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THE JOURNAL OF ASIA TEFL Vol.10, No. 2, pp. 1-34, Summer 2013
The Roles of Phonological Knowledge in L2
Lower Achievers’ Reading Development
Chen, Hsueh Chu
The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong
This study investigates the role of phonological knowledge in the reading
development of learners and clarifies the relationships among phonological
awareness (PA), prosodic skills (PS) and reading comprehension (RC).
Sixteen English as a second language (ESL) lower achievers from a Hong
Kong secondary school participated in the study. Three types of related
measures (PA, PS and RC) were conducted. A passage was read aloud and
an acoustic analysis was conducted. The results showed that the correct
rate of RC was 38.16 %. Among the PA subtasks, rhyme detection
was the easiest task, followed by alliteration detection, syllable
segmentation, and non-word reading. In the PS subtasks, phrasal
rhythm was the easiest task, followed by intonation sensitivity, and
word stress tasks. The tasks that correlated highest with RC were non-word
reading and word stress tasks, suggesting that these two indicators played a
major role in RC. Amongst all of the tasks, rhythm detection and syllable
segmentation, and phrasal rhythm and word stress were significantly and
positively correlated. Detailed information about the participants’ responses
and strategies on non-word reading, word stress, and intonation sensitivity
tasks was described. Acoustic analyses of speed, pause and intonation were
made, measured and calculated.
Keywords: phonological processing, prosodic sensitivity, reading, reading
aloud, production and perception
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INTRODUCTION
Research has shown evidence that phonological knowledge plays a crucial role
in language learners’ reading development (Bradley & Bryant, 1978; Kamil,
Mosenthal, Pearson, & Barr, 2000). Phonological awareness, according to Walton
and Walton (2002), is “conscious access to the component sounds of speech within
words and the ability to manipulate sounds” (pp. 79-80). It is also an important
predictor of language learners’ reading achievement (Stanovich, 2000). Stanovich
stressed that poor readers tend to have poor phonological awareness and are less
efficient in phonological processing. Although there is a growing body of research
investigating the importance of phonological awareness in reading, most
investigations into phonological awareness are limited by their dependence on
rhyming and phoneme identity.
In recent years, contributions have been made to exploring the role prosody (the
supra-segmental information) plays in language learners’ reading processes (Ashby,
2006; Whalley & Hansen, 2006; Wood, 2006). Studies have shown the predictive
ability of prosodic skills on reading ability. Wood and Terrell (1998) noted that
poor readers are less aware of rhythm, while Whalley and Hansen (2006) found that
after controlling for phonological awareness and general rhythmic sensitivity,
children with greater prosodic skills are superior in word reading accuracy and
reading comprehension. In her research, Ashby (2006) pointed out that skilled
readers process prosodic information during silent reading, and further concluded
that skilled readers not only activate a series of phonological segments, but also
appear to activate a prosodic structure.
Several studies have recently investigated the relationship between prosodic
sensitivity and word reading from a phonological awareness perspective. Wood
(2006) developed the ‘stress mispronunciations task’ to assess children’s sensitivity
to stress in spoken language for beginning readers. To succeed at this task, children
had to recover the correct stress in order to match the stored lexical code and
identify the correct item. Performance on this task was found to be significantly
related to reading development. Holliman, Wood and Sheehy (2008) adopted the
stress mispronunciations task from Wood (2006) and found that prosodic sensitivity
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was able to predict unique variance in word reading after controlling for age,
vocabulary and phonological awareness. In Holliman, Wood, and Sheehy’s (2012)
cross-sectional study, they further explored the relationship between prosodic
sensitivity and phonological awareness and investigate whether a group of poor
readers display significant suprasegmental phonological deficits in comparison to
chronological age-matched controls and younger, reading age-matched controls.
The results showed that poor readers were outperformed by their chronological
age-matched counterparts on all measures of prosodic sensitivity. Significant
relationships were also found between measures of prosodic sensitivity and
phonological awareness. These findings emphasize the importance of both
segmental and suprasegmental phonological skills in children’s reading
development.
Previous studies have also provided evidence for the positive relationship
between prosody and reading and pre-reading ability. Beginner readers tend to rely
more on bottom-up skills to decode words from the texts and fail to integrate
appropriate top-down reading skills in the reading process. In the reading aloud
process, developing readers were characterised as having more unexpected pauses,
hesitations and mispronunciation. Wood and Terrell (1998), utilizing a rhythmic
task to assess poor readers’ sensitivity to rhythm in speech, found that poor readers
do experience a developmental delay in rhythmic awareness (p. 397). Similar
evidence can also be shown in the beat detection task adopted by Goswami et al.
(2002). In the study, Goswami et al. also found that young readers who started to
read before their school years outperformed a control group at the task.
Reading fluency has attracted attention in recent years. Reading fluency is defined
by Hudson, Lane, and Pullen (2005) to include three key elements: accurate reading
of the texts, appropriate reading rate and correct prosody (expression). That is,
readers have to show their decoding ability to read the texts with an adequate reading
rate. Also, fluency is when readers can fulfil the reading task by making the correct
links with prosodic features in the reading process. The reason for emphasising
reading fluency is that there is a strong correlation between a reader’s fluency and
their reading comprehension (Katzir et al., 2006). Therefore, we can conclude that to
The Roles of Phonological Knowledge in L2 Lower Achievers’ Reading Development
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be a fluent reader, phonological awareness and reading prosody are two crucial
elements not to be underestimated.
While the importance of phonological awareness and prosody to reading ability is
well established in the development of first language acquisition, the potential role of
these aspects in reading development of second language adult learners has been less
explored. Studies have shown that second language learners of English are
inevitably influenced by their first language (L1). English, a stress-timed language
differs from Chinese, a syllable-timed language. Several studies have shown that
L1 transfer is prominent, especially in the early stages of L2 acquisition (for
example, Major, 2001). Therefore, exploring the relationship among ESL adult
lower achievers’ prosodic skills, phonological awareness and reading ability can
contribute to our understanding of the acquisition of foreign language segmental
and supra-segmental patterns. An understanding of the phonological and prosodic
factors that weigh most heavily on reading development can be used to establish a
hierarchy of priorities for teaching pronunciation to second or foreign language
learners.
This study investigates the role of phonological awareness and prosodic skills in
reading development. It also seeks to clarify the relationships among them. More
specifically, the purposes of this study are:
(a) to probe Hong Kong ESL low achievers’ performances on measures of
phonological awareness;
(b) to investigate Hong Kong ESL low achievers’ performances on measures of
prosodic skills at the word-, phrase- and sentence-level;
(c) to explore the role of phonological knowledge in L2 reading development.
METHOD
Participants
Sixteen ESL lower achievers were paid to participate in the study, which was
done with the intention to bring in more seriousness and motivation in participation.
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They were from Form Five of a Hong Kong secondary school with a Banding 3 (the
lowest banding in the Hong Kong secondary school banding system). Their ages
ranged from 15 to 17 years old. They were requested to undertake three types of
related measures, namely phonological awareness (tasks included rhyme detection,
alliteration detection, oral syllable segmentation, and non-word reading), prosodic
sensitivity (tasks included word stress, phrasal rhythm and sentence-level intonation)
and reading comprehension (five passages with multiple-choice comprehension
questions). Following that, they were asked to read a passage extraction from Harry
Potter and the Chamber of Secrets aloud and this was recorded.
2. Design of Tasks
The tasks in the present study were divided into three parts: phonological
awareness, prosodic sensitivity and reading comprehension tasks.
Phonological Awareness
Phonological awareness (PA) was assessed by rhyme detection, alliteration
detection, syllable segmentation and non-word reading (Bryant et al., 1990; Wood,
2006). In the first three tasks, all the clues were presented aurally and visually,
while for the final task, the participants were asked to read a non-word list. The
details and purposes of each task of the PA test are described below.
Rhyme and Alliteration Detection
A modified version of the phonological “odd one out” task was employed in this
study (Bryant et al., 1990). Within each of the rhyme and alliteration tasks, one
practice trial and then 10 experimental trials are contained. In order to avoid a ceiling
effect, the difficulty level is controlled (Bowey, Cain, & Ryan, 1992). Two words
are rhymed or alliterated, while the third is not (e.g., can, man, lam; fun, find, pink,
respectively). The words were also read aloud twice by a native English speaker to
The Roles of Phonological Knowledge in L2 Lower Achievers’ Reading Development
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the participants by utilizing the broadcasting system. The participants were asked to
cross the odd one out after listening.
Syllable Segmentation
The syllable segmentation task was designed to assess the participants’ awareness
of syllable structure. The participants were asked to indicate the number of syllables
of 15 words after listening. The words were arranged with increasing items of
difficulty, from monosyllabic words to six-syllable words.
Non-Word Reading
The items were designed by referencing the Phonological Assessment Battery
(Frederickson, Frith, & Reason, 1997). The participants were asked to read as many
non-words as possible from a list of non-words of increasing difficulty in 60 seconds.
The purpose of this task was to assess the decoding ability of the participants.
Prosodic Sensitivity
Prosodic skills (PS) comprise three tasks, namely word-level, phrasal-level and
sentence-level sensitivity tasks. The participants were asked to listen to phrases
and/or sentences being read.
Word-Level Prosodic Sensitivity Task (Word Stress)
The task was designed to detect participants’ sensitivity to word stress.
Experimental items included 24 polysyllabic words with six stress patterns (Oo, oO,
Ooo, oOo, Oooo, and ooOo). Lower case o's represent unstressed syllables, while
capital O's represent stressed syllables. For example: party (Oo). Each word was
read once only by a native speaker. After listening, participants were asked to
categorise the 24 words into correct columns according to the six stress patterns.
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Phrasal-Level Prosodic Sensitivity Task (Rhythm)
This task was designed to detect participants’ prosodic sensitivity in phrasal-level
stress. The DEEdee task proposed by Whalley and Hansen (2006, originally from
Kitzen, 2001) is widely used to assess prosodic sensitivity at the phrasal-level. In the
present study, DEEdee symbols were replaced by the graphical patterns “O” and
“o”, which is much more obvious for participants to recognise. For example, the
phrase Close the windows would be denoted as “OoO” in terms of rhythm
information. Also, the syllable numbers and duration are not changed. The sign of
capital “O” refers to the stress pattern of the syllable, while the lower case “o” refers
to the unstressed syllable. There are 18 experimental items in total for this task. In
the application phase, the participants heard each phrase once, and then they had to
put the phrases into the right pattern column. A total of 18 trials were used. For
example, It’s cold and wet (“oOoO”).
Sentence-Level Prosodic Sensitivity Task (Intonation)
The sentence-level prosodic sensitivity was assessed by means of the tasks
constructed by Wells, Peppe, and Goulandris (2004), which is an elaboration of
Wells and Peppe’s (2003) task. The task was constructed to test the participants’
ability to distinguish between compound nouns and noun phrases, affective prosodic
cues, interactive cues and prominent cues. A total of 10 items across the four parts
are included in the sentence-level prosodic sensitivity task. The prominent prosody
sensitivity task was manipulated to test the salient features carried by prosodic cues
when information is conveyed. The participants heard a recorded stimulus and had
to identify the prominent noun emphasised by the prosodic cues. An example is
presented below:
(Background voice)
a. I want a hamburger and TEA.
(Written on the answer sheet.)
What do you think “a” is not receiving?
The Roles of Phonological Knowledge in L2 Lower Achievers’ Reading Development
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Hamburger
Tea
Textual-Level Prosodic Sensitivity Task (Reading Aloud)
All of the participants were asked to individually read aloud a revised passage
excerpted from the well-known English novel Harry Potter and the Chamber of
Secrets. This passage was chosen because it has several obvious advantages. First,
the vocabulary, grammar and sound segments contained in the passage were revised
into a simplified version, thereby fitting the participants’ language proficiency.
Second, the sentences in the story were carefully designed to focus on a particular
theme. It avoids sequences that are hard to syllabify or segment. The story is so
well-known that it is expected that the learners’ familiarity with the story will reduce
their anxiety while reading. Third, the story contains different types of sentences in
order to eliminate or counterbalance the effects of different sentence types on
prosody patterns and provide abundant instances of the various types of intonation,
pausing and speed produced by the learners.
Each participant was recorded reading the story in a quiet room on a notebook
computer with the Praat software (http://www.praat.org).. The participants were told
to reflect on the contextual clues and affective status of the characters. They were
also advised to read aloud with enthusiasm and to the best of their ability. Each
participant was asked to read the story and was allowed to request help and practise
words he/she was not familiar with before the recording began. An acoustic analysis,
designed to measure and compare three variables selected from the reading aloud
task, was conducted. These variables were: pause, speed and intonation. A native
speaker of British English, who has been teaching English for nine years in a Hong
Kong secondary school, recorded the task stimuli and the passage extraction. The
latter was taken as the norm, so as to make acoustic comparison with the utterances
produced by the students. Both sets of phonological and prosodic tasks are listed in
appendix I.
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Reading Comprehension
A reading comprehension task was administered to measure students’ reading
comprehension ability. Participants were asked to do a reading task with five
passages, among which, two were long passages and three were relatively short
passages. The duration of the task was limited to 50 minutes. The chosen articles
were adapted from Wang (2006). They were designed for first year senior high
school students in Taiwan with a vocabulary level of 4,000 words. The genres of the
texts are all expository. To ensure an appropriate match between a reader’s ability
and the difficulty of the testing materials, the researcher used Fry’s readability
formula to grade the readability of the reading texts. As a result, the readability of the
texts is roughly between grades six and seven. The level of proficiency of texts with
a readability of seven was a little higher than the expected participants’ current level
of English.
RESULTS
In this section, the results of the overall performance of the three measures are
presented first. The three tasks of non-word reading, word-level stress, and sentential
intonation with lower correct rates are then selected to report in detail. Finally, an
acoustic analysis of the reading aloud task specifically investigating the pause,
speech rate, and intonation is discussed.
Overall Performance
Table 1 shows the average correct rates of the three measures, phonological
awareness (PA=74.12%), prosodic sensitivity (PS=59.6%) and reading comprehension
(RC=38.16%). From the results of reading comprehension, it is evident that they are a
group of lower achievers in Hong Kong secondary school; only one third of questions
were successfully comprehended. In general, this group of participants performed better
in phonological awareness tasks than prosodic sensitivity ones.
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Among the phonological awareness tasks, rhyme detection (97.5%) was the
easiest task, followed by alliteration detection (90.63%), oral syllable segmentation
(79.17%), and non-word reading (29.12%). There seemed to be a gap between
perception and production among these learners. Despite having perceived onset,
rhyme and syllable counting, and possession well, they were not able to produce
non-words properly.
Among the prosodic sensitivity tasks, phrasal rhythm (57.99%) was the easiest
task, followed by sentence-level intonation (55.00%), and word stress (53.39%).
This group of lower achievers had fair performance among the four tasks.
Differences between production and perception were not evident, but they
performed slightly better on the reading aloud production task than the perception
tasks.
TABLE 1
Overall Performance among Phonological Awareness, Prosodic Sensitivity
and Reading Comprehension Measures
Measures Types of tasks Tasks Average
correct rates
Average
phonological
awareness
(PA)
Perception rhyme detection 97.50% 74.12%
alliteration detection 90.63%
syllable segmentation 79.17%
Production non-word reading 29.12%
prosodic
skills
(PS)
Perception word stress 53.39% 59.60%
phrasal rhythm 57.99%
sentential intonation 55.00%
Production reading aloud 72%
reading reading comprehension 38.16% 38.16%
Table 2 shows the correlations between all the tasks. The tasks that correlate
highest with reading comprehension are non-word reading (r = 0.63) and word
stress sensitivity (r = 0.54) tasks and thus they are the two best indicators for the
success of reading comprehension. Rhyme detection, alliteration detection and oral
syllable segmentation were considered too easy for these learners and failed to play
key roles in reading comprehension. Amongst all of the tasks, rhythm and syllables
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(r = 0.69), and rhythm and stress (r = 0.78) were significantly and positively
correlated. Reading aloud was significantly and positively correlated with word
stress (r = 0.72), rhythm (r = 0.62), syllable segmentation (r = 0.59) and intonation
(r = 0.41).
TABLE 2
Correlations of PA, PS and RC Measures
Rhyme Alliter-
ation
Syllables Non-
word
Word
stress
Rhythm Inton-
ation
Reading
aloud
Reading
Comp.
-0.17 -0.20 0.04 0.63** 0.54* 0.23 0.20 0.27
Rhyme 0.10 -0.07 0.33 -0.10 -0.15 0.24 0.04
Alliteration 0.27 -0.04 0.35 0.39 0.02 0.21
Syllables -0.15 0.43* 0.69** -0.11 0.59*
Non-word 0.22 0.05 -0.17 0.24
Stress 0.78** 0.25 0.72**
Rhythm 0.34 0.62**
Intonation 0.41*
* p < .05, ** p < .01
Among all the phonological tasks, the non-word reading, word-level prosodic
sensitivity task (word stress), phrasal-level prosodic sensitivity task (rhythm), and
sentential-level prosodic sensitivity task (intonation) were scored less than 60% of
correct rate. The error patterns were detailed as follows:
Non-word Reading Task
The non-word reading task examined the participants’ knowledge of English
grapheme-phoneme correspondences and ability to blend phonemes through having
them read aloud. Better performance of vowel reading was shown in Table 3, for
example, the short vowel /e/ in cresh (56% correct rate) and jelmbs (44%), /Q/ in
falp (44%), /I/ in phils (63%). These showed that the participants had basic phonics
knowledge about short vowels. However, they were weak in most long vowels or
The Roles of Phonological Knowledge in L2 Lower Achievers’ Reading Development
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diphthongs, such as /u:/ in yoofs (6%), /Î:/ in smurphs (19%), /aI/ in brive (13%);
and /«U/ in coashed (19%).
TABLE 3
Performance of Non-Words by Hong Kong Students.
Nonword Expected
vowels
Examples of
mispronounced vowels
Correct rates
for vowels
1. dulp /ʌ/ dəpsd, əʊp, deɪps, drɪps 31%
2. cresh /e/ kweɪʃ, krʌs, træs, krɪʃ 56%
3. croill /ɔɪ/ kɔ:, kɔ:lɪ, kru:, kəʊrəɪ 31%
4. brive /aɪ/ brɪv, blɑ:f, drʌf, brʊf 13%
5. ketts /e/ tɪts, keɪt, ki:s 6%
6. yoofs /u:/ jɑ:f, jəʊs, jɒfs 6%
7. thoiled /ɔɪ/ θɒd, fɔ:t, fləʊd, θrɒld 25%
8. coashed /əʊ/ kɒst, kɔɪst, kreʃd, krɔsd 19%
9. triffth /ɪ/ tʃwʌvɪ, tɑ:vɪd, tʃɑɪsfʌns 25%
10. jelmbs /e/ ʤɑ:v, ʤɜ:nɪfə, ʤə:məs 44%
11. phils /ɪ/ fɑ:v. fəʊləʊs, fɔ:nləs 63%
12. fleaved /i:/ fɑ:nd, frɒfd, faɪvi:, flæd 25%
13. smurphs /ɜ:/ sʌmprɪs, smæʃs, ʃnʌpsfɪ, sɜ:fskænsɪs 19%
14. falp /æ/ feɪp, frʌlp, frʌlp 44%
15. chude /u:/ tʃʌd, tʃweɪd, tʃ i:t, kəʊtʃd 31%
Average 29%
Word-level Prosodic Sensitivity Task (word stress)
The word-level prosodic sensitivity task was designed to detect participants’
sensitivity to word stress. The average correct rate of stress assignment was around
50%, which indicated that Hong Kong students were fairly familiar with the
concept of word stress. Two of the most problematic words were today (6.25%
correct rate) and afternoon (25%), assigning the stress on the first syllable. In
another two examples, welcome (31.25%) and tomorrow (31.25%), most of the
participants assigned the stress to oO and ooO, which aligned with our general
impression on Hong Kong students’ pronunciation habit of stressing the word on
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the final syllable. Table 4 shows the summary of the performance and examples of
mispronounced stress patterns.
TABLE 4
Report of Word-Level Prosodic Sensitivity Task (Stress) of Hong Kong
Students.
Items Expected word
stress patterns
Examples of
mispronounced stress
Correct rates
for word stress
Today oO Oo 6.25%
Afternoon ooO oOo, Ooo, Oo 25.00%
Welcome Oo oO 31.25%
Tomorrow oOo ooO 31.25%
Company Ooo ooO, oOo 31.25%
Stupid Oo oOo, oO, ooO 37.50%
Businessman Ooo ooOo, Oooo 43.75%
Rapturously Oooo oOo, Ooo, ooOo 43.75%
Excellent Ooo oOo, ooO, ooOo 43.75%
Journalist Ooo oOo, ooOo, ooO, Oooo 50.00%
Economics ooOo Oooo, Ooo 50.00%
Introduce ooO Ooo, oOo, Oooo 56.25%
Party Oo oO, ooOo 56.25%
Tonelessly Ooo oOo, Oooo, oO 56.25%
Bedroom Oo Ooo, ooO, oO 56.25%
Musician oOo ooO, Ooo, Oooo, ooOo 62.50%
Exactly oOo ooO, Ooo, Oooo 62.50%
Position oOo ooO, oO, Ooo 68.75%
Pretend oO Oo, Ooo, oOo 68.75%
o'clock oO Oo, ooO, Ooo 68.75%
Electrician ooOo Oooo, oOo 75.00%
Holiday Ooo oOo 81.25%
Fifteen oO Oo 81.25%
Dinner Oo oO 93.75%
Average 53.39%
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Phrasal-Level Prosodic Sensitivity Task (Rhythm)
The phrasal-level prosodic sensitivity task was designed to detect participants’
sensitivity to rhythm. The average correct rate of stress assignment was slightly
higher than that of word stress, which indicated that Hong Kong students were also
moderately familiar with the concept of phrasal or short sentential stress.
Two of the most problematic items were phrasal verbs, carry on and hurry up
(12.5% correct rate). The stress pattern (OoO) requires the stresses to be assigned
on the first syllable of carry and hurry, as well as the particles, on and up,
respectively. Most of the participants were not aware of the unstressed syllables,
and considered one syllable bears one stress, which reflects the negative transfer of
their first language: Chinese language is said to be syllable-timed. There is no
strong pattern of stress in Chinese; syllables maintain their length, and vowels
maintain their quality. This can also explain why they performed best the two items:
Take care! and Don’t move! (OO) Both cases need the stresses on each
mono-syllabic word.
In another two problematic examples, Where’s the car? and what’s the time (37.
5%), the expected rhythm pattern is OoO. The participants did not assign the stress
to Wh-H question words, where and what. Although they might have possessed
general rules of phrasal/sentential stress: content words tend to be stressed, while
function words tend not to be stressed, more practice is needed to consolidate their
knowledge. Table 5 shows the summary of the expected words stress patterns and
correct rates for the word stress.
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TABLE 5
Report of Phrasal-Level Prosodic Sensitivity Task (Rhythm) of Hong Kong
Students
Items Expected
word stress
patterns
Correct
rates for
word stress
Items Expected
word stress
patterns
Correct
rates for
word
stress
Carry on! OoO 12.50% The bus was late oOoO 68.75%
Hurry up! OoO 12.50% Does he drive? ooO 75.00%
The water’s
cold.
oOoO
18.75% Come and look.OoO
75.00%
Close the
windows. OoOo
25.00%
What did she
say?
OoOo
81.25%
Where’s the
car?
OoO
37.50% It’s cold and wet.
oOoO
81.25%
What’s the
time?
OoO
37.50% Keep calm!
OO
81.25%
Phone and tell
me.
OoOo
43.75% Is it fun?
ooO
87.50%
Were you cold? ooO 56.25% Take care! OO 87.50%
What do you
want?
OooO
68.75% Don’t move! OO
93.75%
Average 57.99 %
Sentential-level Prosodic Sensitivity Task (Intonation)
This task was constructed to test the participants’ ability to distinguish between
compound nouns and noun phrases, affective prosodic cues, interactive cues and
prominent cues. Table 6 shows that among these ten items, participants performed
the worst in compound nouns in Question 2, noun phrases in Question 3 and
affective prosodic cues in Question 6, as shown below.
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TABLE 6
Performance of Sentential-Level Prosodic Sensitivity Task.
Question Correct Rate Examples of misperceived or misinterpreted intonation
1 75% Q2. (Background voice) a. Anna-Belle, Sally, and I are going to a movie tomorrow. (Written on the answer sheet.) How many people are going to a movie tomorrow? Two Three√ Four
2 31%
3 19%
4 44% Q3. (Background voice) a. I want a hamburger and TEA. (Written on the answer sheet.) What do you think “a” is not receiving? Hamburger Tea √
5 44%
6 31%
7 81% Q6. (Background voice) a. I took a vacation on a cruise ship for a month. b. THAT’s the life. (Written on the answer sheet.) What does “b” feel about “a’s” vacation? Appreciation. (I like your vacation.) √ Dislike. (I don’t like it.) Sympathy. (I agree with you.)
8 63%
9 69%
10 75%
Participants made more inappropriate interpretations on compound nouns in
Question 2 (31%), noun phrases in Question 3 (19%) and affective prosodic cues in
Question 6 (31%). They were not sensitive to the pause boundaries between the
words. The intonation showing the speaker’s attitude (e.g., appreciation, dislike, or
sympathy) was also perceived less.
In the following section, an acoustic analysis was conducted to illustrate the
participants’ production of speed, pause and intonation in the reading aloud task.
Acoustic Analysis (Reading Aloud)
For the reading aloud assessment criteria, we looked at whether the speakers were
confident about the pronunciation of words, sentence stress and intonation patterns
and if their reading of the text was clear and communication of meaning was
effective. We also looked at whether the speed of delivery and pausing were
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appropriate, thereby facilitating audience attention and understanding. The general
impression scores were then given.
Acoustic measurements were also conducted to compare and calculate the speed,
pausing and intonation in more detail. The performance of a total of 16 participants
was recorded and compared with that of a native speaker of English. Take for
example the sentence in the passage: “I’ll be in my bedroom, making no noise and
pretending I’m not there,” said Harry tonelessly. Table 7 shows that the speed of
the 16 ESL participants (12.608s) was, on average, twice as fast as that of the NS
(6.030s). The pause locations and durations for the NS were: “I’ll be in my
bedroom (0.448s), making no noise (0.410s) and pretending I’m not there
(0.517s),” said Harry tonelessly. On the other hand, those of the 16 participants, on
average, were: “I’ll be in my bedroom (0.440s), making no noise (0.266s) and
pretending I’m not there (0.713s),” said Harry tonelessly. If the individual speech
rates are taken into account, it was found that HK learners (three pauses on average,
0.037s, 0.023s, and 0.056s, respectively) intended to pause for half the time of the
native English speaker (three pauses on average, 0.074s, 0.068s, and 0.086s,
respectively). Again, we found the Hong Kong participants were not very aware of
the appropriate use of pauses, and thus this affected the formation of the natural
rhythm that native speakers had between the phrasal boundaries.
The intonation contour of NS is “I’ll be in my bedroom (→↘), making no noise
(→→) and pretending I’m not there, (→↘)” said Harry tonelessly (→→). Two
level tones were used to express Harry’s feeling about his indifference to the party
to be held by his uncle and aunt. However, nine out of these 16 participants used
only one level tone, and four did not even use any level tone to express the
disinterest.
The Roles of Phonological Knowledge in L2 Lower Achievers’ Reading Development
18
TABLE 7
Comparison Between the NS and 16 Hong Kong Participants of:
“I’ll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I’m not there,” said
Harry tonelessly.
Speed
(sec)
Pause (sec) Pause/Speed Intonation Level
Tones P1 P2 P3 P1 P2 P3
S1 16.019 0.641 0.086 0.620 0.040 0.005 0.039 →(bedroom),
→→(noise),
→↘(there),
→↘(tonelessly)
1
S2 16.130 0.515 0.616 0.579 0.032 0.038 0.036 →↘(bedroom),
→↗(noise),
→↘(there),
→↘(tonelessly)
0
S3 24.070 0.396 0.182 1.662 0.016 0.007 0.069 →↗(bedroom),
→↗(noise),
→↘(there),
→↗(tonelessly)
1
S4 16.310 0.514 0.286 1.317 0.031 0.018 0.080 →→(bedroom),
→→(noise),
→↘(there),
→↘(tonelessly)
2
S5 18.458 0.258 0.100 0.939 0.014 0.005 0.050 →↘(bedroom),
→→(noise),
→↘(there),
→↘(tonelessly)
1
S6 9.077 0.060 0.120 0.540 0.007 0.013 0.059 →↘(bedroom),
→→(noise),
→↘(there),
→↘(tonelessly)
1
S7 10.116 0.194 0.080 0.980 0.019 0.008 0.097 →↘(bedroom),
→↘(noise),
→↘(there),
→↘(tonelessly)
0
S8 11.781 0.520 0.050 0.532 0.044 0.004 0.045 →↘(bedroom),
→→(noise),
→↘(there),
→↘(tonelessly)
2
S9 13.948 0.651 0.543 0.473 0.047 0.039 0.034 →↘(bedroom),
→→(noise),
1
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19
→↘(there),
→↘(tonelessly)
S10 8.628 0.561 0.049 0.509 0.065 0.006 0.059 →↘(bedroom),
→→(noise),
→↘(there),
→↘(tonelessly)
1
S11 8.943 0.296 0.771 0.867 0.033 0.086 0.097 →→(bedroom),
→→(noise),
→↘(there),
→↘(tonelessly)
2
S12 10.412 0.469 0.711 0.323 0.045 0.068 0.031 →↘(bedroom),
→↘(noise),
→↘(there),
→↘(tonelessly)
0
S13 9.294 0.526 0.134 0.804 0.057 0.014 0.087 →↘(bedroom),
→→(noise),
→↘(there),
→↘(tonelessly)
1
S14 12.590 0.720 0.252 0.976 0.057 0.020 0.078 →↘(bedroom),
→→(noise),
→↘(there),
→↘(tonelessly)
1
S15 8.143 0.355 0.100 0.119 0.044 0.012 0.015 →↘(bedroom),
→→(noise),
→↘(there),
→↘(tonelessly)
1
S16 7.806 0.360 0.168 0.174 0.046 0.022 0.022 →↘(bedroom),
→↘(noise),
→↘(there),
→↘(tonelessly)
0
Av. 12.608 0.440 0.266 0.713 0.037 0.023 0.056
NS 6.030 0.448 0.410 0.517 0.074 0.068 0.086 →↘(bedroom),
→→(noise),
→↘(there),
→→(tonelessly)
2
Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the utterances produced by the native English speaker
and one Hong Kong participant. According to the English speaker’s data, the major
pauses for the sentence occurred at clause or phrase boundaries. The major pauses
The Roles of Phonological Knowledge in L2 Lower Achievers’ Reading Development
20
(0.448s, 0.410s, 0.517s) in Figure 1 are those between bedroom and making;
between noise and and; between there and said. The intonation contours are
→↘(bedroom), →→(noise), →↘(there), →→(tonelessly). The two-level tone
expressed boredom and no interest. The pauses occurred at clause or phrase
boundaries. Look at Figure 2. The three major pauses are located at the same places
as those in the native speaker’s, but the duration of the pause was much shorter than
that of the native speaker (0.360s, 0.168s, and 0.174s). The intonation contours are
→↘(bedroom), →↘(noise), →↘(there), →↘(tonelessly). The contours are
relatively fluctuated and repetitive falling tones, even in the last intonation phrase –
said Harry tonelessly. It could be inferred that the participants did not fully process
the meaning of the text and thus failed to read aloud with meaning. Instead of using
level tones, the unmarked falling patterns in the sentence type of statement
reoccurred.
FIGURE 1
“I’ll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I’m not there,” said
Harry tonelessly. – Produced by a Native English Speaker
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FIGURE 2
“I’ll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I’m not there,” said
Harry tonelessly. – Produced by a Hong Kong (S16) Speaker
DISCUSSION
The importance of phonological awareness to reading ability has been well
explored, but the potential role of prosody in reading development has received little
research attention. This paper investigated the role of prosodic skills at the word-,
phrase- and sentence-level in reading development of learners from Hong Kong,
and clarified the relationship among their prosodic skills, phonological awareness
and reading development.
The results showed that the correct rate of reading comprehension is 38.16%. The
tasks that correlate highest with reading comprehension are non-word reading and
word stress sensitivity tasks and thus they are the two best indicators for the success
of reading comprehension. Rhyme detection, alliteration detection and oral syllable
segmentation were considered too easy for these teenagers and failed to play key
roles in reading comprehension. The tasks that correlate highest with reading aloud
The Roles of Phonological Knowledge in L2 Lower Achievers’ Reading Development
22
are word-level (word stress) and phrase-level sensitivity tasks (rhythm) and thus
they are the two best indicators for the success of reading aloud. Sentence-level
sensitivity, referring to the perception of intonation, was moderately correlated to
reading aloud. It seems there is an asymmetry between perception and production to
some extent for this group of low achievers. Amongst all of the tasks, phrasal rhythm
and word stress (r = 0.78), reading aloud and word stress (r = 0.72), and phrasal
rhythm and syllable segmentation (r = 0.69) were significantly and positively
correlated. The relationship between prosodic sensitivity and reading has been
demonstrated in this study and has echoed those of the recent studies (e.g. Clin,
Wade-Woolley, & Heggie, 2009; Holliman, Wood, & Sheehy, 2010a, 2010b, 2012;
Wood 2006).
Two major indicators for reading comprehension are non-word reading in the
phonological awareness measure, and word stress sensitively in the prosodic skill
measure. In the phonological awareness measure, it was found that the participants
were not able to produce the non-words appropriately, while they had very high
scores in the three perception tasks. The participants’ performances in the tasks
indicate that upon decoding unfamiliar words, some basic phonological rules, such
as the sounds of diphthongs, and the influence of silent –e should be introduced to
ESL learners, particularly to lower achievers. In fact, a couple of participants with
higher correct rates on the tasks expressed their successful use of the analogy
strategy while reading non-words and decoding unfamiliar word stress. They tended
to segment a stimulus into onset and rime. The findings enhanced our belief that
providing awareness raising training is not sufficient for ESL learners to read out the
unfamiliar words properly.
Compared with the phonological measure, the prosodic skills were performed in a
more consistent pattern among word stress, phrasal rhythm, sentential intonation and
reading aloud tasks (correct percentage ranged between 53.39% and 72%). However,
under this measure, only word stress sensitivity has a stronger correlation (r = 0.54)
with reading comprehension. These findings are contradictory to those reported by
Katzir et al. (2006) that there is a strong correlation between a reader’s fluency and
reading comprehension. As Ashby (2006) mentioned, skilled readers process
prosodic information during silent reading. Unskilled readers, like the ESL lower
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23
achievers in this study, failed to integrate appropriate top-down reading skills.
Although they seemed to have performed fairly in reading aloud, it did not
necessarily mean they had fully processed the meaning of the text. This
phenomenon may not be found in an L1 acquisition context, but it may be very
possible in an L2 context and especially for ESL lower achievers.
Among the tasks in the prosodic measure, the participants had basic
understanding of prosodic information. For example, pauses should be located in the
phrasal or sentential boundaries. Falling tone should be used in the statement and
rising tones in the question. Yet, some of the pitch changes and pauses are dependent
on the speakers’ attitudes and choices. This implies that these ESL students were
within a developmental stage of acquisition and needed more natural input with
explicit explanations to enable them to read aloud with meaning and achieve
successful communication. If ESL learners can notice that English native speakers
try to say certain words with a higher pitch, representing highlights and turning
points in their message, then they would listen for those words, pay more attention to
them and interpret the underlying meaning effectively, if any. Only if the learners
realise the importance of perception and production of phonological knowledge on
reading development can they have a full and perfect communication, not only with
native English speakers, but also with non-native English speakers.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
This paper has provided evidence showing that non-word reading and word stress
sensitivity tasks are important for reading comprehension. Understanding such
phonological and prosodic factors that weigh most heavily on reading development
has helped ESL teachers establish a hierarchy of priorities for teaching
pronunciation to second or foreign language learners.
In terms of teaching implications, for nonword reading, some teachers have
expressed skepticism regarding the practice of instructing ESL low achievers to
decode nonsense words in class. In fact, they are spelled in predictable ways. For
example, the nonword, dulps, used in this study, makes no sense. Nevertheless,
The Roles of Phonological Knowledge in L2 Lower Achievers’ Reading Development
24
according to the spelling pattern of dulps, it is predictable that its five letters should
be pronounced in the same way they are voiced in five authentic words: the d in
dog, the u in bus, the l in snail, the p in dip and the s in cups. The advantage of
having ESL learners decode nonwords is that it provides teachers a useful means to
determine if these learners can apply phonics rules to read real words. When low
achievers decode nonwords they can only use letters as cues to their recognition, no
meaning is involved in this guessing game. That is, it is no more difficult for ESL
low achievers to decode the nonword, dulps, in isolation, than in a sentence context
(e.g., The dulps fly high). Therefore, it is suggested that instructing how to decode
nonsense words be an effective strategy for ESL low achievers to learn to read and
spell with phonics.
Additionally, ESL teachers should take initiatives to give production training of
analogy strategy or explicit instruction on the rules of English word stress, such as
syllable weight, affixation and lexical category, so as to facilitate learners’
phonological processing abilities. For many Chinese secondary school learners,
simply hearing which elements in a word or sentence receive stress may be difficult
initially. ESL teachers could provide them with clear guidelines concerning which
words (i.e., function or content words) in a sentence tend to receive stress. This will
help them begin to see parallels between word and sentence stress in English.
Nursery rhymes, limericks and jazz chants can provide an effective initial
listen-and-repeat practice activity for such students. With the different levels of
learners, we may use listening discrimination, controlled practice, guided practice
and communicative practice.
For specific techniques in teaching word stress to students, as suggested in
Celce-Murcia, Brinton and Goodwin (2010), teacher has to help clarify
1. how native speakers highlight a stressed syllable (length, volume, pitch);
2. how they produce unstressed syllables (often with vowel reduction);
3. what the three main levels of stress are (strongly stressed, lightly stressed,
unstressed).
Stannard’s work (1965), a classic and useful guide, would help teachers to present
the basic principles of stress, rhythm and intonation easily and it contains a graded
set of exercises for all stages of learning English. Hancock (2003, p52) further
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25
illustrates the idea of word stress by using music notes and circles of different sizes
to help students understand better the concept.
Explicit teaching of prosodic features such as pausing/phrasing, intonation, and
pace, for ESL lower achievers, would develop prosodic sensitivity in text reading.
The development of prosodic sensitivity in oral language is dependent on rhythm,
stress and pausing to chunk the speech stream into syntactic units, all of which are
generally modeled by ESL school teachers in the classroom. Prosodic cueing
information in text reading is limited; hence the need for explicit instruction,
modeling and feedback utilizing a strategy that ultimately supports independent,
prosodic reading. Accordingly, a ‘P.I.P.P’ (Phrasing. Intonation. Punctuation. Pace)
teachings strategy designed by Catholic Education Office Melbourne is suggested
for ESL low achievers. The ‘P.I.P.P’ is a cueing device for prosodic reading,
together with three self-management strategies to encourage meta-cognitive
learning. The self-management strategies are: listen to learners’ own voice to see if
it sounds like a storyteller’s voice; reread to restore storytelling voice; and use
self-talk to remind learner self / set personal goals. The explicit teaching of prosodic
features can be effectively included in the reading instruction to develop reading
fluency.
Several limitations are found in this study. Since we did not manipulate
participants’ language levels, one level of language proficiency (i.e., lower
achievers) may not be able to capture the whole picture of the effect of
phonological knowledge on reading development. The interactions among reading
development, prosodic skills and language proficiency are worthy of further
investigation. Second, three tasks in the phonological measure were found to be too
easy for the participants and may not be able to truly reflect their abilities. As most
of the phonological awareness tasks in previous studies were mainly for L1 children,
how to design or choose appropriate tasks of perception and production for
measuring ESL adult learners should be further considered. Finally, expanding the
study to include a larger number of participants with diverse types of learners could
increase the validity of the research results.
The Roles of Phonological Knowledge in L2 Lower Achievers’ Reading Development
26
THE AUTHOR
Chen, Hsueh Chu, Rebecca, is an Assistant Professor of linguistics and modern
language studies at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Her chief areas of interest
are English as a Second Language and experimental phonetics. She is currently
carrying out research examining intelligibility in the speech of second language
learners. She is also interested in cross-linguistic factors influencing the acquisition
of vowels, rhythm, the role of speech rate in intelligibility, and second-dialect
learning.
Email: [email protected]
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APPENDIX
A. Phonological Awareness Tasks (Perception)
I. Rhyme detection
Please cross out the word that does not rhyme with the others. An example has done
for you. Each question will be read twice.
e.g. a. cat b. ant c. bat answer: b
1 a. bake b. lake c. bike answer:__________
2 a. cup b. mop c. top answer:__________
3 a. clock b. block c. disk answer:__________
4 a. can b. man c. lam answer:__________
5 a. let b. pen c. ten answer:__________
6 a. box b. pot c. fox answer:__________
7 a. goat b. coat c. mast answer:__________
8 a. pop b. hot c. hop answer:__________
9 a. king b. wing c. swim answer:__________
10 a. wide b. hide c. lime answer:__________
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II. Alliteration detection
Please cross out the word that does not have the same beginning sound. An example
has done for you. Each question will be read twice.
e.g. a. fat b. taxi c. fire answer: b
1 a. glue b. clown c. glass answer:__________
2 a. dress b. drawer c. train answer:__________
3 a. black b. blog c. clock answer:__________
4 a. funny b. find c. pink answer:__________
5 a. milk b. mice c. nice answer:__________
6 a. mop b. sun c. man answer:__________
7 a. lake b. nice c. late answer:__________
8 a. son b. fish c. sock answer:__________
9 a. pig b. leaf c. log answer:__________
10 a. dog b. ten c. dish answer:__________
The Roles of Phonological Knowledge in L2 Lower Achievers’ Reading Development
30
III. Oral Segmentation-syllables
Please indicate the number of syllables in each word.
Number of syllables
1. flow
2. flower
3. renew
4. picture
5. keyboard
6. select
7. await
8. jealous
9. memory
10. copybook
11. assimilation
12. specialize
13. vocabulary
14. internationalism
15. representative
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Phonological Awareness Task (production)
IV. Non-Word Reading
Please read the following words in sixty seconds.
dulps yoofs phils
cresh thoiled fleaved
croill coashed smurphs
brive triffth falp
ketts jelmbs chude
B. Prosodic Sensitivity Tasks (Perception)
I. Word-level Prosodic Sensitivity Task
Put the following words, in full, in the column which shows the correct stress
pattern. today tomorrow holiday electrician journalist musician businessman
economics fifteen rapturously stupid excellent company party
dinner tonelessly position pretend bedroom exactly introduce
fifteen welcome o'clock
Oo oO Ooo oOo ooO Oooo ooOo
II. Phrasal and Sentence-level Prosodic Sensitivity Task
Listen to the following sentences and phrases and put them in the correct column.
A. The water’s cold.
D. What do you want?
G. What did she say?
J. Where’s the car?
M. Don’t move!
P. Does he drive?
S. Take care!
B. Come and look.
E. The bus was late.
H. Phone and tell me.
K. It’s cold and wet.
N. Carry on!
Q. Were you cold?
T. Keep calm!
C. Close the windows.
F. Is it fun?
I. Nice to see you.
L. What’s the time?
O. Hurry up!
R. Give me a call.
The Roles of Phonological Knowledge in L2 Lower Achievers’ Reading Development
32
OooO oOoO OoO OoOo OO ooO
III. Sentence-level Prosodic Sensitivity Task (perception in intonation)
Listen to the sentence or the dialogue and circle the correct expression conveyed.
Example:
There are two people talking about what to eat tonight.
a. I want dumplings.
b. Dumplings
What do you think “b” ‘s intention is?
Affirming (Yes, dumplings.)
Questioning (What? Say it again.)
1. How many items does “a” want?
A. One
B. Two
C. Three
2. How many people are going to a movie tomorrow?
A. Two
B. Three
C. Four
3. What do you think “a” is not receiving?
A. Hamburger
B. Tea
C. Both
4. What does “b” feel about having hot pot for dinner?
A. Appreciation. (Yes, I like it.)
B. Dislike. (No, I don’t like it.)
C. Sympathy. (I agree with you.)
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5.What does “b” feel about John’s going to the concert?
A. Appreciation. (Yes, I llike it.)
B. Dislike. (No, I don’t like it.)
C. Sympathy. (I agree with you.)
6. What does “b” feel about a’s vacation?
A. Appreciation. (I like your vacation.)
B. Dislike. (I don’t like it.)
C. Sympathy. (I agree with you.)
7. What does “b” feel about a’s situation?
A. Appreciation. (I like what happened to you.)
B. Dislike. (I don’t like it.)
C. Sympathy. (I know how you feel.)
8. What do you think “b” is stressing?
A. The boy is cute.
B. The boy is a new comer.
C. The boy is who “b” is talking about.
9. How does “b” think about a’s behavior?
A. Appreciation. (I like what you did.)
B. Dislike. (I don’t like it.)
C. Sympathy. (I know how you feel.)
10. How does “b” think about the traffic time?
A. Appreciation. (It’s good, we can go.)
B. Surprising. (It’s too long.)
C. Denial. (I don’t go.)
The Roles of Phonological Knowledge in L2 Lower Achievers’ Reading Development
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Prosodic Sensitivity Task (production)
IV. Textual-level Prosodic Sensitivity (production in pause, speed and intonation)
Read aloud the following passage.
Harry went back to his toast. Of course, he thought bitterly, Uncle Vernon was
talking about the stupid dinner party. He'd been talking of nothing else for two
weeks. Some rich builder and his wife were coming to dinner and Uncle Vernon
was hoping to get a huge order from him.
"I think we should run through the schedule one more time," said Uncle Vernon.
"We should all be in position at eight o'clock. Penny, you will be -?"
"In the lounge," said Aunt Penny promptly, "waiting to welcome them graciously to
our home."
"Good, good. And Mike?"
"I'll be waiting to open the door." Mike put on a foul, simpering smile. "May I take
your coats, Mr. and Mrs. Mason?"
"They'll love him!" cried Aunt Penny rapturously.
"Excellent, Mike," said Uncle Vernon. Then he rounded on Harry. "And you?"
"I'll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I'm not there," said Harry
tonelessly.
"Exactly," said Uncle Vernon nastily. "I will lead them into the lounge, introduce
you, Penny, and pour them drinks at eight- fifteen "
(Revised version of extraction from Harry Potter and Chamber Secret)