The effects of a hybrid flexible ESL classroom on the perception and production of segmental features of pronunciation

Abstract

Hybrid flexible classrooms, when employed deliberately, promise the opportunity to increase student equitable access to educational materials. This study examined changes in segmental perception and production among ESL students enrolled in a hybrid flexible course delivered across two academic terms. A communicative pronunciation curriculum designed in reference to Celce-Murcia et al. (2010) was employed. During the Fall A term, students on average improved in their perception of the /ð/ phoneme but regressed in their perception of the /θ/, /i/, /ɪ/, /u/, and /ʊ/ phonemes. During the Fall B term, students on average improved in their perception of the /ð/, /θ/, /i/, and /ɪ/ phonemes but regressed in their perception of the /u/ and /ʊ/ phonemes. Regarding isolated and sentence embedded production, Fall A students improved with /i/, maintained accuracy with /ð/ and /θ/, and regressed with /ɪ/, /u/, and /ʊ/. Fall B students improved in their isolated production of /ʊ/, maintained /ð/, and regressed with /θ/, /i/, /ɪ/, and /u/. Fall B students also improved in their sentence embedded production of /i/, /ɪ/, and /u/, maintained with /θ/, and regressed with /ð/ and /ʊ/. Also, several data sets initially planned for analysis were deemed unusable, and one third of all students originally involved in the study ultimately attritted, possibly as a result of an inability to build community while engaging with the class in the online modality. These results suggest that phoneme specific instruction varies across class modalities. Future research should be designed with greater feasibility than was present in the current study and should more deliberately include comparison groups to increase the generalizability of claims of the efficacy of the hybrid flexible format for pronunciation instruction.