Читать книгу Second Language Pronunciation - Группа авторов - Страница 14

Moving beyond Readers Theater, Galante and Thomson (2017) conducted an experiment to determine whether the inclusion of drama in ESL classrooms would improve learners’ comprehensibility, fluency, and accentedness. Although drama can include scripted elements, it also extends to improvisational roleplays. The authors worked with four low intermediate classes, two of which comprised a Comparison group who followed a standard communicative program incorporating pair and group work but no drama activities. The experimental classes undertook a wide range of drama activities and ultimately wrote and performed their own play at the end of term.

Pre- and post-intervention listening tests were designed for 30 listeners, who rated speech samples for fluency, comprehensibility, and accentedness. The Drama group exhibited significant improvement in fluency ratings, but no changes were noted in the Comparison group. Both groups improved in comprehensibility over time, although it appears as though the Drama group made slightly more gains. As with many other pronunciation studies, no difference in accent ratings was noted over time.