TEACHERS’ PERCEPTION OF PHONETIC SKILLS OF LEARNERS STUDYING AMERICAN ENGLISH AS L2

Abstract

The paper aims to examine how Russian teachers of English perceive the degree of naturalness and closeness to American English (AE) the English speech of Russian learners of English studying within the framework of an alternative approach. The essence of the approach is (i) the departure from using duration in opposing historically long and short vowels and in having vowel-quality-based practice instead, (ii) the exposure of connected speech processes and weak forms to intentional L2 practice. 10 experimental samples of “Betty Botter” tongue twister spoken by 10 learners and 2 control samples pronounced by one male and one female Standard American speaker were taken as the material for this study. The material and the control samples were played to 8 Russian teachers of English specializing in English phonetics in order to obtain a complex of perceptual features for each sample. The data analysis showed that the speech samples of 4 out of 10 learners were perceived by the teachers as fully compatible with native speakers in naturalness and closeness to AE, another 2 were perceived as rather close and the remaining 4 – half close or less. Vowels /ɔ, æ/ were perceived as most challenging. The obtained results enabled to prove the effectiveness of the alternative teaching method and the high level of phonetic competence in students determined by their high motivation.