‘Explicit vs. Implicit Pronunciation Teaching to Greek children: the case of the acquisition of English vowels’

Abstract

The paper discusses the effectiveness of pronunciation teaching of English to Greek state school students aged 16 years old. More specifically, it examines the production of English vowels by Greek learners of English in an English Foreign Language (EFL) context. Two different teaching methods were implemented, which resulted in having two different experimental groups; an explicit vs. an implicit one. The former received explicit teaching of English pronunciation through a variety of activities while the latter was taught implicitly via the use of recasts. The results showed that Greek students of both experimental groups experienced difficulties in producing the target vowels. As regards vowel quantity (duration), it was found that the implicit and control groups produced some target vowel values which were consistent with those of native speakers.

Keywords: explicit – implicit pronunciation teaching, vowel production, vowel duration, second language learning