment.

For this reason, the researchers in this project intend to examine potential effects of gestures in a classroom environment – in courses in Swedish for foreign students – and compare the results systematically with results from controlled laboratory experiments. They are carrying out a series of four studies in which they are testing the effects of selected gestures on learning of two phonological features of Swedish: the Swedish length contrast (as in “vila” and “villa”), and the vowel contrast between “i” and “y”. Both these distinctions are difficult to learn but mastering them makes speech more intelligible and listener-friendly.

The project is internationally unique in that the effects of gestures in a classroom environment are being tested, and also because account is being taken both of the learners’ own pronunciation and their perception of the two contrasts being tested. 

The laboratory studies will use eye tracking technology to see whether learners register the contrasts. Studying where learners look during the experiment will provide information about how they unconsciously process what they hear. This will better enable the researchers to gain an understanding of any small effects than if they were merely to ask the participants which word they heard.

Studying the role of gestures in pronunciation training has a dual applied and scientific purpose. First of all, the research directly benefits development of pronunciation teaching – a relatively unexplored field in the context of Swedish as a second language. Second, it also contributes to a major international research field engaged in studying the interaction between gestures and speech in verbal communication.