Blog2-week4 Reflection on "Podcasting: An effective tool for honing language students’ Pronunciation"

When I began to read an article, I expected that a study about pronunciation learning must show the improvement of second language (L2) learners' pronunciation because I thought that L2 learner could learn phonics easily if they trained it. However, the result was different from my anticipation. As the author mentioned, I also think that 16 weeks is not a sufficient amount of time to make gains in pronunciation, especially in an intermediate language course. Also, Learners' attitudes towards pronunciation show no significant differences in the pre- and post-tests. This was because intermediate courses encouraged students to practice pronunciation independently outside of class as part of the podcasting project. I disappointed this result because I wanted to believe that L2 learner can overcome a target language pronunciation by training. However, there are some suggestions in this article, so we can revise the method and can improve L2 learners' pronunciation.

In the class discussion, my partner answered the question, which is pronunciation important or not, and she said that it was depend on how learner could speak L2 comprehensible. If a listener can understand what a speaker (L2 learner) say, pronunciation is not important for him. However, if a listener can't catch any words from a speaker, L2 learner need to practice pronunciation. In my case, for example, when I order something at restaurant or starbucks in Hawaii, a clerk often asks me to say again. Since English is my L2, I can't pronounce it perfectly. Although a clerk understands what I say in the end, I'm really ashamed about that. Maybe I need to learn pronunciation more. That's why, personally, pronunciation is important for me.

Podcasting may be the place where people share their idea through internet, I mean, not just for specific group but also public. Indeed, some people put their own idea on like youtube, but podcasting is easier because people don't need to make some picture and video. Also, since listener can listen to speaker's real voice, it may more impress listener than written text.

I'm really interested in Podcasting because there are still a lot of potential language learnings. I used Podcasting a lot for language learning, and it was very helpful. I hope I can use Podcasting in various ways.